The Fugitive Kind, 1960
Wild at Heart, 1989
The fact that Cage’s performance in Wild at Heart strongly suggests either Brando doing an Elvis imitation or vice versa is not an accident, nor is the fact that both Wild at Heart and The Fugitive Kind use fire as a key image, nor is the fact that Sailor’s beloved snakeskin jacket—“a symbol of my belief in freedom and individual choice”—is just like the snakeskin jacket Brando wore in The Fugitive Kind. The Fugitive Kind happens to be the film version of Tennessee Williams’ little-known Orpheus Descending, a play which in 1960, enjoying a new vogue in the wake of Lumet’s film adaptation, ran Off-Broadway in NYC and featured Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd, Laura Dern’s parents, who met and married while starring in this play.
The extent to which David Lynch could expect a regular civilian viewer of Wild at Heart to know about any of these textual and organic connections is: 0; the extent to which he cares whether anybody apparently got it or not is apparently: also 0.
—David Foster Wallace, “David Lynch Keeps His Head,” A Supposedly Funny Thing I’ll Never Do Again, 1997
The funny thing is, Wallace, in conversation, actually rated himself pretty low on the cinema/performing arts erudition scale…even while pulling out and putting together such ingenious tidbits. I remember discussing this passage with him and disagreeing—just a tiny bit!—with him about the extent of the deliberateness of what ended up a multi-textual reference in the film…mainly on the grounds that Lynch’s whole process wasn’t/isn’t post-modern like that. Well, how then to deal with the overt Wizard of Oz references in Wild, he countered. Well, yeah. Just askin’…
A new, beautiful, supplement-rich DVD of Kind is coming out next week from Criterion, and it deserves your attention. I’ll be writing more on it when I can; the next few days are gonna be jam-packed with stuff that’s gonna limit my blog output.
San Franciscans can see Barry Gifford introduce the X‑rated directors cut April 28th at 7pm at the Balboa Theatre, coinciding with the publication of a collection of the Sailor and Lulu novels.
http://www.citylights.com/info/?fa=event&event_id=969
Lula, derr.
Cool, I like all the movies of Nicolas Cage, Most of his films have great stories and lessons to be learned from.
I finally started watching TWIN PEAKS for the first time, and the WEST SIDE STORY references jumped out at me from the very first episodes (from the opening credits, actually). On the one hand, I thought that Lynch probably cares that people recognize the actors who played Riff and Tony, and could use that knowledge while viewing the over-the-top teen delinquency of Bobby’s character. On the other hand, it makes just as much sense if you don’t get the references. The eternal 1950s of Lynch’s dream world would probably work on the viewer, whether or not that viewer gets the specific cultural references.
Hmm. I think “Online Consultation” might have post of the day material there.
Anyone think of great lessons to be learned from all the movies of Nicholas Cage?
One lesson I learned from THE WICKER MAN was to always punch women in the face.
… What?
Well, personally, I recently learned that it’s important to shoot people a couple of extra times for good measure, just in case their soul is still dancing.
Of course, if Nicolas Cage had learned some of the important lessons from his films, Ghost Rider 2 wouldn’t be in development. Oh well.
What I’ve learned is to never give up, and to always make room in your heart for love.
I’ve learned to put the bunny back in the basket, and a surprising amount of factoids about American history.
“The Fugitive Kind” is full of unintentional giggles. Looking forward to it.
One Lumet stage to screen adaptation I’d be curious to see is his “A View from the Bridge.” If plans for a new movie adaptation are carried through maybe they’ll re-release it on DVD.
Funny to see that reference, which I had forgotten was part of that wonderful essay…gosh, to have been a fly on the wall in that conversation. On the one hand, I think you’re right, and Wallace, if I remember correctly, comes around to sort of a similar position re. the postmodern intentionality of Lynch. One could look at the Wizard of Oz material as merely another source of inspiration for Lynch – it is, objectively speaking, classifiable as Po-mo, but I think Lynch finally isn’t interested in such a quality beyond the ineffable, dreamlike experience it produces. He’s always been a tremendously intuitive artist; I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if he wasn’t even aware of the resonance involving the elder Derns. This is, after all, the man who once professed not to know what Baywatch was. There’s always the possibility that his pop-cultural naïveté is a put-on, but I doubt it.
One of the signal joys and fascinations of that essay is seeing an intensely cerebral, analytical and self-aware artist attempt to come to terms with the work of an artist who is intuitive, surrealistic, almost mystical in his methods. I always thought I picked up more than a smidgen of envy on Wallace’s part in the way Lynch seems able to let it all hang out and not give a damn. I know it’s made me envious.
Not sure if anyone’s seen this, but it’s pretty cool for us diehard Wallace fans, though nearly impossible to decipher the handwriting:
http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/press/releases/2010/dfw/books/