We are doing a multi-part tribute to David Lynch, who died January 15 at 78. Our biggest debt to him, though, will always be non-cinematic: his alt-weekly comic strip The Angriest Dog in the World, from the 1980s. Here is Part 1.
WILD AT HEART (1990) (B+) - When you take the David Lynch multiverse and inject into it Nicolas Cage, well, it's off to the races.
Cage and Laura Dern are off the wall but also sexually dynamic together in this story of a young couple on the run from goons hired by her mother to kill him. Cage's Sailor does time at the beginning of the movie for pummeling to death a would-be assailant hired by the mother of Lula (Dern), and upon his release, they go on the lam. Lynch plays with the myth of mid-century America, with nods to Elvis Presley (whom Sailor mimics throughout with his aphoristic pronouncements) and "The Wizard of Oz." Fire also plays a significant symbolic role, a common through line in Lynch's oeuvre.
In the five years since her role as a naif in "Blue Velvet," Dern has come into her own as a sexual being, and she isn't shy during her romps with Cage. In one memorable scene, Sailor recounts an erotic experience with another woman, which gets Lulu going. "You better run me back to the hotel," she purrs. "You got me hotter than Georgia asphalt."
Dern's mother, Diane Ladd, plays Lulu's lulu mom, Marietta Fortune. It's a bizarre, cartoonish role, and I felt sorry for Ladd, who just wasn't built for Lynch's brand of deadpan slaptstick. Grace Zabriskie, on the other hand, captures the essence of Lynchian eccentricity. But it's Willem Dafoe who takes honors for most outlandish performance as Bobby Peru, the creepy, dentally challenged gangster, who menacingly exploits Lulu's vulnerabilities as a childhood rape victim. He will rope Sailor into an ill-advised heist and meet a most unpleasant demise.
Pulp fiction at its finest, "Wild at Heart" always circles back to Sailor and Lulu as a snakebit couple (him in a snakeskin jacket) that you root for. Dern and Cage digest Lynch's outre dialogue as if they were born to play the roles. They find just the right pitch for Lynch's brand of kitsch, especially during a scene when Sailor grabs the microphone at a club and croons Presley's "Love Me" as Lulu and the other girls scream and cream like it's 1956. Toss in cameos and quirky turns by the likes of Crispin Glover, Harry Dean Stanton, Isabella Rossellini and John Lurie, and it's a trip.
THE STRAIGHT STORY (1999) (A) - Was this just a goof? David Lynch playing it "straight" and directing someone else's mainstream narrative about an old man driving across the heartland on a lawn tractor to visit his ailing brother, presumably for the last time? Honest to goodness, it's rated G. (Open on: "Walt Disney Pictures presents ... a film by David Lynch.")
Lynch, working from a script by producer Mary Sweeney and John E. Roach, plays it mostly linear, blessed with journeyman actor Richard Farnsworth, in his final role, as Alvin Straight, who seizes an opportunity to make peace with his estranged brother. Physically broken down and unable to drive a car, he jerry-rigs a riding mower and a trailer and journeys 247 miles from Iowa to Wisconsin, camping on the side of the road along the way.
Alvin has heartfelt encounters with strangers along the way, which allows him to dispense pearls of wisdom, including to a pregnant teenage runaway. The fulcrum of the film comes in the second half when he meets a fellow World War II veteran at a bar and they trade quiet horror stories about their harrowing experiences.
Lynch stays faithful to a traditional narrative, perhaps for the only time in his career. He patiently allows the journey to unfold at a snail's pace -- just like Alvin chugging along the highways at 5 mph, hugging the shoulder as vehicles whiz by. He employs a cast of mostly unknowns and non-actors to serve in various elderly Greek choruses. The astronomically high average age of the cast is virtually unheard of in a culture that worships youth.
Sissy Spacek just barely rises to the challenge of playing Rose, Alvin's daughter, who speaks with a stutter related to a horrific trauma in her life. Harry Dean Stanton tosses in a cameo as the brother, Lyle. The earnest depiction of rural life is tempered with occasional deadpan humor, such as when Alvin haggles with twin brothers straight out of "Green Acres" who bicker while repairing his John Deere.
Angelo Badalamenti's score is quintessentially 1990s, somehow both melancholy and uplifting at the same time. Farnsworth's eyes twinkle as the paragon of "Farm Aid"-era America (he even resembles Willie Nelson). Alvin is a wounded soul who has somehow managed to deal with his trauma, wrangle his alcoholism, and find peace of mind amid his physical and emotional struggles. This is a low-key tale (faithfully based on a true story) that sneaks up on you and wins over your jaded modern heart.
BONUS TRACKS
Elvis' "Love Me":
And from "The Straight Story," Angelo Badalamenti tries his hand at Americana, including the captivating "Laurens Walking":
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