Wild at Heart Nicholas Cage

(aka 'David Lynch's Wild at Heart')

directed by David Lynch
USA 1990

David Lynch's "Wild at Heart" is unlike anything that's ever been made before. It's swampy and destabilizing in that subversive, perversely original, signature Lynchian way. But "Wild at Heart" isn't the David Lynch movie that anyone could have hoped for -- not his new fans, who've discovered him through "Twin Peaks," or his older ones.

At his best -- in "Eraserhead," "Blue Velvet" and the pilot for "Twin Peaks" -- Lynch achieves a fragile, almost godlike tone, where comedy and tragedy bleed together, and irony and passionate, obsessive sincerity are mixed in precisely equal portions. His images are projections straight from the bogs of the unconscious, and they make it onto the screen raw and undiluted, dripping wet. There's an ineffable potency and danger in them -- they carry vibrations from the lizard realm -- and, watching his films, we can be simultaneously repulsed and enthralled.

"Wild at Heart," though, is lacking in the dreamlike irrevocability of his most brilliant work. From the outset, just after the wondrously poetic opening credits, he seems to misstep. In "Wild at Heart" -- which Lynch adapted from a novel by Barry Gifford -- the director is working with pulp conventions; it's a road movie about a pair of seemingly doomed young lovers named Lula and Sailor (Laura Dern and Nicolas Cage) on the run from the girl's hysterical mother (Dern's real mother, Diane Ladd). But Lynch wants to explode the rules of the game without really understanding them.

Excerpt from Hal Hinson review in the Washington Post located HERE

Posters

Theatrical Release: May 1990 - Cannes Film Festival - France

Reviews More Reviews DVD Reviews

DVD Comparison:

Universal (Korean) - Region 0 - NTSC vs. Universal - Region 2, 4, 5 - PAL vs. MGM (SE) - Region 1- NTSC

Thanks to Pavel Borodin and Mark Wilson of NicheFlix for the PAL screen captures!

(Universal (Korea) - Region 0 - NTSC LEFT vs. Universal - Region 2, 4, 5 - PAL - MIDDLE vs. MGM (SE) - Region 1 - NTSC - RIGHT)

DVD Box Covers
Distribution	Universal Studios Region 0 - NTSC	Universal Studios Region 2, 4, 5 - PAL	MGM Region 1 - NTSC
Runtime	1:59:48 (taken from PAL source)	1:59:52 (4% PAL speedup)	2:04:48
Video	2.35:1 Original Aspect Ratio 16X9 enhanced Average Bitrate: 7.25 mb/s NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s	2.35:1 Original Aspect Ratio 16X9 enhanced Average Bitrate: 7.0 mb/s PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s	2.35:1 Original Aspect Ratio 16X9 enhanced Average Bitrate: 5.76 mb/s NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate: Universal (NTSC)
Bitrate: Universal (PAL)
Bitrate: MGM
Audio	English (DD 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)	English (DD 5.1), DUB: French (DD 5.1), German (DD 5.1)	English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), DUB: Spanish (Dolby Digital 1.0)
Subtitles	English, Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, none	Arabic, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Turkish, none	English, French, Spanish, None
Features	Release Information: Studio: Universal (Korea) Aspect Ratio: Widescreen anamorphic - 2.35:1 Edition Details: • None DVD Release Date: July 8th, 2003 Keep Case Chapters ?	Release Information: Studio: Universal (Europe) Aspect Ratio: Widescreen anamorphic - 2.35:1 Edition Details: • None DVD Release Date: January 7th, 2003 Keep Case Chapters 21	Release Information: Studio: MGM Aspect Ratio: Original aspect Ratio 2.35:1 Edition Details: • New transfer supervised by David Lynch, with upgraded picture and sound • Dell's Lunch Counter: all-new extended interviews with Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern, David Lynch, Willem Dafoe, Diane Ladd, and Sheryl Lee • "Love, Death, Elvis & Oz: The Making of Wild at Heart": new 30-minute documentary (29:47) • "Specific Spontaneity: Focus on David Lynch": cast and crew comment on working with Lynch (7:20) • "David Lynch on the DVD Process" • Original making-of featurette • Sailor & Lula image gallery: 65 behind-the-scenes photos, animated with music • Original theatrical trailer, TV spots DVD Release Date: December 7th, 2004 Keep Case inside cardboard Box Chapters: 32

Comments:

NOTE: Lynch's true Director's cut was shown privately only to his closest friends and associates to obtain their opinion of the film.
They begged him to cut the film, claiming that the film was just too violent in content.

He did and later premiered the film at Cannes (to loud boos, but it won the Palm d'or regardless)
Dafoe's shotgun blast to his head was still uncut at this point.
By the time of the film's US release, it was decided (by Lynch or the MPAA, I'm not completely sure) that the shotgun sequence would be digitally obscured by additional smoke and some explosion optics.
This was okayed by Lynch and is the official US release version...and that is what's on the MGM disc.

I don't know if this was the same version that played in the rest of the world, but MGM hasn't censored the DVD...it's the original theatrical release version. (Thanks to Bill McAlpine for this information)

ADDITION: (Universal - Korean - NTSC) - Dec -04 - the Korean release is also the 'directors cut' but they did not adjust for the TV standard, and it exhibits ghosting and combing throughout. No change in or scorecard.

*****

Well, if Lynch really supervised the transfer we can only assume that the MGM colors are accurate, but of course he must have approved the censorship as well. Both Universal and MGM DVDs are sharp and personally I am leaning toward the Universal as a superior image (especially contrast). The NTSC is brighter and also redder (washed out?), almost as if it was manipulated. Although the Universal has some 5.1 audio DUB options, we are giving the nod to the MGM for its dual choice of original English audio options (2.0 and 5.1). The MGM extras are great and easily outweigh the PAL editions (not hard to beat 'none') and the Region 1 menus have some real effort put into them... tack on to this that the PAL edition seems to be out-of-print everywhere and we will give an overall recommendation to the MGM NTSC !

- Gary W. Tooze

DVD Menus

(Universal (Korea) - Region 0 - NTSC LEFT vs. Universal - Region 2, 4, 5 - PAL - MIDDLE vs. MGM (SE) - Region 1 - NTSC - RIGHT)

Screen Captures