In one "Wild at Heart" scene, the brain case of a killer ( Willem Dafoe) is blasted into the sky by a shotgun, and plops back to earth in front of the camera. The adventures of the young couple are punctuated by extreme violence. There is a horrible murder by burning, which is constantly flashed back to, and a deadly secret, which must be kept hidden, and then there is the episodic structure of the road movie, which includes bizarre characters encountered along the way. The structure of "Wild at Heart" proceeds from gothic melodrama. Perhaps because they, and Lynch, could congratulate each other that they spotted the cinematic cliche - that they knew Lynch was taking the edge off the violence by letting us in on the gag. The movie opens with a black man being savagely beaten to death by Cage, who, after he splashes the man's brains against a concrete wall, lights a cigarette and glowers up at the camera. Everything is taken past satire to extreme distortion - which is supposed to be funny, or at least make people laugh. Lynch tells this story with his customary hyperbole. Their big Detroit convertible sails across the desolate American plains, past truck stops and rusting gas stations, and violence follows them. Played by Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern, they are fleeing from hired killers who have been set on Cage's trail by Dern's mother ( Diane Ladd). In form, "Wild at Heart" is a road picture, about two young people on the run. But he is infected with self-doubt and cynicism, and he believes the worst of his audiences, so he makes films inspired by his despair. If he allowed himself a more positive vision - if he dared to believe in people - he could be a great film artist. But he is not a minor talent he is a gifted director with a strong sense of style. If Lynch were merely providing us with these commodities, he would merely be an exploitation filmmaker. We want rock 'n' roll? The Nicolas Cage character in "Wild at Heart" talks and walks like Elvis, and even sings two of his songs. We want drugs? Dennis Hopper, in " Blue Velvet," will inhale a substance so forbidden that no one has even been able to figure out what it is. We want sex? He'll give us undreamed-of perversity. Show-biz executives have a cynical shorthand formula for commercial success: "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll." Lynch's work is exclusively concerned with these three elements, but in an angry, self-hating way he shoves our nose in it. "Wild at Heart" is a cinematic act of self-mutilation, a film that mocks itself.
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