Wild at Heart, or: The pressure of conforming to mass media influences

Wild at Heart (1990)

Directed by David Lynch

***SPOILERS***

David Lynch is—for entirely obvious reasons—an extremely polarizing filmmaker among viewers. By the time of his fourth feature film Blue Velvet, people were drawing lines in the sand over the filmmaker’s idiosyncratic style—a gap Lynch miraculously lessened with the release of his hit television series Twin Peaks. But before long Lynch was at it again with Wild at Heart, which was presented with as many cheers as boos when it won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1990. Quirky dialogue, a cheesy score from Angelo Badalamenti, and insanely abrupt and unrelenting violence—all the reasons people had chosen to hate Lynch throughout his career were present in Wild At Heart. The film is often regarded as Lynch’s worst output (other than Dune), with many critics citing his “brash” integration of The Wizard of Oz into Sailor (Nicolas Cage) and Lula’s (Laura Dern) lives. It’s all very understandable—many people feel no connection with David Lynch because he operates within his own little world. Blue Velvet was a departure from Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, and Dune, in the sense that its dissection of its characters’ collective nostalgia was a reflection of the viewers, which may very well be why the film hit home with so many people and became a cult hit. But as hard as it is to believe, no film in Lynch’s filmography was more in tune and critical of its audience than Wild At Heart, which practically spoke directly to audiences and mainstream “critics” (without their knowledge, if you can believe it).

The main reason for this is the fact that Wild at Heart relies upon its audiences’ collective subconscious understanding of pop culture. In Martha P. Nochimson’s book “The Passion of David Lynch: Wild at Heart in Hollywood”, she writes of Wild at Heart that certain mass-media representations “eventually become forces independent of social control and intrinsic to the lives of ordinary people in spectacularly unforeseen ways.” Certainly true of the characters, such a statement works for the viewer as well. Even while Blue Velvet formed a connection with its audience in its dissection of nostalgia, the film—along with Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, and Dune—worked within the confines of its own story. Wild at Heart is completely dependent upon its audience for Lula and Sailor's redemption to occur. The presence of The Wizard of Oz in the film is a reflection of the power pop culture holds over its constituents, as Glinda and the Wicked Witch of the film become villains and icons for Sailor and Lula. To understand the power these figures hold over Sailor and Lula, the audience must understand the breadth of not only The Wizard of Oz, but also pop culture in the broadest of terms as a major influence. This function occurs through three key ingredients: the characters’ actions, the unspoken influence of mass-media, and the viewers' prior understanding of major pop culture influences. Recognizing these ingredients allows for a better understanding of the film, and also allows redemption to occur for Sailor and Lula’s happy ending.

Wild at Heart begins in true Lynchian metaphorical fashion “at the border” between Canada and the U.S., which already presents the first query for the audience. Constantly the film bridges the line between fiction and reality with the presence of pop culture and extreme violence, and Lula’s mother’s assassination attempt upon Sailor’s life is the introduction. A calming orchestra and well-dressed patrons signal a sign of order, while Sailor’s bloody murder of Bob Ray Lemon suggests otherwise. Once this line has been presented, the film dips back into the desolate highways of the U.S. to embrace the moral-free side of Sailor and Lula’s relationship, where we find two people striving to form their own identities, while also coping with society’s larger influences.

The opening scene is also the point we see where Sailor and Lula’s borders meet. One born free of parent guidance and one born of fucked-up-family wealth, we find two individuals striving to create their own life, yet constantly feeling obligated to understand and conform to the larger dissonant reality. Sailor and Lula wear their emotions on their sleeves, constantly preaching their intentions as though they were unique. Sailor wears his snakeskin jacket, claiming it’s a sign of his “individuality and personal freedom”, but Sailor attaches such “liberation” to a material object. Lynch focuses on the materialism and the influence of pop culture upon Lula and Sailor in order to accentuate the loving core of their relationship. Lula paints her nails and Sailor shines his boots; Lula slips into a see-through dress while Sailor roughly throws on his jacket; Lula paints her lips red and Sailor breezily combs his Elvis-like hair. They wear black, drive black, but their souls are anything but. It’s all an act really, even as Sailor challenges a man in a club, asking to defend his love for his woman. After knocking the man out, he grabs a microphone and gives another Elvis-like performance, which is met with screams from girls in the crowd and Lula’s undying affection. All this, combined with the manner in which Lula and Sailor speak (“Rockin’ good news, baby” and “Cheeze Louise!”), signal two individuals regurgitating bits of pop culture influence, which accentuates their level of immaturity. They want personal freedom, but they also want to reflect an image that coincides with mass-media influences. Thus, their trip into the dark underbelly of American scum on the Western highways is a cold reality wake-up call.

This contrast can be seen within Sailor and Lula’s sex life, which may very well be the most honest and raw representation of their love for each other. Sailor and Lula sit in a bar as Sailor recounts a particular sex story. Sailor walks up the stairs behind a girl and grabs he crotch, which is met with a “Sailor, you’re bad!” from the girl and arousal from Lula. After the girl of Sailor’s fantasy asks him to “Take a bite of peach,” Lula then says, “You got me hotter than Georgia asphalt!” With the implausibility of Sailor’s story and the entirely scripted response from Lula, Lynch’s cutaway into an elongated sex scene between Lula and Sailor depicts anything but the fantastical nature of Sailor’s story. It’s rough, visceral, and coated with various hues that pour over the screen. It’s perhaps here, more than anywhere in the film, that we see Lula and Sailor acting free from pop culture influences, engaging in an act that’s both biting and loving. It’s more reflective of a later scene featuring Bobby Peru (Willem Dafoe) and Lula, where he grabs her breasts and repeatedly asks her to say, “Fuck me.” With Sailor and Lula putting on a show throughout Wild at Heart, their trip into Big Tuna, Texas shakes them to the core where Sailor is suddenly met with the prospect of fatherhood and Lula’s loyalty is put to the test, both jerking the couple away from their clever talk and fantasies learned from mass media and forcing them into the larger dissonant reality.

The presence of Lula and Sailor's car and the structure of a "road film" further the idea of pop culture's influences. Critics were quick to label Wild at Heart as a "road film", when the presence of the road is actually a reflection of Lula and Sailor's collective wish to break free with mass media influences, and their inability to do so. But before reaching Big Tuna, Lula and Sailor receive various signs that they cannot drive away from reality forever, which is perhaps what makes Big Tuna the culmination of their journey together. Lula recounts a story about her cousin Dell, who was unable to cope with societal norms. Dell would makes dozens of sandwiches in twilight, and when asked why, he’d exclaim, “I’m making my lunch for tomorrow!” Perhaps the most gripping aspect of Dell’s story is his inability to grasp the fact that Christmas—his favorite holiday—only occurs once a year. Believing everyday was Christmas, he would have to constantly confront this untruth, which would send into a fury. Such a tearing realization reflects Lula and Sailor’s (and our) desire for a world to conform to their wants and desires. But constantly they are forced to retreat and become a product of pop culture. Dell eventually disappears without a trace, signaling his inability to conform meant he could no longer be a part of society, which makes Lula and Sailor’s trip into the West all the more tragic.

Even more terrifyingly blunt is a car accident Sailor and Lula happen upon during their trip, where they find two dead teenagers and another walking about. Sailor tries to reason with the girl, asking her to come with him to the hospital, but the girl continually races around in the dirt, desperately searching for her purse and make-up. She fears that without her purse her mother will scold her, ignoring the blood streaming from her head, asking, “What’s this sticky stuff in my hair?” She sobs and expresses her fear as Lula breaks down, just before the girl falls onto the desert dirt and dies while incessantly mumbling her final words. In a reflection of the pressures Lula and Sailor are attempting to drive away from, here we find a girl so hell-bent on pleasing her mother and adhering to her wishes that she abandons her own dying body. If there was ever an image more tragic in portraying the pressures of conformity, I’m not aware of it.

Audiences and critics joined alongside Sailor in addressing the foolishness of Lula’s visions—but for entirely different reasons. Many branded Lynch’s use of the Wicked Witch as Lula’s mother—along with many other blatant references to The Wizard of Oz—as sophomoric and exploitative, which, ironically, speaks of Lynch’s powerful filmmaking abilities more than anything. Instead of being a blind rehash of the famed tale, Lynch’s embrace of The Wizard of Oz is a form of the subconscious that utilizes bits of popular culture to drive our characters’ dreams. The saddest part of the brash critiques against Lynch’s filmmaking has nothing to do with the idea of pop culture’s influence, but purely the image. Cheesy in the most Lynchian ways possible, the image of Lula’s mother as the Wicked Witch is surely a comical sight, but when we address the role of the mother in Lula’s life, it becomes a bit more depressing. As the Wicked Witch of The Wizard of Oz strives to disrupt Dorothy’s journey home, Lula’s mother is entirely selfish in her plight, placing a hit upon Sailor’s head and ruining her daughter’s dreams to benefit herself. Through this, Lynch’s own critique of the audience becomes even more brash, as their inability to grasp the meaning behind the Wicked Witch outside of the pure image reflects (according to Nochimson) “the collective unconscious of mass-media conventions, and the preconscious of the spectator.” Essentially, their inability to recognize the power behind the image conversely reflects the power the image has over them.

And with Sailor and Lula being extensions of the audience, the final scene becomes the culmination for the beleaguered couple, the spectator, and Lynch’s message throughout Wild at Heart. Lula dressed in respectable clothing and Sailor donning his classic snakeskin jacket, Sailor is presented with the prospect that he cannot cope with societal pressures and abandon his bad-boy image, as he grew up without parental guidance and “got nothing in mind but immoral purposes.” But really, he’s not talking about parental guidance—his education came through mass media conventions and pressures, all reflected in the way he talks, struts, and reacts to society’s greatest pressures. Keeping in line with the way he’s supposed to act, he leaves Lula and his son, and then subsequently walks into an ambush of street thugs. Sailor insults one of them, and is then knocked unconscious. Addressing Lynch’s audience directly, Sailor’s unconscious is brought to life through the image of Glinda (the Good Witch). It’s in this moment she suggests that evil isn’t defined by being “wild at heart,” (which is what Sailor and Lula had been lead to believe through Bobby Peru and Marcellos Santos), but rather the opposite. People wild at heart fight for what they want, free of greed or power.

It’s a very beautiful moment for two reasons. First: it forms a physical connection between Sailor and Lula, as he previously scolded Lula for her childish visions, thus signaling their reunion. But second, and more importantly: it allows Sailor and Lula (according to Nochimson) to supersede “the literal deficits of both the culturally defined mother and the conscious cultural order.” In other words: as Sailor professes his love to Lula and bathes her with his rendition of “Love Me Tender”, we see two people abandoning every sign that’s been passed along during their journey and embracing the pressures of society. Instead of disappearing along with Dell, Sailor chooses love over reality, as his and Lula’s love is a fantasy of epic proportions, reflected through their (and our) embrace of mass media influences. While critics were busy bashing the presence of Glinda, they were unable to recognize the ironic presence of her in Sailor’s vision. She allows Sailor and Lula to revert back into their fantasy, and allows for the “happy ending” that’s only a product of conforming to said pressures. But this is a loving, wholehearted, and bittersweet embrace—and not just for Sailor and Lula, but for Lynch and his audience as well. Glinda’s presence is ironic because critics recognized her literal presence, but were unable to recognize that she allowed Sailor and Lula to produce the Hollywood ending that critics and audiences secretly hope for, due to mass media conventions. But even with that realization, there’s no cynical way to address the image of Sailor singing to Lula, fulfilling her crying wish from earlier in the film. It may be the product of conformity and pressure, but Lula and Sailor’s happy ending is one we secretly hope for and receive. And through their blind, immature, yet altogether endearing love, it’s a happy ending that Sailor and Lula deserve.