Wild at Heart

In the four years after David Lynch blew everyone's mind with Blue Velvet, he struggled to get projects off the ground and had nothing to show for his efforts. Then, in 1990, only weeks after the debut of Twin Peaks, Wild at Heart appeared at the Cannes Film Festival and surprised everyone, leaving town with the Palme d'Or. Almost fifteen years later, the film's place in Lynch's filmography is a little uncertain. It's rarely singled out as one of his masterpieces -- alongside Eraserhead, Blue Velvet or Mulholland Drive -- nor does it have the vehement opposition of oddities like Dune or Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. In any event, after years of delays and false announcements, Wild at Heart has finally made its much anticipated debut on DVD, courtesy of MGM Home Entertainment.

As any David Lynch fan will tell you, he's a true DVD eccentric. The Mulholland Drive DVD was accompanied by a bizarre insert, listing cryptic clues that Lynch felt would help viewers comprehend the film (they didn't) and he is also notorious for restricting the use of chapter stops on his DVDs. In the case of Eraserhead, he went so far as to produce and distribute the DVD himself, thereby maintaining complete creative control.

It was with great curiosity, then, that I watched "David Lynch on the DVD," a 3 minute featurette on the Wild at Heart disc. Unfortunately, this turns out to be little more than a summary of the elaborate process of restoration that the film underwent in order to arrive on DVD. Lynch supervised the new widescreen (2.35:1) transfer and his perfectionist tendencies are evident throughout. He also supervised a brand-new 5.1 surround audio track, while purists can enjoy the film's original stereo track.

As far as features are concerned, the main attraction is a new 30 minute documentary entitled "Love, Death, Elvis & Oz." This is made up of brand new interviews with the elusive director, Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern and just about every other major participant in the film. Light on new revelations, this featurette is unfocussed and episodic. Still, it's nice to see the occasional glimpse of Lynch directing his actors. The tales of mass walkouts and "psychological torture" at the film's test screenings are also amusing.

"Dell's Lunch Counter" includes 9 additional stories that didn't make it into the featurette and there is a 7 minute love letter to David Lynch entitled "Specific Spontaneity" which includes further praise from the documentary participants. Archival material includes the original 7 minute EPK, an image gallery, 4 TV spots, and the original theatrical trailer.

While this is by no means an exhaustive or definitive package, it's far more than Lynch fans have come to expect from the enigmatic director's DVD output. -- Jonathan Doyle