Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mit-eddie!thakur
From: awp92@campus.swarthmore.edu (Andy Perry)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.cinema
Subject: Re: What is Wild at Heart About?
Message-ID: <1990Sep29.203745.10347@eddie.mit.edu>
Date: 29 Sep 90 20:37:45 GMT
References: <1990Sep28.215959.22091@eddie.mit.edu>
Sender: thakur@eddie.mit.edu (Manavendra K. Thakur)
Reply-To: awp92@campus.swarthmore.edu (Andy Perry)
Followup-To: rec.arts.cinema
Organization: Swarthmore College
Lines: 66
Approved: thakur@zerkalo.harvard.edu



In article <1990Sep28.215959.22091@eddie.mit.edu>, rfink@eng.umd.edu (Russell  
A. Fink) writes... 

>...revert to your
>highschool English teacher's frame of mind. "Wild at Heart is full of
>symbolism, in that it shows ..." I hated the word "symbolism" for the
>longest time, but when faced with answering a very challenging
>question, such as that about this movie, I need to point it out.
> 
>Wild at Heart drags, because the lives of Sailor and (blonde girl)
>drag. The movie is in of itself its own symbolism. Also, look at the
>references to the supernatural -- witches, the Good Witch of the East
>-- to see the mentality of the characters.

You use the word "symbolism" in a way which is strange to me, so I
will respond to both the term and the substance of what you're saying
here.  First, a symbol is a reference, a (linguistic?) device in which
something is made to stand for something else.  If you read my posting
carefully, you will see that the idea of referentiality is one of the
things I think the movie is about.  For one thing, most of the reviews
I read asserted that the film referred to many different genres (road
movie, musical, ghoul film, horror film, sci-fi, sitcom) when
empirically what it did was switch between them as structures within
which to operate.  I am not contradicting these reviews.  I agree that
the film referred to these genres.  But that fact is fascinating to
me.  What does it mean, in terms of what constitutes referentiality?

But that is a tangent mostly unrelated to your post.  The main point I
wanted to make is that I don't really see any invitation to live
through or sympathize with characters in this film, or even to take
them as anything more than caricatures.  I don't see much of an
attempt to relate our points of view to those of the characters
(unless, of course, you count the flashbacks).  In _Blue_Velvet_, on
the other hand, there was a direct relation between the viewer and
Dennis Hopper's character.  Hopper repeatedly said things like "Now
it's dark, I like it when it's dark."  Lynch emphasized that this was
meant to implicate the audience (which sits in a dark theater) by
intercutting scenes with extreme close-ups of candle flames
sputtering, and by beginning the epilogue with an extreme close-up of
lightbulbs burning out.

>This movie is, in my opinion, an attempt at putting some level of
>audience participation into the cinema. You are almost REQUIRED to
>place yourself in the shoes of the characters (male OR female), and
>ask yourself, "what would I do if I were *?" For this reason, although
>I hate Twin Peaks, I feel the director has created a masterpiece of
>personal insight. So go back, preferably by yourself and with a
>renewed state of mind, and give it another try.

In my opinion, the film is trying to bring up questions about what
exactly it is that constitutes cinematic pleasure, and the difference
between referring to cultural codes and actively engaging them.
Lynch's last film was also about cinematic pleasure (the fact that
Hollywood makes horrible things fun to watch when they shouldn't be).
That film used audience participation to implicate the viewer morally,
the way Hitchcock used to.  Here, I think, he has something else in
mind.  Rather than engaging in some from of practical solution to a
problem you and I seem both to see (the passivity of many viewers), he
is merely pointing out the problem.  (I.e., I think he's made a film
which emphasizes the assumptions about a passive audience in
mainstream film, rather than making a film which, as you see it, tries
to draw the audience into more active engagement with itself.)

Andy Perry; Swarthmore College  AWP92@campus.swarthmore.edu OR AWP92@swarthmr