the art of cinema - wild at heart

The art of cinema no.5

Wild at Heart

 

Our first guest post - part one of a series of film reviews by director, writer and photographer Ben Briand.

I was first introduced to Ben's work in early 2010 after a private screening of three of his short films including Apricot, Some static started and Castor & Pollux. If you haven't already seen them I highly recommend heading over here and checking them out.

Needless to say Ben's work is amazing, as is his taste in films.

Wild at Heart by Ben Briand

David Lynch is an intuitive and emotional film maker, something that has been drowned out over the last decade in most American cinema. His work takes interesting turns and eccentric twists simply because he feels that is how the flow of the film wants to move, not because it was laid down in a script writing how-to guide. Much like a stream finding it's way down a mountain, he is guided by his emotions and where the film is telling him to go. When watching his work you can feel there is little space between the work and the artist - almost like he is inside the film, talking and riffing with its core. He is very much in tune with the film and what it is doing.

This emotional sensitivity creates a unity between his characters and film craft which is extremely strong. Wild At Heart is a beautiful example of this at play. The heady emotion between Sailor (Nic Cage) and Lula (Laura Dern) is fuelled by explosive passion, romance, violence and ecstasy. The film's visual and aural elements are always in complete simpatico with these sensations. 

Above are examples of how the scene's colour, framing and distortion all reflect the emotions of the character at that given moment, allowing the audience to feel what the characters feel, even when it dips into distortion and surrealism. In fact you could say that is when we are most connected to Lynch's characters.

screencaps from Wild at Heart by Ben