‘It’s no secret that the last few years have been good to Laura Dern. From Enlightened to Wild to Certain Women to Twin Peaks: The Return to Big Little Lies to Star Wars: The Last Jedi, there’s been no shortage of reminders that she’s an actress of extraordinary range and ability, one just as capable of tremendous subtlety as she is delivering crushing moments of overpowering emotion. Dern has recently come to specialize in standout supporting roles, but she takes the lead in The Tale, directed by Jennifer Fox and based on Fox’s own experiences. Dern plays Jennifer, a documentary filmmaker forced to reevaluate her past and interrogate her own memories when her mother (Ellen Burstyn) unearths a creative-writing assignment Jennifer wrote at 13, a thinly veiled account of the sexual abuse she experienced at the hands of a track coach (Jason Ritter) with the cooperation of a trusted riding instructor (Elizabeth Debicki).
‘Dern gives an extraordinary, constantly shifting performance at the heart of a film that never lets viewers find their footing. Previously confident of framing her experiences as that of a teen edging into womanhood by taking an “older lover,” she becomes unmoored when shown a picture of herself at that age, and has to reconsider how much of a child she was — and how little choice she had in what happened. Slowly, she becomes determined to piece the past together, even if it means reworking the story she’s told herself for years.
‘It’s the latest in Dern’s still-growing category of revelatory performances and, like the others, it’s possible to trace its roots back to a turning-point performance. Some actors have careers easily divided into two phases: before and after a particular role. The film that gave Dern that role, Wild at Heart, hasn’t been very easy to see in recent years. Released in 1990, the David Lynch film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and hit American theaters at the height of Twin Peaks’ popularity. But it’s not currently available on any streaming services and has been in and out of print on physical media for years. (It will receive a long-overdue Blu-ray release from Shout! Factory, a company with a good track record of handling movies that might otherwise fall through the cracks, in August.) But revisiting the film confirms it was the role that pointed Dern toward a future playing complex, conflicted, difficult-to-defeat women.
‘In Wild at Heart, she’s Lula Fortune, one half of the film’s central couple, lovers on the run from the law, and from Lula’s overbearing mother Marietta (played by Dern’s real-life mother, Diane Ladd). Nicolas Cage plays the other half of the couple, Sailor Ripley, a tenderhearted roughneck with an Elvis fixation and snakeskin jacket that, as he’ll tell anyone, doubles as a “symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom.” It’s a funny line, but one that points to a divide between the two performances that becomes more conspicuous as the film goes along: Cage’s works mostly in references, symbols, and gestures. Dern plays Lula as a full-bodied character, one driven by emotions — be it lust, fear, or sadness — she doesn’t always know how to control. That’s not a knock on Cage, who’s terrific in the film. But he, and the film as a whole, need Dern’s humanizing work to stay grounded.
‘Lynch adapted Wild at Heart from a novel by Barry Gifford, but inevitably brought his own obsessions to it, swirling in images from The Wizard of Oz, classic road movies, and other instantly recognizable references. In the 2004 making-of documentary Love, Death, Elvis & Oz, Gifford says Lynch “saw Sailor and Lula a bit like Elvis and Marilyn Monroe, these very American icons.” From the resulting film, Cage ran with the suggestion, channeling Elvis (or as Sailor calls him, “E”) at every moment. Dern went her own way.
‘Apart from a head of blonde hair, there’s little of Monroe in Dern’s Lula, a passionate 20-year-old southerner incapable of hiding her feelings. She shares none of Monroe’s breathy flirtatiousness or her expertise at adapting a veneer of naïveté. Lula’s honest to the point of guilelessness. She hates her mother and loves Sailor, and Dern’s expressive face makes no attempt to hide these feelings. Keeping anything to herself is against Lula’s nature.
‘This sometimes puts her at odds with Lynch’s film, an often stunning, sometimes muddled collection of ideas whose mix of horrific violence and dark humor often feels out of balance, especially when compared to the director’s best work. Dern, however, remains surefooted. Her Lula is open and earnest even when Wild at Heart seems too self-aware for its own good, staying real and true in the midst of all that artifice and giving the film a beating heart, whereas an actress who’d stayed true to Lynch’s original Monroe-inspired vision might have seemed like just another prop. Not that this put her at odds with the director. “She’s the best actress I’ve ever worked with,” Lynch says in the making-of doc, and he’s made good on that praise by working with her again and again.
‘It was, to that point, the role of a lifetime, a break with what she’d done before and a step forward to what she’d do in the years to come. Dern had often been good before. She’s memorable in 1980’s Foxes, showing the dark side of teen-dom, and the cult favorite Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains. She’s better still in Joyce Chopra’s Smooth Talk, an adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’s much-anthologized short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, and Blue Velvet, her first pairing with Lynch. Both cast her as an innocent getting dragged into experiences she’s not ready to face, but Lula is more complicated. She’s already seen some of the horror the world has to offer, revealing to Sailor that, shades of The Tale, she was raped at 13 and describing her father’s death by incineration. That she remains open to life and uncompromising in her desires becomes, largely thanks to the strength of Dern’s performance, the film’s central story. She commandeers the movie for its own good. There was no fading into the background after that.
‘Wild at Heart led to opportunities she didn’t have before, and continued to inform her work. She called on her ability to play frank sexuality with Rambling Rose a year later. There’s more than a little of Lula’s wildness in Citizen Ruth’s Ruth Stoops. More recently, working with Lynch again, she delivered a deft performance as Twin Peaks’ Diane, making a character referenced but never seen in the original series into a fully realized creation who, like Lula and The Tale’s Jennifer, had to learn how to live on the other side of a traumatic experience. Dern never gives the same performance twice, but her performance in Wild at Heart that opened up the other opportunities. Recalling his conception of Lula, Lynch has said “bubble gum was a key element.” Dern became the actress we know today when she decided to make that bubble pop.’ — Keith Phipps, VULTURE
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Stills
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Further
Laura Dern Network
Laura Dern @ Twitter
Laura Dern @ IMDb
Laura Dern, Angela Bassett Reflect on Their Own #MeToo Experiences
LAURA DERN ON THE BRILLIANCE AND HUMANITY OF BARBARA STANWYCK
‘I like to be a little bit of a rebel’
Laura Dern’s House in Los Angeles Is a Film Buff’s Dream
LAURA DERN FINALLY GETS TO BE COMPLICATED
I Also Look Like Laura Dern
The Long, Varied Career of Laura Dern
LAURA DERN IS HAVING THE BEST YEAR ANYWAY
“Entre David Lynch et moi, c’est un mariage artistique”
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Extras
An Evening with Laura Dern
Laura Dern Wins Best Supporting TV Actress at the 2018 Golden Globes
Diane Ladd, Laura Dern and Bruce Dern receive Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
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Interview
GARY INDIANA: Where did you go to school?
LAURA DERN: Here in Los Angeles, in the Valley. A very college-preparatory high school. Before that I went to a Catholic school. The private school was good—the teachers wanted all of us to have the freedom to think for ourselves. The education was good at the Catholic school, but you only got that one ideology.
INDIANA: I went to a Catholic school in New Hampshire, which was scary.
DERN: Private boarding schools and Catholic schools on the East Coast are something. Choate really ruined my father’s life. He’s had nightmares about Choate every since he went there. Treat Williams, who’s a good friend, went to Kent School, in Connecticut. The stories I’ve heard about those places—didn’t you have one nun who was just the worst nightmare?
INDIANA: Sister Mary Jude, who should’ve been a truck driver in some real redneck town. She loved to beat kids up, with this thick triangular ruler, right across the hand.
DERN: I don’t know how people parent in this day and age, just before I came here I read an article in a doctor’s office about Raymond Buckley in Los Angeles magazine. It was so frightening what he felt was appropriate when dealing with preschool kids. I don’t know what the whole story is there.
INDIANA: No one does. After reading articles by Dorothy Rabinowitz in Harper’s and by Debbie Nathan in The Village Voice, I’d almost become convinced that these preschool molestation cases were being fueled by antifeminist hysteria. And they probably are, but when I got out here, I saw people I worked with at Legal Aid in Watts 15 years ago, some of whom worked on the McMartin preschool case, and they said it’s all true. Even the animal mutilations.
DERN: It’s terrifying that it occurred, if it did, but it’s caused a real shift in awareness. People are more willing to talk about child abuse. When this whole McMartin thing went down, I was at a dinner party with about eight people, all from different backgrounds and from all over the world. And every single person at that table had had some weird experience as a child. I think everyone has—whether it was with a babysitter, or playing doctor, but usually when some older person tries to come in contact with you. It’s amazing how much we block out. Obviously, the urge to molest children comes from some experience the person has had as a child, and he or she never worked it out. Watching Raymond Buckey describe how he loved working with the kids, I could sense this 11-year-old who’d stopped and never grown further on a sexual level. He denied that anything happened, but even the way he described loving to play with the kids and the toys and so on, it was…weird. It’s a strange world, as David Lynch would say.
INDIANA: But don’t you think it’s weird that when society unearths something that’s been repressed for a long time, suddenly everyone’s pointing the finger at everyone else instead of figuring out how to deal systemically with it? Last night on the news, they gave figures for child-beating in America, something like two million children every year.
DERN: It’s so frightening. Even if you’ve gone through an average childhood, you have girlfriends who get pregnant and then have to choose whether or not to have a child. And this stuff certainly makes you think about what you’re taking on. I mean, I certainly want to have children, but I could never do it until I felt I loved myself enough, and wanted to bring someone into the world because I had some kind of security. I’m starting to, but I still have a lot to learn. I just have two cats, and when I’m in a bad mood—you know, it would be very easy to throw a cat across a room.
INDIANA: Years ago I was living with somebody and I kept telling him, “I want a dog, I want a dog.” And he said, “The first thing you’d do, if you got really hysterical, you’d throw that dog right out the window.” And I realized it could very well be true. You just don’t know what you’d do.
DERN: The thing I love about acting is, whatever character you play, it gives you the chance to expose another side of yourself that maybe you’ve never felt comfortable with, or never knew about. Not that every character is you, but there are underlying emotions that everybody has. I feel that movies are gifts that come to you, and there are no accidents in what you end up doing. I study Jung, who talks a lot about the shadow side, the repressed side. I think the scariest thing in the world is repression. There’s plenty to be idealistic about, but we have to be aware of all sides of ourselves, and there are definitely shadows in all of us.
INDIANA: How do you find what you need to work on in a part? I’m thinking of Connie in Smooth Talk and that mind-boggling scene where you’re inside the house and Treat Williams is outside talking to you through the screen door, and it’s really Connie’s passage from childhood to being a woman.
DERN: It’s funny you bring up that scene, because there’s a similar scene between myself and Bobby Peru, Willem Dafoe’s character, in Wild at Heart. In Cannes, people kept comparing those two scenes and asking why I’m always half-seduced and half-raped in my movies. I’m sure I don’t know. But whether a movie part comes to me or I seek it out, there’s always this journey to darkness through light, or vice versa; that element has been in almost everything I’ve done. In Smooth Talk it was a much more intuitive search—I was only 17 at the time, and I wasn’t aware, as women are when they get a little older, that there’s always a side of a woman that likes a man from the other side of the tracks. We all have an attraction to what’s different from us. Connie and Lula and I all share something, namely that we all want to be loved or accepted in a love relationship or family relationship, whatever; but we all bring our baggage with us in terms of how we expect that love. Connie has such a need to be found attractive by a grown-up man, and there’s that feeling of wanting to break away from mother and say, “I’m a woman now.” A couple of years before I made that film, I certainly had a lot of those feelings. My transition was much calmer, but I tried to use those dynamics in making the character.
Wild at Heart made a few people angry—they thought I was exploiting women by showing that when a woman says no she really means yes—that Lula’s repulsed by Bobby Peru, yet she wants him. I don’t feel that way at all. In Wild at Heart I tried to find the essence of myself and Lula, what we shared; so the scenes with Bobby Peru became even more intense and connected. I had dreams the night before I did that scene which revealed why the character does what she does. The more conscious I become about these different sides of myself, the more I can contact each side of the character.
INDIANA: Those scenes also seem connected by the fact that the audience projects onto them a greater physical threat than is actually there.
DERN: It’s amazing, too, how many people said after seeing Smooth Talk, “Well, obviously he raped her.” I think he actually did just take her for a drive. I also think both Lula and Connie are in control in those scenes. The line I find fascinating in Smooth Talk—when I come out through the screen door and Treat says, “Come on, you gonna come out of your daddy’s house, my sweet blue-eyed girl?”—is when I reply, “What if my eyes were brown?” It’s sort of “fuck you,” in a way. It’s like Connie’s saying, “I’m in control of this, I’m in the driver’s seat.” Maybe she says it out of fear, to protect herself, but on some level she is controlling it.
INDIANA: In Wild at Heart, though, doesn’t Bobby Peru force Lula to say, “I want you to fuck me”?
DERN: Well, with Lula, some people will say, “My God, he raped her.” But the bottom line is, she never touches him. And Lula has an orgasm. She wins! She gets off, and he gets nothing. What’s devastating to her is that he thinks he’s won her, so she’s afraid for her boyfriend, Sailor. She gives Bobby Peru what he wants on the verbal level, saying what he wants her to say, out of general fear. But at the same time, she stays in control. It’s a battle, that scene.
INDIANA: You were fantastic as the blind girl in Mask. I was completely convinced by you, even in the scene where Eric Stoltz gives you different things that are hot and cold, to explain what colors are—it could easily have turned into saccharine, but it really worked.
DERN: Thank you! I think it’s interesting that there’s always a dark cloud hanging over my character, in every movie. Even in Fat Man and Little Boy, where it’s a real dark cloud. In Mask, it’s more the judgment of others, but it’s still a threat. Sandy in Blue Velvet is the archetype of that. David Lynch says, “If you wanted to buy a bottle of innocence as a shampoo, you’d buy Sandy in Blue Velvet.” Lula, I guess, is a bottle of passion-flavored bubble gum.
INDIANA: You always play characters embedded in difficult family relationships. In Wild at Heart it’s this demented mother; in Mask you have these disapproving parents. Did some of those parts come to you because you started acting so young, or are you naturally attracted to them?
DERN: Maybe it’s some kind of karma. I certainly don’t seek that out. In fact, I hadn’t really thought about that, but you’re right. I’m very connected to my own family, and maybe I like to explore the feelings that come up in families. I’m fortunate that my parents taught me to look further into why I might feel a certain way; it was normal to expose things. When I started dating I had relationships with people who came from families that weren’t at all artistic or whatever, and they didn’t understand how to communicate. I find that so boring.
INDIANA: What do you think the difference is between the way you went into acting, as opposed to someone who didn’t have it in their background? You came into it from inside rather than outside.
DERN: I never had a misunderstanding of what it was about. Unfortunately, overall, movies are a conglomerate. People buy and sell people in this business, which can get really ugly unless you have the right set of values and understand why you’re doing it. Luckily, I was raised by people who’d already gotten to that point, and seen all the yuck stuff—which is probably why they originally didn’t want me to act. I also understood the difference between getting a part at a Hollywood party and really getting a job. I knew you had to go in and audition and maybe then they’d hire you, and that’s where you start. I also had a good understating about press: that it’s the actor’s responsibility to publicize his or her films, that the press can be fun, that it’s not about hyping yourself into stardom or trying to sell yourself as a hot ticket. I think a lot of young actors now are getting caught up in that. And it’s very easy to get caught up in. there’s a hype going on now that I haven’t seen in years, and it’s actually more about press than it is about an actor’s work or what films they’ve been in.
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23 of Laura Dern’s 101 roles
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Martin Scorsese Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974)
‘Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore is a American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Robert Getchell. It stars Ellen Burstyn as a widow who travels with her preteen son across the Southwestern United States in search of a better life, along with Alfred Lutter as her son and Kris Kristofferson as a man they meet along the way. It is Martin Scorsese’s fourth film. Director Martin Scorsese cameoed as a customer while Diane Ladd’s daughter, future actress Laura Dern, appears as the little girl eating ice cream from a cone in the diner.’ — collaged
Laura Dern’s Cameo in “Alice Doesnt Live Here Anymore” as a Child
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Adrian Lyne Foxes (1980)
‘”When I got the part in ‘Foxes,’ she recalled, “I was in seventh grade, and I went away to shoot for two weeks. When I came back, the kids hated me. I had a best friend who never spoke to me again. She said, ‘You only got the part because your parents are Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd.’ It was very depressing. Jealousy is a scary thing. And teachers were jealous too, I think. They would say, ‘You’re off making a million dollars on a movie, and you’re going to fail this class.’ Little did they know I was making far from a million dollars. It’s tough now with my parents. There’s no jealousy or competition with them, but I sometimes feel guilty if I’m working and my parents aren’t, because I so admire them. The fact that teen movies are taking over from movies about 45-year-olds scares me and makes me angry.”‘ — NY Times
the entire film
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Peter Bogdanovich Mask (1985)
‘The young promising actress arrives late into the film as Diana, a blind girl and something of an equestrian. Rocky has left his mother alone (for obviously the first time in his life) in order to work as an assistant at a summer youth camp for the blind. When Rocky sees her (and by extension when the camera gets a good look at her) he’s a goner. Instantly Dern’s open distinctive face, which has always been the opposite of a mask, incapable of hiding humanity, plays to the unusually specific strength of this particular movie. Because Mask is dimensional enough to allow for conflicting feelings about its characters, Dern is able to really shine in a role that would be merely decorative in a lesser film. And because Bogdanovich and his actors have created such rounded people we find ourselves suddenly split in two, protective of Rocky but also worried for this innocent girl who Rocky pursues as if he’s suddenly a threat. Through Dern’s sensitive careful work, we understand that she has as little experience and confidence about romance as he does but we also intuit that she’s yet more vulnerable, and sheltered in a way he never has been by his hard-living mother.’ — The Film Experience
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David Lynch Blue Velvet (1986)
‘Laura Dern was surprised to learn that she didn’t have to read for the part—Lynch felt she was right for the role upon meeting her. But to make sure that she had chemistry with Kyle MacLachlan, who would play her love interest, Lynch conducted a crucial meeting at the fast food chain.’ — Mental Floss
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David Lynch Wild at Heart (1990)
‘With its good and wicked witches, and references to Toto and the yellow brick road, David Lynch’s Wild at Heart is an overt, elaborate homage to The Wizard of Oz. Lula (Dern) and Sailor (Nicolas Cage) set out from Cape Fear, North Carolina, in a Ford Thunderbird, headed for the obligatory Oz of California but end up detained in the Texas hellhole of Big Tuna. Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival, Wild at Heart is Lynch’s first all-out comedy, but despite the prevailing tone of aggressive absurdity, it contains some of the filmmaker’s most harrowing scenes. The film also features Dern in one of her most memorable roles (at times acting opposite her mother, Diane Ladd, whose performance earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress). A striking counterpoint to her previous Lynch persona, Sandy, Blue Velvet’s paragon of youthful innocence, Lula is mature, self-possessed, and recklessly romantic.’ — filmlinc
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David Lynch Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Brokenhearted (1990)
‘I knew of Industrial Symphony No. 1 because of a popular urban myth among Lynch fandom; that, while he was adapting Barry Gifford’s Wild At Heart, he actually filmed the novel’s downbeat ending before settling on the very different one the movie has, and used the discarded footage as the opening to this multimedia theatre piece. Lynch always denied this, and watching Industrial Symphony No. 1 I believe him. Yes, the opening film footage has Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern playing Southern lovers. They’re also shot against plain black backgrounds, talking in a dreamy, narcotic rhythm, lit with cold, white, non-naturalistic light. None of that resembles Wild At Heart at all, so this must be a specially-shot piece with the same actors. That said, there are so many themes and motifs from Wild At Heart and Twin Peaks floating around in here, it’s easy to see how the story gained purchase. The lyrics and imagery of this musical stage piece refer to falling, fire, car crashes and logs, Michael J Anderson plays an enigmatic key role, and Julee Cruise performs a lot of the songs while flying around on wires in a white dress, recalling Sheryl Lee at (the actual) end of Wild At Heart.’ — Graham Williamson
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Martha Coolidge Rambling Rose (1991)
‘The plot in “Rambling Rose” is slight and elusive; if it were not for a framing device, it might almost have none. The movie is all character and situation, and contains some of the best performances of the year, especially in the ensemble acting of the four main characters. Laura Dern finds all of the right notes in a performance that could have been filled with wrong ones; Diane Ladd (her real-life mother) is able to suggest an eccentric yet reasonable Southern belle who knows what is really important; Robert Duvall exudes that most difficult of screen qualities, goodness, and Lukas Haas (the boy in “Witness”) brings to his study of Rose such single-minded passion you would think she was a model airplane.’ — Roger Ebert
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Steven Spielberg Jurassic Park (1993)
‘Laura Dern was chosen by Steven Spielberg to portray Dr. Ellie Sattler because she was a very good and honest actor. The role of Ellie Sattler was offered to a lot of actresses. Juliette Binoche was offered the role but she turned it down in order to make Three Colors: Blue. Robin Wright, Jodie Foster, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Pfeiffer, Ally Sheedy, Geena Davis, Daryl Hannah, Jennifer Grey, Kelly McGillis, Jamie Lee Curtis, Julia Roberts, Linda Hamilton, Sarah Jessica Parker, Bridget Fonda, Joan Cusack, Laura Linney, Helen Hunt, Gwyneth Paltrow and Debra Winger were all considered for the role of Dr. Ellie Sattler.’ — Jurassic Park Wiki
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Clint Eastwood A Perfect World (1993)
‘Within its narrow, unambitious, commercial boundaries, the movie is highly watchable.’ — Washington Post
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Alexander Payne Citizen Ruth (1996)
‘In Citizen Ruth, Dern is once again in over her head, albeit this time it’s not much of a head to start with, what with the paint-huffing and all. She plays Ruth, whom we first see getting humped by some string-haired loser in a flophouse, then summarily thrown out of said flophouse by said stringy-haired loser. Ruth staggers around a landscape of empty warehouses, peeling-paint homes, chain-link fences and crumbling asphalt — in life’s drawer full of sharp knives, she’s a plastic spoon, grabbing at anything that might get her loaded. Citizen Ruth was released just over 20 years ago — not only does the issue of choice its based around remain current, but its examination of how political forces use people as symbols feels prescient. It was the first full-length film by director Alexander Payne (and, for you trivia fans, the only one not to receive an Oscar or Golden Globe nomination). He followed it up with Election, another examination of politics and the blonde, although it’s very clear that Tracy Flick knows who’s pulling which levers — and it’s also very clear that her appetite for power is as strong as Ruth’s for schnapps and patio sealant.’ — Outtake
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Robert Altman Dr. T & the Women (2000)
‘”Dr. T & The Women” is a very underrated film from Robert Altman. While it’s far from his best work and the comedy is much broader than his other films from the 00s, it’s still immensely enjoyable. At it’s heart, this is a film about women and how wild and unpredictable they can be. The film ends with a tornado, so the symbolism can get a bit heavy handed. Thankfully, Altman uses his trademark overlapping dialogue to great effect and he pulls out some lovely and funny performances from all the women and especially an understated Richard Gere. Like we saw with “Nashville,” “Short Cuts” and now “Dr. T & The Women,” this is a film about a city. Altman understands what makes Dallas tick as much as he got Nashville and Los Angeles. Don’t go into this film thinking it’s a romantic comedy, like many do, because it’s far from it.’ — Steven Carrier
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Jane Anderson The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (2005)
‘The power in the film comes from the disconnect between the anger and emotional violence in the marriage, and the way Evelyn keeps her dignity, protects her children, fights to put food on the table and deals with a husband she always calls “Father.” She is “Mother,” of course. She has never been outside of Ohio, never had a spare dollar in the bank, never been able to express her creativity, except through the contests. Julianne Moore plays this woman as a victim whose defenses are dignity and optimism. It’s a performance of a performance, actually: Evelyn Ryan plays a role that conceals the despair in her heart.’ — Roger Ebert
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David Lynch Inland Empire (2006)
‘You know, again I’ll almost repeat the same idea of liberty that comes with working with that. You’re liberated as an actor in the same way David describes. You never miss anything because you’re right there. You never miss an opportunity of being in the moment because suddenly now, not just the performance but the camera is offering that in-the-moment opportunity. You can catch anything and he can hear what the actor seemingly off camera is doing and wanna capture that and just flip around. And because of the luxury of a forty minute take, if you need it, I mean, forty minutes in the camera, that you just shoot an entire scene without ever stopping and he can get all the coverage he wants and we are staying within the moment of acting out the scene and you know, not cutting and resetting but in fact even while filming talking to me because the luxury of the lack of expense as well to say, “Let’s do it again. OK, go back to this line, let’s keep going.” And you’re just, as an actor it’s just an incredible feeling to stay true to the mood, the feeling that’s going at that given time.’ — Laura Dern
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Mike White Year of the Dog (2007)
‘Year of the Dog is a quirky little art house movie with a great cast and a decent script. It is at times amusing and at other times poignant but the blend doesn’t always mix well. Half the time it is the expected Molly Shannon style of overt comedy, especially in her scenes with Regina King (who is, by the way, one of the most gifted comic actresses working today). Screenwriter Mike White (Chuck and Buck) makes his directorial debut and though the tone is at times awkward he does manage to treat a polarizing political issue with fairness. Some viewers will identify and agree wholeheartedly with Peggy’s evolution from dog lover to animal rights activist, while to others her behavior will reinforce their beliefs that some people are just plain nuts. Everyone in the movie is portrayed as flawed so in that sense it doesn’t take sides.’ — THREE MOVIE BUFFS
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Paul Thomas Anderson The Master (2012)
‘The Master, even though it’s only tangentially about L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology, depicts the humiliating yet symbiotic relationship between causes and followers in the modern era, when belief systems are no longer governing frameworks but just software to be renewed and replaced. You can see it in the Master’s irritated response to Helen Sullivan (Laura Dern) who, upon reading his new book, inquires about a major difference she’s noticed: “I did note that on page 13, there’s a change. You’ve changed the processing platform question from ‘Can you recall?’ to ‘Can you imagine?’” Meanwhile, Freddie, who never really understands the Master’s methods and has just had to listen to another B.S. sermon from Dodd, beats up a longtime believer who dares to question the Master’s rambling text. Maybe this is the way Freddie deals with his doubts, by doubling down on his obedience to the Master.‘ — Vulture
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Kelly Reichardt Certain Women (2016)
‘Delicacy, intelligence, compassion and control are what writer-director Kelly Reichardt brings to her muted but utterly involving new film, about separate women’s lives in the prairie towns of southern Montana in the United States. It features Laura Dern as provincial lawyer Laura, Michelle Williams as discontented wife and mother Gina, and Kristen Stewart as law student and teacher Elizabeth. Everything is photographed in a distinctively subdued indie-stonewash colour palette, the soundtrack and spoken dialogue are murmuringly quiet, and it’s a film that never forces its emotional effects on us. One of the opening scenes actually contains an armed hostage standoff with a crazy guy, but it’s directed so calmly it feels as if we’re watching a mild disagreement at a church coffee morning. Certain Women is a title with a tentative, open-ended quality. A random sample selection? That’s coolly at odds with the obvious fact that Reichardt is very deliberate – very certain – about what and who she wants to show on screen, and how. The “why” is up to us.’ — The Guardian
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Alexander Payne Downsizing (2017)
‘Less isn’t really more, but there’s an intriguing premise at the heart of Alexander Payne’s affecting and surprisingly sweet Downsizing. If we are, as our science seems to indicate, really killing the world, then maybe we should avail ourselves of any means necessary to minimize ourselves. If Norwegian scientists come up with a way to shrink ourselves to about 5 inches tall, why shouldn’t we volunteer to reduce our footprint?’ — Philip Martin
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David Lynch Twin Peaks: The Return (2017)
‘On Sunday night, Laura Dern popped up on Twin Peaks, finally revealing the character she’s playing in David Lynch’s mysterious revival. Folks, it’s time to officially meet Diane, Agent Cooper’s loyal secretary—who has never been seen before in the history of the series. The long-awaited reveal takes place when Albert Rosenfield (the late Miguel Ferrer) slowly makes his way through a packed Philadelphia bar. Slowly, he walks up and sees a sylph-like woman with a blonde bob standing at the bar. “Diane,” he asserts. She turns, slowly, one hand holding a cigarette, the other resting on the base of a martini glass. “Hello, Albert,” she replies. And there you have it! Whatever image fans have held on to for the last few decades flew out the window in a matter of seconds. All along, Diane has been an icy blonde with rather kooky personal style, favoring brocade dresses, multi-colored stacked bangles, multi-colored nails, and thick, Cleopatra-esque eyeliner. This probably isn’t the long-suffering secretary everyone was imagining, though it does fit with Cooper’s previous description of her as an “interesting cross between a saint and a cabaret singer.”’ — Vanity Fair
Excerpts
Making “Twin Peaks: The Return”
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Rian Johnson Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
‘Dern had a lot of fun working on The Last Jedi and is particularly keen to learn some more of Holdo’s past, stating “I’m eager to learn about the future — or the past — of this character only because I loved playing her so much it would be heartbreaking not to have an experience of playing her again.” It seems unlikely Holdo was intended to escape in The Last Jedi, so it might feel like a cop out if the next adventure reveals she bailed at the last moment. That said, the movie didn’t have much time to dive into Holdo’s background, so maybe there is room to explore her past. The recent canon novel Leia, Princess Of Alderaan is a prequel set before the events of A New Hope, where a young Leia first gets involved with the resistance and becomes friends with Holdo. It provides some interesting background on the friendship between the two, but it’s unknown if Star Wars IX helmer Abrams has any interest in bringing Holdo back again. Given the amount of characters he’ll have to service in the next adventure, it feels unlikely.’ — Screen Rant
Trailer
Laura Dern – Star Wars: The Last Jedi On Set Interview
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Justin Kelly J.T. Leroy (2018)
‘This movie returns us to the strangely unrewarding story of the “JT LeRoy” literary hoax, recently discussed in Jeff Feuerzeig’s 2016 documentary Author: The JT LeRoy Story. “JT LeRoy” was the pen name, or avatar, or bogus persona created by American author Laura Albert who wrote avowedly autobiographical fiction about a young boy’s experiences of homelessness and sexual abuse – but Albert compulsively posed as the supposedly reclusive and charismatic author on the phone to a growing number of journalists and celebrity fans. Aware that “JT” would have to be produced in person at some stage, she persuaded her sister-in-law Savannah Knoop to pose in a wig and dark glasses for photo ops. This bizarre fake was eventually exposed in 2005 to the embarrassment and rage of many who had been duped, chiefly the actor Asia Argento who had solemnly bought into the phenomenon and directed a dismally bad movie based on one of the JT LeRoy books.’ — Peter Bradshaw
Trailer
Excerpt
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Greta Gerwig Little Women (2019)
‘I found Laura Dern too contemporary (especially the highlighted hair); some of that can’t be blamed on her but on the script (such as when she tells Laurie “you can call me Marmee, everyone does.” Like ma’am not in that day and age would anyone but your daughters be calling you that) but overall the 2019 version isn’t one of my favorites – not dual casting Amy makes her younger years scenes very odd (especially since Florence Pugh has a slightly gravelly, very mature sounding voice so putting her next to a bunch of actual 12 year olds is hilarious), the costuming is all over the place, Timothee Chalamet doesn’t really show the growth that Laurie is supposed to have so he just comes across as a petulant kid the whole film, and the non-linear timeline is confusing for anyone who isn’t familiar with the books.’ — theagonyaunt
Excerpt
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Colin Trevorrow Jurassic World Dominion (2022)
‘The movie promises yet another bigger-than-T. rex apex predator, the Giganotosaurus, destined to do battle with the unlikely underdog — though the duel is partly obscured in the background (been there, done that, I guess) until the arrival of a surprise ally. Nearly all the other species appear designed to prove Crichton’s theory that dinosaurs did not go extinct but became birds. Several of them feature primitive feathers, while others can fly. Fine, but it’s not the kind of evolution audiences are looking for from “Dominion.” Once again, the movie ends with images of dinosaurs mingling with humans, leaving us to wonder when this franchise is ever going to really engage with that idea in a meaningful way.’ — Peter Debruge
Excerpt
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Chancler Haynes Taylor Swift – Bejeweled (2022)
‘Casting Dern in the movie required a simple ask, Swift explained: “I was like, ‘Oscar-winner Laura Dern, hello. I’ve written a script. It’s a one-scene script in which you are going to call me ‘a tired, tacky wench’ and she was like, ‘I’m down.’ Describing Dern as the “coolest,” Swift said directing the actress was “easier than anything I’ve ever done in my life.”’ — Variety
the entirety
Bejeweled (Behind the Scenes with Laura Dern)
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p.s. RIP David Lynch. That’s really hard to believe. And by total and strange coincidence, it’s Laura Dern Day. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Thanks, yes. Lots still to do, but yes! How about a David Lynch love quote today. Windom Earle: ‘Garland, what do you fear most in the world?’ Major Briggs: ‘The possibility that love is not enough’, G. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi. Those were the good old days when students were assigned Barthes books to read. I kind of doubt that’s still a common practice. I’m sure the girls are thinking of throwing themselves at you and your hat, Ben, they’re just shy. ** Steeqhen, It would be a pretty exciting and borderline unbelievable class that would assign that Roussel book. But one can hope. Oops re: your nose. Hopefully it’s dry by now. Oh, sure, I read Rimbaud at 15 and he was my ultimate hero and role model for years. He can be so important to someone young who dreams or even plans to do earth shattering things and is stuck in a world where youthful ambitions are met with eye rolls or worse. I used to take LSD every year on his birthday. I made a pilgrimage to his grave when just out of high school, and I still have a little vial of dirt that I swiped from his grave in a place of honor in my LA apartment. The biography I mentioned is by Graham Robb. What’s your friend’s band like? I hope everybody or nobody died in the season finale depending. ** Lucas, Yeah, shocking, really shocking. I knew he had bad lung problems, but … Really hard to believe, like I said. I don’t know, I don’t think Lynch is a celebrity, or certainly not only. A great artist who almost inexplicably became that famous. Take it really easy, rest up, drink all the right things, and etc., pal. ** James, It’s totally okay and sometimes even better not to totally understand something you’re reading, at least to my tastes. I like books that are books but also drugs. Around here you definitely get a gold star, and your ass is off limits regarding kicks. It wasn’t just you: the blog had weird technical problems going on yesterday for a while. Supposedly malware that has now supposedly been removed. See you, well, on Saturday, no doubt. ** Misanthrope, ‘Stoner’ and ‘Watt’ are both A-okay in my book. And, boy, there hardly be two more different books, to boot. ** jay, Yeah, hard to accept Lynch is dead. It seems so improbable, I don’t know why. I saw him sitting in a cafe (and a legendary cafe, Deux Magots) about two years ago, and he saw me looking at him and nodded sagely. Which was cool. Oh, good, you’re one of those people who can scrape together high quality things at the last ‘moment’. Psst, me too. That will continue to serve you very well. It’s true that the only micro-macro porn I’ve seen involving sex was animation. Have the best Friday that your equipment facilitates. ** SEB BUT IN ALL CAPS BE NICE CLOUDFLARE PLEASE 🦠, Cloudflare seems to have thought you were perfectly acceptable. I’m okay, just busy with stupid visa application stuff, ugh. Thank you ever so much for that backgrounding and fill-in. That’s super interesting and will brace my imminent dive into the subject at hand. Biggest luck you need on the volunteering start. So, how was it? ** HaRpEr, Very sad, yes. I mean, really, he was pretty much the only American visionary and experimentalist filmmaker to manage to seduce otherwise mainstream film audiences and even beyond filmgoers. Everyone else I can think of is essentially a conventional artist with merely stylish ambitions. I remember being so surprised and impressed that ‘Mulholland Drive’ was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. It still seems implausible. Fingers very crossed for the funding. Many more people will always not get you than get you, at least in my experience, and eventually that becomes a kind of badge of honor. Thanks for your read on ‘Emilia Perez’. I’ll let it fade ever more into the ‘don’t bother’ category. ** Darby𓃱, Hi, D. Yeah, I heard the horrible news. Ugh. I am a Throbbing Gristle enjoyer. I was even lucky enough to see them play live. That Thomas Sayre work does look very charismatic and interesting. Awesome that you got to see it up close. The only ways I know to escape a hopeless crush is to write about it because when you put it into words the hopeless aspect can become a lot clearer and more understandable, or, if it’s sexual, to masturbate imagining sex with the hopeless crush until the idea of sex with them becomes boring. I hope your headache is long gone. ** Steve, As I said up above, no, there were actual technical problems with the blog for part of the day yesterday that have supposedly been solved now. It wasn’t just you. Yeah, Lynch, fuck. Oh, thank you a lot for the link to that documentary! Maybe I’ll start my inquiry there. Thank you! ** PL, Yes, indeed! I’m honored that ‘The Sluts’ helped a little. It’s exciting to read you being so excited about the film project! Listen, I still get accused of writing for shock value after all these years. Don’t worry about it. There are unfortunately many, many people who just can’t see writing that’s about difficult to experience things that gives those things their full power as a serious pursuit, and there’s just nothing you can do about it. That reaction used to disappoint me and piss me off, and, for a time, I thought I could make them give up their knee-jerk resistance, but then I realised there’s no way to do that. If they see red, they see red, and there’s no subtlety there to work with. I like Bataille’s work, of course. Personally, I’d recommend starting with his novel ‘The Story of the Eye’. It’s incredible. ** Justin D, Yeah, RIP Lynch, terrible news. Thank you so much about ‘MLT’. That’s so good to hear. My Thursday was just gathering materials for this visa I have to apply for, so it was kind of laborious and stressful, but I got through it, thanks. How did your Friday treat you? ** Cletus, Hey. I’ll look up ‘Pregaming Grief’. Thanks. And, yeah, extremely sucks about Lynch. Commiserations. ** Joe, Thank you, pal. Oh, mm, I would really think that it’s far, far preferable to read David and not listen to someone read him aloud. He’s really a page/writing to reader/brain kind of writer, I think. I think seeing the prose laid out before you is important to his work. Haha, no, I didn’t read the entirety of ‘Bobby BlueJacket’. Well, ‘read’. I did skim/flip through it get the whole story. But, no, the writing was not valuable, I agree, for sure. Understood about you and the Cronenberg. By the time it came out I was already clear in what I thought of Burroughs’ work and what I thought was important about it, so the visualising naturally seemed to greatly weaken it to me. And I must admit I get a little tired of Cronenberg’s insect-y body horror props before too long. Great weekend to you! ** Tyler Ookami, Yeah, re: Lynch. Well, the obvious unrealised project was ‘Ronnie Rocket’ which I think he spent decades hoping/trying to make. I don’t even know if there’s one other filmmaker with Lynch’s singularity and purity of vision making films that have any chance to reach the big audience, middlebrows included, that his work did. ** Okay. Maybe you want to help find your way out of Lynch’s death by enjoying the work he did with Laura Dern. Or maybe you just want to appreciate her work in general. Or something else. See you tomorrow.
Roland Barthes A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments
Now available in North America 
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