The Pirate Of Hearts Johnny Depp FC (Page 66)

GENERAL INFORMATION

Freshly arrived from New York City, Axel Blackmar (Johnny Depp) plans to stay only long enough to be best man at the marriage of Uncle Leo (Jerry Lewis) and his new bride. But he soon discovers that desert life has its charms... and then finds out that his new lover's intriguing daughter has even more.

Director: Emir Kusturica

Cast: Johnny Depp, Jerry Lewis, Faye Dunaway, Lili Taylor, Vincent Gallo, Paulina Porizkova

Awards & Nominations:

1993 BERLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL: 
Silver Berlin Bear (Special Jury Prize): Emir Kusturica (Won) 
Golden Berlin Bear: Emir Kusturica (Nominated)

ABOUT THIS MOVIE

The first cut of the film was about 4 hours long.Emir Kusturica gave Johnny Depp a copy of the version. 

The backing music used in the 'dinner party' scene between Axel (Depp), Paul, Elaine and Grace is a piece by jazz musician Django Reinhardt. The same piece was used in the 'river dance' scene in Chocolat. where it is performed on guitar by Johnny Depp 

 

Quotes from Johnny Depp:

"I remember when we were first in rehearsals. It wasn't even really rehearsals - it was Emir [Kusturica] and I and Jerry [Lewis]. One time, Jerry came. We were talking in an apartment in LA. I think it was Vladir Divat's flat. And I was learning to speak all these words in Inupik, in Eskimo. And Jerry said, 'Oh no, we don't need to do that! We don't need to learn the Eskimo language; we just make it up! We just invent it as we go along.'"
--Johnny Depp
Arizona Dream DVD Interview
2002

"I remember Emir [Kusturica] came to my house and we were sitting around, eating, talking, and I said, 'Look, I found a pig. I bought a pig. In Tucson.' And he was looking at the pig. And then he left, and he called me 20 minutes later, he says, 'Bring this pig to work tomorrow. Bring the pig to the shooting.' Yeah, he said bring the pig to work. Brought the pig to work, and he had Jerry chasing the pig."
--Johnny Depp
Arizona Dream DVD Interview
2002

"[Faye Dunaway] really cares about the work, and she's so focused on the work. And I think sometimes that depth of caring, that profound caring can be misinterpreted, you know? Like it's ego, or it's this or that - but really she just cares about her character, her work... She was right there. She worked hard."
--Johnny Depp
Arizona Dream DVD Interview
2002

"[Emir Kusturica] is capable of such amazing things. Amazing imagery; amazing substance."
--Johnny Depp
Arizona Dream DVD Interview
2002

"I remember making the film. It was the film I made after Edward Scissorhands, and everybody in Hollywood and the movie industry is always concerned about how much money a movie's going to make in the box office, and how many theatres it's in, and how popular it becomes. And it's refreshing to know now what I knew then, which really is that: Who cares about the numbers? You know? When you're able to, first, experience something like this, and live through something like this, and be involved with something as magical as this... I mean, you forget about how much a movie made in the box office."
--Johnny Depp
Arizona Dream DVD Interview
2002

"Emir [Kusturica] is not your typical director. He's something else entirely, he's more ethereal. With him, it's collaboration in the best sense. I'd dive off the Eiffel Tower for that guy."
--Johnny Depp
Elle Magazine, UK
1994

"With Kusturica, I discovered freedom."
--Johnny Depp
Studio Magazine
2000

Quotes from others:

"I met [Johnny Depp] on the Kustarica movie, Arizona Dream. He's really genuine, and he's a great friend and very supportive. His acting is quite phenomenal. It's very fluid and very effortless."
--Faye Dunaway
"Famous" (Biography Channel)
2004

"There is something cool about [Johnny Depp], cooler than he realizes. He thinks he's cool because of the hair and the clothes and the junked-up cars, but it's what he really is that's cool. He's a very complicated kid and he pays the price - he feels the feelings, and it's not easy for him."
--Vincent Gallo
Elle Magazine, UK
1994

Edited by kikyo - 26 March 2012 at 1:27pm

The movie Arizona Dream gives a great account of how dangerous it can be to be caught up in your dreams and the little worlds those dreams can create and if you don't move beyond, you're dead alive. The only character that seems to be able to step out of his own little world and capable of reflecting is Axel...There are certain scenes in Arizona Dream that show things about Johnny Depp as a performer that I never would have suspected. In this film he stepped into a realm shared by characters in the films of Fellini and Brunuel. It pleases me that he can do art house as fantastically as this and do mainstream as well, although I do not entirely approve of the stuff that is too mainstream.His character is beautifully complex, he is a kook, but a sexy kook, and he is everything else besides. The other performances are also wonderful...but Depp 's performance isoutstanding in the movie..outshining all must say


Edited by mahi12 - 18 February 2012 at 10:43am

Arizona Dream could ba a very good movie but i don't the that love triagle in the film..mother and daughter in love with the same man  Faye Dunaway is a lot older to depp they look like mother son pairing ..which i don't like at all..moreover glad the version i saw that rubbishn scene was deleted just read about it and all i could sat yuck ..one paring wrong then such scenes .. Johnny Depp is awesome in the movie ..Depp was a young talent in 1993.The role of young Axel is just the right part for the man who picks unconventional roles...and not to forget he is just so cute and hot and dreamy in the movie  Thanks for the posting the pics ..but seriously, cannot.leave .aptop.now ..need to keep gushing ...died haye

Edited by sidra08 - 18 February 2012 at 10:29am

Arizona Dream...The word "dream" comes up at least a dozen times in this movie, characters recounting dreams, or the film seamlessly showing them on screen, and appropriately it begins with a ten minute dream sequence(You only know it's a dream sequence because you're told it is afterwards), of an Eskimo in the snowy wilderness, catching a strange fish with both eyes on the same side, the Eskimo later becomes sick and is nursed back to health by his wife. From there we meet the dreamer Depp, who tags fish in New York, a job he loves because, "Most people think I count fish, but I don't. I look at them. I look at their souls and read their dreams and then I let them into my dreams." Then aspiring actor cousin Vinccent Gallo shows up, and asks Depp to come back to Arizona with him for his Uncle Jerry Lewis's wedding. Depp goes back and accepts a job selling Cadillacs, his uncles dream for them, until he meets an eccentric mother/daughter pair, the suicidal turtle obsessed accordion playing Lili Taylor and her vivacious, flighty, sexually aggressive mother, the latter Depp becomes immediately enamored with. Depp and Dunaway begin a very matter of fact and all consuming relationship (he leaves his job and uncles house and refuses to leave). After hearing of Dunaway's dreams to fly as a young girl, Depp decides and spends most of the movie, attempting to build her a flying machine. Meanwhile, Lili Taylor is sabotaging the machine, and Vincent Gallo is busy practicing his acting chops ..

i agree even i didn't like the love triangle and also Depp Dunaway pairing ...and Depp what i can say about him in this movie he is  so young and handsome .. his first major role after Edward Scissorhands

Edited by kikyo - 18 February 2012 at 10:31am

Life can be hard work, especially when you try to make a living counting fish, like Johnny Depp's characterin Arizona Dream .. Axel, or selling cars, like Leo Sweetie (Jerry Lewis) and Paul Leger (Vincent Gallo), or trying to fly, like Elaine Stalker (Faye Dunaway). . In "Arizona Dream", Elaine tries to take off anyway, simply because it's her dream. Emir Kusturica more or less did the same thing, trying to make an impossible movie about Eskimos, a Cadillac dealership and the Man in the Moon. "Arizona Dream" isn't exactly a polished work of art. It's more a ragbag of ideas. But then, these ideas are among the finest you will find. So it may be a ragbag, but it's a ragbag bursting with energy and passion and fine lines and acting, as good as it gets. . Needless to say, Johnny Depp makes a great confused youngster, Vincent Gallo, you've never seen him so healthy-looking and clean-cut, and chances are you won't ever again. Lili Taylor has her Parker Posey moment as pretty, amazing, self-destructive Grace, and if you don't know that's a compliment, you don't know anything. Towards the end, there is a scene that's literally to die for. Riding with his dying uncle Leo, Axel looks out the back window as the ambulance speeds away from Paul and Millie, Leo's gorgeous twenty-something bride (Paulina Porizkova). Billy Idol is singing "In the Deathcar". Caught in the nowhere land between life and death, Leo mumbles: "I gotta start climbing. It's a long way, Axel. It's a long way to the moon."

 Arizona  dream ...some movies only work if we let ourselves carry away by them. They present a surrealistic imagination world that comes from the mind of their creators. They are hard to watch, especially when they mix real characters that live their lives sometimes awaken, or inside one big dream or their own dreams.

Axel Blackmar (Johnny Depp) is a dreamer, and an unusual example of personal choices. His parents died and he went to New York, to work with fish. He could have sold cars with his uncle Leo (Jerry Lewis), but he's there, talking with that monotonous voice about what he does. Maybe it was a simple dream, where an Eskimo catches a fish with two eyes on the same side, and tells his kids to go out with their dog so he and his wife can…And the kid with the dog allow to see an orange balloon that seems to go from Alaska to New York, where Alex sleeps in a truck. "Wake up, Columbus", the words of his mother and Axel's hope to find something in the land already discovered by that man.

Alongside fish flying through the air, we join Axel to be the best man of his uncle's wedding. With his friend Paul Leger (Vincent Gallo), the untiring chats go from movies to philosophies about cakes, pies and bananas. Paul is an actor: "I'm having a great performance on Friday", he says. "It's an audition", Axel says to humiliate him. The truth is that it's not even an audition. This stuff lived by Axel is a story for us, but is a personal rediscovering and rethought of decisions in life for the character. When he sees Elaine (Faye Dunaway) he feels something strong, but doesn't know how to call it. Days later he becomes the lover of a woman decades older than him. Elaine's daughter, Grace (Lili Taylor) is also there, and it doesn't goes long until Axel finds himself in a crossroad between the heart of two women, that as he describes them, are "too similar and big to be in the same world".

David Atkin's story and screenplay comes plagued of phrases that could come out of a lunatic's mouth, but they fit in the film's context and twist your head at maximum. "I've got to climb…It's a long way to the moon"; "I'm gonna live forever until I become a turtle…They have infinite lives", besides scenes of well known movies in crucial moments. And what music (Goran Bregovic)! And what editing (Andrija Zafranovic)! And what cinematography (Vilko Filac)! And what director! Known for his originality, recognized director Emir Kusturica puts his own signature to his movie, collaborating in the story he must have dreamed a little to; giving life to the dream with his flying camera, full of unexpected turns and in love of its surroundings. What he achieves is greater words, although not everybody could understand it, and, for that matter, appreciate it.

And his actors…Jerry Lewis in a total comprehension of his character, and so involved in his work that you wouldn't believe it. .  Lili Taylor is an  interesting character here. The silent daughter that could be crazy but no one can really tell. With imagination and freedom, Taylor makes her character believable and not as overacted as it might be. Vincent Gallo, a wonderful performance his fans shouldn't miss.

But Depp…How can I explain? I've said it a lot, surely, but I will repeat it. He's like a magician, but not with the cards and the hat and the tricks. He is with his face, his looks, his way of talking, his perfection of movement…But it's not really something technical: "in the acting world, Johnny Depp is a magician". I'm sure he still has plenty of that for us, but here is where he let us know first.

In one scene, Vincent Gallo's character Paul, an actor, requests that no one touches his face, because it's important. "Do you think they touch Brando's face? Do you think they touch Pacino's, De Niro's? Do you think they touch Johnny Depp's face? I don't know then, but not know; and if they did before, they shouldn't have.