The first scene in Wild at Heart has to be one of the most brutal beatings in film history. Sailor Ripley(Nicolas Cage) is attacked by a man with a knife hired by Lula Fortune's(Laura Dern) mother. Accompanied by a metal guitar riff and his girlfriends shrieks, Sailor doesn't even hesitate, but beats his head into a bloody pulp against the marble floor. He then pays her back by pointing his bloody finger over the corpse at Lula's mother Marietta. The close-up shot of Sailor repeatedly smashing the guy's head into the floor is not for the faint of heart, but it certainly gets the point across--don't fuck with Sailor Ripley.
Early test screenings for Wild at Heart did not go well; Lynch estimated that 80 people walked out of the first test screening and 100 in the next.
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