Director under fire for debut film
Amputation film bombs, leaves author gloomy
By Patricia Bibby Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK — Jennifer Lynch just might be a victim of her own last name.
Raised on the set of her father David's "Eraserhead" and with those who were the vanguard of avant-garde, she was practically fated to be a filmmaker of creepy proportions.
And on that count, her debut film, "Boxing Helena," does not disappoint.
Nick is a gifted surgeon obsessed with a woman named Helena. When she caustically rebuffs him, he amputates her legs and then her arms — boxing her — in order to keep her from pushing him away. It's a film so macabre that even David Lynch declined to make it.
"He said it scared him too much," says Jennifer Lynch, drawing on a Mariboro over coffee at a posh cafe in a Manhattan hotel. "And that's not something you want David Lynch saying before you're about to make your first film!"
Maybe she should have taken a cue from dad.
Making "Boxing Helena" was fraught with hardship, headache and heartache. And protests. And nasty reviews. And dismal box-office returns — after two weeks in the theaters, it was ranked 30th.
After losing one boyfriend and three stars, Lynch — at the tender age of 25 — sounds like she doesn't ever again want to yell "Cut!"
"I'm writing a book," she says resignedly.
"It's going to take some time to get my life back together ... Everything went to pot."
If Lynch sounds weary, perhaps it's because she's been in the midst of this maelstrom for six years, culminating with an intensive week of interviews to hype her movie.
It wasn't always this bleak. In fact, in the beginning, it probably was quite heady.
Lynch was 19 years old and lounging around with Sam Rami, the actor and director, when a friend called Rami saying he was looking for a female writer to flesh out, so to speak. a film idea by
many of which complained bitterly about the violence, albeit bloodless on the screen, against Helena. One group chanted "Two, four, six, eight, it's not sexy to amputate." "Cutting off arms and legs is not love," said a representative for the Women's Action Coalition in Los Angeles.
With screenplay in hand, Lynch and Caland shipped it around but had a tough
Philippe Caland. Rami got the two together and a screenplay was born.
"It's going to take some time to get my life back together... Everything went
This so-called notion of feminism probably would baffle some women's groups,
to pot." Jennifer Lynch "Boxing Helena" director
"I had grown up with a very intense obsession with the Venus de Milo... And I felt really imperfect and broken as a kid because of my club feet," Lynch says. "(The film concept) was an interesting and very brave way to see something missing. And I love the idea that (the doctor) in his dream sees her as something he can't whittle down to nothing. She's always going to be above him. I thought, 'Yeah, damn right!'"
time finding a studio. Then Carl Mazzocone decided to make "Boxing Helena," the first movie produced by his new film company, Main Line Pictures.
Barely in her 20s, Lynch easily was seduced by the millions of dollars tossed her way for the movie, and she charmed studio executives. She is a woman with a vigorous handshake who speaks with a confident, fast,
staccato rhythm. She has an easy laugh and a look-you-hard-in-the-eye sincerity. You want to believe her, and Main Line believed she could pull it off.
The next few years could be called the Hollywood Shuffle as various stars attached to the movie dropped out. First, Madonna sent her regrets. Then, Kim Basinger reneged on the eve of production. Mazzocone sued Basinger for breach of oral contract and won; Basinger was ordered to pay $7.4 million and has since filed for bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, Ed Harris, the original doctor got tired of waiting and left to work on other
projects.
Even after the film was in the can, the movie was dogged. The Motion Picture Association of America kept giving it an NC17 rating because of the sexually explicit scenes. Lynch, contractually bound to deliver an R rating, returned twice to the editing room to cut the offending parts.
When it was all over, the pre-release buzz was a publicist's dream: The ratings controversy, along with the lawsuit, made it one of the most anticipated films this fall.
The reviews, however, were a publicist's nightmare.
"A gruesome tale of obsessive love and mutilation, it's less a work of art, however, than a luridly stylish expression of female self-loathing," wrote the Washington Post's Rita Kemplem. "What Ms. Lynch has given us is a prettied-up snuff movie."
The Associated Press' Dolores Barclay railed, "This movie lacks the sophistication or cleverness to be a satire or even high camp."
"Devoid of wit and irony, the film becomes merely a simple, blunt expression of extreme fear of women," wrote Kevin Thomas in the Los Angeles Times.
Oddly, Lynch was surprised that the movie generated any attention, much less wrath. As the young daughter of a famous filmmaker who got a studio to put up $4.5 million for a sexually charged film, the picture was bound to make headlines.
But she is stoic about the fuss the movie has provoked.
"It's all lessons learned," she says. "I was lucky enough to be able speak, in the form of the movie, and now it's my job to listen."
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September 24,1993 Kyou • ENTERTAINMENT'93
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