"Desert Hearts": Donna Deitch's b ig gam ble b y Eue S ic u la r There’s a scene in “Desert Hearts” with a line that speaks the tru th of the whole movie, and indeed, even holds the secret o f m aking the m ovie. Vivian Bell, in Reno fo r the first tim e, is wandering the floor o f the casino where her w ould-be lover, Cay, works. Vivian, an up tigh t English professor going through a divorce, is resisting Cay’s attem pts to bring her ou t o f the closet, but she feels, nonethe less, drawn to visit the club. Fascinated, she stops to watch a blonde wom an poised over a slot m achine. The blonde gam bler turns to her and says (in a voice full o f m ysterious sophistication): “ If you do n’t play, you can’t win.” Playing the “ Hungarian gambler,” as this cosm opolitan character is called in the cre dits, is none other than the producer, director, and m ain m otivating force behind "Desert Hearts," Donna Deitch. Deitch spent seven years seeing this film through because she "w anted so badly" to do it her way, indepen dent o f Hollywood tam pering, yet with a look and production quality that could reach mass audiences. Last year, as it finally reached com pletion, Donna described how she came to gam ble on m aking it to the big screen. As she to ld M ichele K ort o f the L A Reader, “ I was really drawn to the central m etaphor of the novel (Jane Rule’s Desert o f the H eart, on w hich the film is based), com paring the risk and gam bling in Reno to what happened between these two women. It seems to apply to m ost people — there’s som ething we re all afraid to take a risk on, to make a bet on, take a chance with. The film itself was a bet fo r me, because I never knew if I could do it until it was done.” Tocjay, it looks like Donna Deitch has won, and won big. The film has played to packed houses in all the cities where it’s opened so far, and in its New York debut, Desert Hearts cam e w ithin $20 o f breaking the theater’s box office record for its first week run. And, significantly, the work is com pletely intact as D eitch m ade it Early on, Deitch saw that no studio w ould really put her in charge o f the project: years later, putting the finished pro duct up fo r bids on distribution rights, she stipulated that no changes were to be made. Several prestigious com panies wanted to handle her feature, and Samuel Goldwyn C om pany has been doing a m ajor prom o tional push in festivals and the media since late last fall. So, a believable, well-m ade les bian rom ance w ithout a com prom ising end ing is now playing at a theater near you, or will be soon. As Jane Rule declared in her in terview w ith J u s t O u t “ Donna has perform ed a m iracle.” D eitch’s m iracle began in the late 1970’s when she m et som eone at a party whom she to ld about wanting to make a film about a love relationship between tw o women. That som eone loaned her Jane Rule's novel, w hich D eitch read seven tim es. She then w rote to Rule in Canada asking to option the film rights to her book. Rule replied “ instantly," saying that she had a good feeling about Deitch; she sold her the rights, at nom i nal cost, which she had earlier refused to sell to m ajor studios. As luck would have it* the tw o were able to meet soon afterward when Rule m ade a rare trip to the Southwest. There in the desert, the two wom en talked. Deitch showed Rule her earlier film s, and a friend ship began which was to sustain Deitch throug h the bleakest tim es in the film m aking process. Donna Deitch is a San Francisco native now living in L A Her early m odel for the H ungarian gam bler role may well have been her m other, who she says "was always pretty 10 big on the idea o f rising to the occasion — because she did. She cam e to this country fro m Hungary when she was 19 and went fro m w orking in a sewing factory to being a successful dress designer. She died in 1974, but the m em ory o f her is still pretty intense.” D eitch m ajored in painting at GC Berkeley, “ where it was hip and political," and had a hard tim e at first adjusting to the Berm uda shorts atm osphere at U C IA where she de cided to enter the graduate film program in 1969. D eitch and a friend form ed a special effects com pany called Latent Image while she was at GCLA, and she left school for a tim e to w ork as a film editor. In 1975, she com pleted "W om an To W oman," a docum entary on hookers, housewives, and other m others," a student film w hich got her a degree from GCLA, and made it as a com m ercial picture. Deitch made the film for $20,000, repaid her investors, and supported herself on its proceeds fo r a tim e, not a com m on feat am ong first-tim e independent film m akers. For a few years Deitch directed the Social and Public A rt Resource Center in Venice, CA, and in 1978 she made a short docum entary, “ The Great Wall o f Los Angeles," about a m ural the Center sponsored. She then got a grant from the National E ndow m ent for the Arts to do a film on her friend, the photographer Im ogen C unnigham . B ut then along cam e Jane Rule’s Desert o f the H eart, and Deitch was hooked on the dream o f a future film . In her interview with J u s t O ut, Donna Deitch discussed the lucky breaks, calculated risks and missed bets that went into m aking Desert Hearts. One chance she did not seem to want to take was a dis cussion o f her own sexual preference. (As she to ld Steve Warren o f the B ay Area Re porter, m ost writers outside San Francisco were “ to o polite to ask,” ‘sm iling disarm ingly’ as she fielded his question.) Perhaps her devotion to this love story speaks fo r itself, but Deitch insisted that she prefers not to shift the focus from the film to herself. The film ’s lead actresses are certainly fair gam e. D eitch is still “ in contact (w ith them ] a lo t — they’re very interested in what’s hap pening with the film ." Both are avowedly heterosexual, yet they played a m ost convinc ing love scene in the movie. Asked if there was any im provisation here, Deitch claim ed she to o k few chances on th a t “ I choreo graphed it It’s all in the scrip t” Each kiss and caress? “ Yes. Well, I can’t say we planned each one " She went on to recite the order o f m oves w hich Helen Shaver (as Vivian) and Patricia Charbonneau (Cay Rivers) per form ed in bed, one sequence at a tim e, about ten tim es each, before the camera. To en courage a feeling o f intim acy, this film ing was done on a closed set (w ith only the actresses, D eitch, and three other crew m em bers pre s e n t) and Deitch saved it until the second to last day o f the m onth-long shooting schedule "because I wanted them to know each other well and to becom e m ore com fortable with th a t” How do they feel seeing themselves in the love scene? "At first it was a bit shocking. I guess nobody knew how long it would seem on the screen. But now they’re happy with the results." Casting Helen Shaver and Patricia Char bonneau together was key to the success of the love story. Deitch found Patricia firs t know ing from her photograph that she would suit the part o f Cay as Deitch im agined her. Helen’s name cam e up repeatedly in conver sations Deitch had with casting directors, and when Shaver read opposite Charbonneau, there was a special chem istry between them. As D eitch told Michele Kort, “ Som ething clicked. Patricia felt it too. At a certain point in one o f the scenes, she took Helen’s hand and kissed it com pletely spontaneously. At dinner that n ig h t I said to Patricia, ‘Well, that was pretty surprising the way you kissed Helen’s hand,’ and she said, I did whaOV She had no m em ory o f it" Helen Shaver had the challenge o f visibly show ing the personal transform ation Vivian goes through as she struggles with her at traction fo r Cay. Deitch related, “ In the novel, there’s a continuous inner m onologue that describes the changes in the characters' lives. And I d id n ’t want to use a narrative voice-over. I ju st felt it would be too heavy- handed in this particular case, so there had to be these other ways to show Vivian’s transfor m ation. So her hair changes, her clothing changes, even her m akeup changes, and He len brought a lot to the character to describe th a t internal change. In the opening scene, fo r instance, getting o ff the train, Helen hunched her shoulders, then gradually throug h the film you see m ore and more relaxation in her body. And you have to re m em ber, we shoot the scenes out of sequence — m ost fiction film s have to, in order to save on the budget — so Helen was keeping this going even w ithout the co n tin u ity’’ The budget and the shooting schedule gave D eitch som e o f her toughest breaks. Looking back on it, she feels that 31 days was to o sho rt to make the film (“ with each scene, we either go t it or we didn’t; there was virtually no going back another day to re-do” ) while tw o and a half years fundraising is a never- again proposition fo r her. Raising the money was draining, w ith alm ost the only bright spots com ing “ when I got the checks.” Other than those brief m om ents, Deitch did have a stroke o f providence with taking a friend’s suggestion that she visit a hypnotherapist when she had com e down with the flu just before having to meet a group o f potential investors at a party in New York. The calm she had felt in the hypnotherapist’s office returned when she had to do her pitch at this gathering and later ones in other cities. A sking $ 15,000 or m ore per investm ent D eitch networked with such celebrities as G loria Steinem , Stockard Channing (who had previously helped fund Woman to W oman,) ' and Lily Tom lin. Their names appeared in prom o tion al m aterials sent with invitations to prospective investors. "M ost people who in vested were wom en, and a large num ber were lesbians, although the single largest in vestm ent cam e from a man who happens to be gay." D ifferent pitches worked best in diffe rent places. In New York, it was art; in L A , m oney: and in San Francisco, politics. A t one point, D eitch’s investors gave her a vote o f confidence which allowed her to raise the stakes beyond the $600,000 goal she had orig in a lly se t W hen legalities required her to offer each investor the chance to withdraw th e ir money, she sent letters with a personal appeal to give her m ore tim e, and “ not one of them pulled o u t" Deitch went on to raise $1.5 m illio n total (still a shoestring by Hollywood feature standards). D eitch had w ritten the first three drafts of the screenplay herself, and she read 130 screenplays by wom en in looking for a scriptw riter. After raising $600,000, she hired Natalie C ooper o f Oakland, CA, “ the best scriptw riter I k n o w . . . [w ith ] a wonderful ear" fo r dialogue. Deitch and Cooper became very close in the course o f developing the story, first visiting all the locations together, after w hich C ooper wrote her first draft in ten weeks. D eitch flew to O akland m any weekends to confer on this and the many drafts that followed. Jane Rule encouraged free adaptation o f her story. Actresses read ing Cay’s first scene, a creation w hich takes only its spirit fro m the book, called it "the best entrance they’d ever read,” said Deitch. (I w on’t give the scene away, but fo r those who w onder how they pulled it off, it was all film ed on a m oving flatbed truck.) A nother im portant influence on the film was Audra Lindley, w ho played Frances, Cay’s surrogate m other. This part expanded when Audra too k the role, and together with D eitch, Lindley wrote the only scene in the film not scripted by Natalie Cooper, where Frances and Vivian drink bourbon. Lindley s presence in “ Desert Hearts” cam e about purely because she was interested in the m aterial; at this po int in her career, she is beyond m any bread and butter considera tio ns w hich she had to make while raising five children as a single parent In a stroke o f fortune, both fo r the film ’s production and its budget, a to p Hollywood ed itor cam e to w ork on the film using an innovative technique which “ saves an incred ible am ount o f tim e." Bob E stin’s m ethod is to transfer the film footage to videotape and edit the m aterial that way; his com pany was looking to do a feature ju st when Deitch was in the m arket fo r an editor, and the ir partner ship turned ou t well. As editor, Estrin chose the period m usic in the film , including songs by Patsy Cline, Buddy Holly and Johnny Ray. E diting began after shooting was over. W ith the videotape transfer, the flow o f the film quickly becam e clear. One problem s h o t Helen’s shower scene, was worked out throug h a special e ffe c t The water would only com e ou t cold during film ing, so the consequently short scene was lengthened by ‘step-printing’ each fram e several tim es. Was the resulting look, then, a ‘happy accident’? “ N ot exa ctly. . . ” D eitch also voiced m isgiv ings about a w ardrobe decision. Cay’s boss at the casino, w ho is also unrequitedly in love w ith her, is dressed all in black at a wedding party where he dances possessively with Cay w hile Vivian looks on. D eitch adm its that this costum e on Darell (Dean B utler) is a bit m uch: “ He’s really not evil, ju st pathetic." Such details are distracting, as are some disjunctures in character developm ent which m ay have resulted from m issing scenes, but overall, Desert Hearts is one o f the m ost w in ning love stories this w riter has ever seen. D eitch acknowledges the strong turnou t the film has received from lesbians and gays, and also hopes it w ill w in straight audiences. “ I want this film to be a com m unication tool. It’s m ade so anyone w atching w ill be rooting for the tw o o f them to get to g e th e r... I wanted to em phasize the relationship rather than focus ing on negative things like, ‘W hat about her job?’ " Perhaps such issues can appear in a sequel, but Donna D eitch’s future plans are undecided. “ I’m busy getting this film launched fo r now,” she said last m onth, but added that she does want to stay in features (“ I like the control you have") and w ould love to w ork again with the crew she had on Desert Hearts'.’ And the feeling seems m utual. As Natalie Cooper, who at last report was w orking on a Raquel W elch re-write, once remarked, such dedication and integrity as D onna’s are rare in her business; she felt she had to jo in Deitch in this venture, despite its sm all budget and big challenges. • A t press tim e. Desert Hearts is slated to begin its com m ercial run in P ortland on M ay 9th at the KOIN Center. In o u r June issue, lo o k fo r d etails on the upcom ing Lesbian/G ay Pride film series at the H orthest Film & Video Center. A lso in June, docum entaries Harvey M ilk and Before Stonewall return to C inem a 21. Just O ut, May. 19 ¿