Arizona Dream

Infobox_Film
name = Arizona Dream


caption = DVD cover for Arizona Dream
director = Emir Kusturica
writer = David Atkins (screenplay)
Emir Kusturica
starring = Johnny Depp
Jerry Lewis
Faye Dunaway
producer = Claudie Ossard
Yves Marmion
music = Goran Bregović
Iggy Pop
cinematography = Vilko Filač
editing = Andrija Zafranović
distributor = Warner Bros.
released = flagicon|France France 6 January 1993
USA 9 September 1994
runtime = 142 min
language = English
budget =
imdb_id = 0106307

"Arizona Dream" is a 1993 film directed by Emir Kusturica and starring Johnny Depp, Jerry Lewis and Faye Dunaway.

Plot

Axel (Johnny Depp) sees a dream about an Eskimo who caught a rare halibut and brings it back to his family in the igloo. Axel's actor dreaming cousin Paul (Vincent Gallo), coaxes Axel, from his job tagging fish in New York City to Arizona to attend his Uncle Leo's (Jerry Lewis) trophy wedding to a much younger woman (Paulina Porizkova). His uncle tries to persuade him to stay permanently and take over the family business of selling Cadillacs. Axel resists at first, but he decides to give it a try. There he ecounters two strange women: Elaine (Faye Dunaway), a woman who always had a dream of building a flying machine, and Grace (Lili Taylor), Elaine's stepdaughter who has been jealous of Elaine and dreams to kill herself and be reincarnated as a turtle. Axel starts lusting for Elaine and Axel decides to help her make her dreams come true. As Axel and Elaine build the machine day by day, Grace starts destroying the contraption. Axel then rebuilds. Leo and Paul arrive at Elaine and Grace's house to encourage Axel to come back, but Elaine threatens them with a shotgun. Axel and Elaine complete the machine and test it, but it crashes in a tree. Axel then decides to put both Elaine and Grace out of their misery. He starts with Grace, but Axel can't do it. Grace then has the idea to play Russian Roulette with him. Axel is scared at first, but when it his turn comes for the second time, he pulls the trigger multiple times. The gun doesn't fire. Axel, Elaine and Grace come to Paul's talent show. He decides to play Cary Grant's role from "North by Northwest" with the famous crop duster scene. Paul receives the score of 1. Uncle Leo's fiancee then approaches them to say there's something wrong with Leo. Axel realizes that Uncle Leo is dying and calls an ambulance. Uncle Leo passes away. Few months later, the day before Elaine's birthday Axel and Paul finally comes back to Elaine and Grace's house. Elaine is mad at Axel for not contacting her, but she forgives him. The next day on Elaine's birthday, Elaine is given an airplane as a present. As Axel, Elaine, Grace and Paul celebrate Elaine's birthday on a stormy night, Axel privately tells Grace that Elaine has changed and that he is not in love with her anymore. He makes a promise with Grace to go to Alaska. Axel, Elaine, Grace and Paul talk about how they want to die. As the others go to sleep, Grace quietly goes outside and frees her turtles. Axel and Elaine see her as they rush outside. Grace shoots herself and a lightening bolt destroys Elaine's airplane. Sometime after Grace's death, Axel is living miserably. He breaks into Uncle Leo's Cadillac store (which has been thrashed) at night and goes to sleep on top of a Cadillac. The film ends with Axel and Uncle Leo as Eskimos. They catch the halibut as they talk about it and let it go. As it flies towards the sunrise.

Production

Many of the Arizona scenes were filmed in Douglas, Arizona.

Box Office

Although filmed in 1991 and released in Europe in 1993, it was not released in the U.S. until September 9, 1994. Its total U.S. gross, in three theaters, was $112,547 in limited release. [ [http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=arizonadream.htm Entry on boxofficemojo.com] , updated on January 4, 2007]

Censorship

Although shown theatrically in the U.S. at its full length, the TV prints and VHS versions run 119 minutes.

DVD and HD DVD Releases

This film has yet to be released on any format other than VHS in the U.S., although Studio Canal has released the film in Europe on both DVD [ [http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=12612 dvdtimes.com review] ] and HD DVD.

oundtrack

Trivia

*It features a recreation of the Sherman & Sherman song, "Doll On A Music Box" originally from "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang".
*In an angry February 2006 voice mail message to the producer of a documentary of her life, which was widely circulated on the Internet, Faye Dunaway complained that she "was brilliant in" "Arizona Dream" (which in the message she refers to as "the Kusturica film") and that the film was "not well sold in this country" despite that it was "the hit of all Europe and Cannes." She was unhappy that the documentary made no mention of her work in this film or in "Don Juan DeMarco", which also co-starred Johnny Depp.cite web | title=WorldofWonder.net item on and recording of Faye Dunaway voicemail | url=http://worldofwonder.net/archives/2006/Mar/20/dont_fuck_with_me_fellas.wow | accessmonthday=July 27 | accessyear=2008]

References

External links

*imdb title|id=0106307