Dangerous Obsessions: Jennifer Lynch conceived the film as an exploration of lust. Photo: Maximum Film/Alamy Stock Photo
The late actor Julian Sands was an artist of great range and subtlety, as comfortable playing Fincher and Soderbergh films as he appeared in less complex guest villain roles. There has been much more to his career than playing his hair down alongside Helena Bonham Carter in E. M. Forster's adaptation of A Room with a View. However, there was one painting in his distinguished career that he and everyone involved in it could have forgotten.
There are films that fail and there are films that fail. The former are usually forgotten after a couple of months, while the latter are talked about for decades, as a cautionary tale or the punch line of an anecdote. Most of the time, they combine directorial (or celebrity) arrogance with massively inflated budgets and inevitable box office failure: think of Heaven's Gate, Cats, or Battlefield Earth. And then there are films that, while equally unsuccessful, are ridiculed for entirely different reasons, deservedly or not. Sometimes they enjoy a second life as cult films, but more often they remain unloved and unwatched, except for their very existence. However, few directors later compare their film to Hitler and say that even a dictator deserves love.
But then «Boxing Helena» by Jennifer Lynch is a completely unconventional picture. Since its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January 1993, it has drawn both misunderstanding and contempt. Its dark and twisted premise of a surgeon amputating the limbs of the object of his lust so he can keep her prisoner in a box has been heavily criticized for both veracity and taste.
However, the on-screen horror is hardly comparable to a behind-the-scenes drama in which the film not only became one of the most talked about projects in Hollywood for all the wrong reasons, but also hinted at the dark psychological trauma underlying the life of one of the most famous directors in the industry.
When Jennifer Lynch was born in April 1968, her father, film director David Lynch, didn't do what the proudest parents would do: open champagne or break the good news to all his friends and family. Instead, he had nightmares and sought to channel his primal fears into his art. His daughter was born with severely twisted legs, requiring corrective surgery, and Lynch himself was hardly a natural or comfortable parent. His first wife Penny later said: “He was definitely a reluctant father, but very loving. Hey, I was pregnant when we got married. We both resisted.»
'Well, that sounds terrible': both Sands and Fenn intervened when other actors left their roles. : Moviestore Collection Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo
Lynch grew up in a troubled neighborhood in Philadelphia, which her father later called an atmosphere of «violence, hatred and filth». From an early age, she was involved in her father's first feature film, the surreal horror film Eraserhead, which, by portraying a man who has to take care of an ugly child, had autobiographical overtones for both Lynch and his daughter. It might have been cathartic for the director, but Lynch couldn't absorb them until she got older. She bore no grudge against her father, later saying, “The memory [of creating Eraserhead] is one of the most formative of my life. That's why I feel at home on set. This is truly my happiest place.»
She subsequently worked on the crew of the 1986 film Blue Velvet, considered by many to be David Lynch's masterpiece, and later noted that there was no strict discipline in her upbringing. “I was not one of those kids who had a curfew. It just didn't happen when I was young. When we finished doing what we were doing, if you're tired, it's time to sleep.»
However, she was reading poetry one evening in Los Angeles and was approached by film producer Philip Caland. He told her, «I'm interested in a woman writing my story. It's called «Boxing with Elena» and it's about a man who cuts off a woman's arms and legs and puts her in a box because he loves her.» Lynch's response was low-key: «Well, that sounds terrible.»
Sherilyn Fenn in Boxing Helena By Alamy
Nevertheless, Caland persisted, and Lynch was amazed at the opportunity to take a potentially creepy subject and turn it into something that could be both poetic and cathartic. As she said, “I asked him if I could take this idea and bring in some of the associations I have with what it actually represents… my grandmother had a replica of the Venus de Milo in her living room, and… it’s always amazed. me the way people looked at Venus.
“They didn’t see her broken, they saw her beautiful. And it really had a huge impact on me. I thought that I was broken and that maybe someday someone would find me beautiful. So it's a representation of a flawed boy who was in an obsessive situation who was trying to recreate from his point of view the only thing that didn't amaze him and leave him was this armless beautiful woman.»
While Lynch was writing what became the script for Boxing Helena, she was involved in a near-fatal car accident that nearly paralyzed her and led to her having three separate spinal surgeries years later to enable her to walk. again. If before she didn't have enough injuries to direct her into a film, now she has written a script that she called «a fairy tale».
She was not going to stage it, having no previous experience in this field, but the combination of her surname and what seemed to be the poetic power of history attracted Madonna, who was then at the height of her fame. The singer and occasional actress agreed to star in the project, but pulled it out shortly before filming began in late December 1990 because she wanted to star in Evita instead. Although Lynch said «I thought only five people would see this and I was hoping three would like it», his producers hoped that the attractive star would ensure that he would return what was originally planned as a $9.6 million budget. .
Enter Kim Basinger, who was a bona fide star at the time thanks to her recent appearance as the lead in Tim Burton's Batman. She was no stranger to exciting productions: she famously made a name for herself by starring in Adrian Lyne's erotic drama 9 1/2 Weeks, and seemed to enjoy the opportunity to appear in an equally provocative picture. She signed on in February 1991, but asked for changes to the script, which mostly consisted of making the eponymous Helena «less of a bitch», according to the film's co-producer and Main Line Pictures president Carl Mazzocone. . It didn't help that she changed agents and that, according to Lynch, this new powerhouse «refused to shake my hand and instead patted my head and said to my face, 'She's not going to be in your movie, baby.' camper».
Agent Basinger was right, and the actress dropped out of the project. However, Mazzocone «just wasn't going to say 'shut up and take it',» as Lynch put it. The producer sued Basinger for breach of contract, citing a collapse in overseas sales and funding, and claimed that he had lost his house and car, as well as about $6.4 million, due to the film's imminent collapse.
Lynch, however, bore no malice towards her former star, noting in 1992 that both Basinger and Madonna «failed to complete the painting process because they didn't explore enough the little girls within themselves.» Their courage never wanes, but perhaps they didn't anticipate how difficult it would be to make this film.»
Julian Sands, Jennifer Lynch and Sherilyn Finn on the set of Boxing Helena. Photo: Alamy
Basinger argued in court that she never entered into a binding contract to appear in the film, and that she turned it down because the film would feature «graphic» rather than «artistic» sex. But the jury sided with the filmmakers and ruled against Basinger, awarding them $8.1 million in damages, an amount that forced the actress into bankruptcy and also had a negative impact on her career. (The amount was later reduced to $3.8 million on appeal.)
However, Lynch remains determined to make the film despite the attendant problems in its production, which is why Twin Peaks actress Sherilyn Fenn took on the role of Helena even though the film lost another lead actor, Ed Harris. who turned down the role. about crazy surgeon Nick Cavanaugh: Harris's reasons, understandably, were: «I need to get on with my life.» He was replaced by Julian Sands, best known at the time for playing traditionally beautiful romantic characters; Lynch described the character as «Prince Charming of the Silent Flower» and said of Sands, «Every time Julian got too masculine I had to tell him to lower it, bless his heart.»
For his part, Sands, who deliberately tried to diversify his life by ditching the frizzy-haired English, was delighted to take on the role, commenting, «It's been a wonderful few weeks of working on what I would call… Well, it's been fairy». fairy tale in a way. It was a love story, romance, and something that I find more resonant and relevant today — and, it seems, more valuable today — than when it was released.» He described working with Jennifer as «young but so smart and so insightful and so attuned» and never backed down from his work on the film, commenting in a 2019 interview, «People still come to me, who first found it. time and find it very compelling and very touching. I thought so too.
Underestimated: Sherilyn Fenn and Julian Sands in the Helena box. Photo: United Archives GmbH/Alamy Stock Photo
The film was finally completed with a supporting cast including Bill Paxton and fellow singer-turned-actor Art Garfunkel, and the film premiered with great anticipation at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. It was catastrophic. Critic Emanuel Levy wittily described it: “Prior to its world premiere at Sundance, Helena's Boxing, the debut of David Lynch's daughter Jennifer Lynch, was the most popular film at the festival; two hours later the movie was dead.» Disdainful critics nearly ridiculed it off-screen, calling it amateurish and offensive both in its conception and in its irrelevance. To her dismay, Lynch was criticized by the National Organization for Women, who reportedly said, «As a person, [she] doesn't deserve to be loved again.»
Traumatized by the experience, she was out of a movie for 15 years when she returned with Bill Pullman and Julia Ormond's dark thriller Watching. It was better received and the director has now settled into a comfortable career directing episodes of television dramas such as The Walking Dead and Agents of SHIELD. However, her participation in the infamous Helena boxing defined her life and career.
«I had to step back and wonder why the reaction to the film could be so violent and scathing,» she said in 2009. “And there was hostility all over the world—there was no safe place. Whatever I got, I got in a personal way directed right at me. I would welcome a serious discussion of the shortcomings and intentions of this film, but not a debate about whether I deserve to be alive.»
And she told Vice that the dangers of a famous family name didn't help her either. «If a man did it, and it wasn't David Lynch's baby, I guarantee you no one would bat an eyelid.» Perhaps anyone who protests the undeserved privilege of undefeated babies will see «Boxing with Elena» and feel sorry for some of them instead.
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