Desert Hearts (1985) on Netflix
In 1959, Vivian Bell, an English professor from New York, arrives in Reno to wait out the residency her divorce requires. At the guest ranch, she meets Cay Rivvers, a free-spirited sculptor.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb7.1/108,707 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes90%
Trailer
Plot summary
The ranch where Cay Rivvers lives in Reno takes in women who are waiting out the six weeks of Nevada residency that a divorce requires. Cay, a young sculptor who works as a change operator at a casino, was raised there by Frances Parker, her late father's longtime mistress, after her mother left. The newest arrival in 1959 is Vivian Bell, a literature professor from Columbia University, reserved and taken aback by Cay's disregard for what others think. Cay is drawn to her, and Frances, who disapproves of Cay's relationships with women yet dreads being left alone, resents the growing closeness between the two.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Desert Hearts (1985)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Deitch became the first lesbian director to have a sex scene between women seen by general movie theater audiences, and she was surprised to learn, 20 years after the film's release, that Helen Shaver and Patricia Charbonneau had been told by friends and agents that it would ruin their careers.
- Desert Hearts was Patricia Charbonneau's film debut, and her contract, like Shaver's, obliged them to play the hotel-room sex scene without body doubles and nude from the waist up; it was shot on the second-to-last day with only cinematographer Robert Elswit and a boom operator present, and Deitch refused the Samuel Goldwyn Company's demand to cut it down.
- Shaver was being considered for a role in Joshua Then and Now that would have promoted her career much further than Desert Hearts, but Donna Deitch told her over the phone that she refused to hang up until she got an answer; after five minutes, Shaver accepted.
- Deitch raised the $1.5 million budget with a $20,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and $15,000 shares sold to stock brokers and individual investors; the largest group of investors were lesbian and feminist women in several U.S. cities, and the largest single investor was a gay man.
- Raising funds took almost four years, and Deitch pitched the same film differently in each city: “In San Francisco I sold it as politics. In New York as Art. In LA I convinced them it would be a box office hit.” It took nearly six years to reach theater screens.
- About 20% of the budget went on obtaining the rights to the original music in the film, and when Deitch asked the Goldwyn Company to extend those rights so a soundtrack could come out on album or cassette, the studio declined.
- Deitch had trouble finding actresses who would portray lesbians without reserve, with many refusing to audition at all; Patricia Charbonneau was cast first and went to Los Angeles with Deitch to read opposite the actresses trying out for the role of Vivian Bell.
