Arizona Dream

Arizona Dream
DVD cover for Arizona Dream
Directed by	Emir Kusturica
Written by	David Atkins and Emir Kusturica
Produced by	Claudie Ossard Yves Marmion
Starring	Johnny Depp Jerry Lewis Faye Dunaway
Cinematography	Vilko Filac
Edited by	Andrija Zafranović
Music by	Goran Bregović Iggy Pop
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release dates	France 6 January 1993 United States 9 September 1994
Running time	142 min
Language	English

Arizona Dream is a 1993 film directed by Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica. It was filmed in 1991 and released in Europe in 1993.

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 childhood friend 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 tha Elaine has changed and 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 sees 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.

==Trivia==

• It was not released in the U.S. until September 9, 1994.
• Although shown theatrically in the U.S. at its full length, the TV prints and VHS versions run 119 minutes.
• It features a recreation of the Sherman & Sherman song, "Doll On A Music Box" originally from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
• It is set in Arizona, New York City, and Alaska. Many of the Arizona scenes were filmed in Douglas, Arizona.
• 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 Arizona Dream (in the message she refers to as "the Kusturica film") which she "was brilliant in," 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.

Box Office

Total U.S. gross was $106,658 in limited release.

DVD Release

This film still has yet to be released on DVD format in the U.S.

Soundtrack

See Arizona Dream (soundtrack)

External links

• Arizona Dream at IMDb