Wild at Heart: The Films of Laura Dern celebrates a long career

Dern is Hollywood royalty, the daughter of actors Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd. She's had a long and varied career spanning more than 40 years, worked with renowned filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg, Alexander Payne, David Lynch and Clint Eastwood, and has won many awards, including a best supporting actress Oscar for Marriage Story.

While Dern is hardly obscure, she's also arguably never been in quite the superstar league of contemporaries like Julia Roberts or Renee Zellweger.

Maybe she never had that one big hit that cemented her in the public consciousness. However, as many of the cast members of the 1980s Brat Pack films Dern unsuccessfully auditioned for could attest, that sort of fame can be fleeting. When you're at the top, there's only one way to go.

Dern has endured and made everything from Hollywood blockbusters to indie films to multiple collaborations with distinctively strange filmmaker David Lynch.

All these aspects of her career are celebrated in a seven-film festival coming up at the National Film and Sound Archive.

The archive's manager of public programs, Karina Libbey, says the festival was put together by Maria Lewis of the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne, where it will screen from November 12 before coming to Canberra.

Libbey was enthusiastic about bringing the films to Canberra: "I'm a huge fan of Laura Dern myself."

Two of the films, Inland Empire (2006) and Wild At Heart (1990) saw Dern working with Lynch.

"She's a bit of a muse of his," Libbey says.

On the opening night, Inland Empire (November 19, 6pm) will be accompanied by the launch of a book of the same name by American film critic Melissa Anderson, who will give a pre-recorded speech.

The book is the third in a series, Decadent Editions, produced by Melbourne writer and publisher Annabel Brady-Brown with Berlin-based Giovanni Marchini Camia. Through their company Fireflies Press they publish Fireflies, a magazine devoted to significant but neglected filmmakers, and more recently this series of books in a similar vein.

Brady-Brown, who is also film editor for The Big Issue, says that although Lynch made some mainstream films including The Elephant Man (1980), he's mostly been driven creatively by what comes out of his subconscious - sometimes bizarre, sometimes disturbing, but always distinctive.

"He's a very determined and unique filmmaker with a really clear vision," Brady-Brown says.

Inland Empire, one of Lynch's experimental works, was shot with a handheld Sony digital camera and, Brady-Brown says, has been described as "a waking nightmare".

Lynch told Variety that "it's about a woman in trouble and it's a mystery and that's all I want to say about it".

It unfolds in typically surreal Lynch fashion and features Dern in multiple roles, as well as Ladd, Jeremy Irons and Harry Dean Stanton, among others.

Four of the films are screening on 35mm (Citizen Ruth, Ladies & Gentlemen, Wild at Heart, Jurassic Park) and of those, all but Ladies and Gentlemen: The Fabulous Stains were sourced from the film and sound archive, which also provided Inland Empire.

Citizen Ruth (November 20, 2pm) was found, still uncatalogued, in the archive's collection.

"We sped it up so ACMI could screen it," Libbey says.

In this 1996 satire, director and co-writer Alexander Payne's first feature, Dern plays what Brady-Brown calls "a foul-mouthed, glue-huffing delinquent who gets herself pregnant" and who becomes caught up in an abortion debate playing out in the media.

One of her earliest roles was in the 1982 film Ladies and Gentleman, The Fabulous Stains (November 20, 4.30pm), directed by Lou Adler.

Dern plays plays Jessica - Brady-Brown calls her "a 13-year-old proto-riot grrrl" - who forms a punk band with two other teenagers (played by Diane Lane and Marin Kanter).

Another collaboration with Lynch was the 1990 road movie Wild At Heart (November 20, 7pm), which won the Palme D'Or at Cannes, in which Lula (Dern) and her ex-con boyfriend Sailor (Nicolas Cage) are on the run from her angry mother Marietta (Ladd).

Lynch adapted Barry Gifford's novel of the same title and made the film his own, including references to The Wizard of Oz (1939), which he loves.

Jurassic Park (November 21, 1pm) needs little introduction: the 1993 Steven Spielberg film, adapted from Michael Crichton's novel, is about the dangers of messing with nature - specifically, bringing dinosaurs back to life for an island theme park.

Dern plays a paleobotanist, one of the experts engaged to examine the park and determine it's safe (spoiler alert: it isn't).

Her first lead role came in the 1985 film Smooth Talk (November 21, 4pm), where she plays Connie, a restless teenager beginning to explore her sexuality who encounters an older man (Treat Williams).

The film, directed by Joyce Chopra, won the Grand Jury Prize in the Dramatic category at the Sundance Festival.

Its reputation has grown over the decades since its release and it was restored last year.

"It's an extraordinary film," Brady-Brown says.

Finally, and most recently, there's the 2016 film Certain Women (November 21, 6.30pm). Written and directed by Kelly Reichhardt (First Cow), it looks at the lives of several women, including attorney Laura (Dern) who's struggling to deal with an unhappy client. Also in the cast are Kristen Stewart and Michelle Williams.

For Libbey, Dern's appeal and long career in a fickle business can be encapsulated by a simple fact.

"People connect to her."

Wild at Heart: The Films of Laura Dern is on from November 19 to 21. nfsa.gov.au.