Desert Hearts: Film Notes

Forty years before the star-crossed lesbian romances Carol and Portrait of a Lady on Fire, there was Desert Hearts. Watching Donna Deitch’s 1985 period piece feels like finding a hidden treasure—a lesbian love story set in the ‘50s, written and directed by women, that gives space to the emotions and sexuality of two women’s relationship without sensationalism or objectification.

Deitch, who identifies as a lesbian, cut her teeth directing documentaries in the ‘70s before seeking out a narrative script about a romance between two women. After reading a copy of Jane Rule’s Desert of the Heart—and then re-reading it seven times in a row—she knew she’d found the right story. Both Rule and Deitch set out to create works that subverted the usual negative queer stories of their times. Instead of tragedy, Desert of the Heart and its adaptation only put its protagonists through relatively minor trials, focusing instead on a positive portrayal of a lesbian relationship. There’s no heart-wrenching melodrama and no bury your gays ending; instead, we see two women meet, overcome their differences, and fall in love. Just getting to watch lesbians exist in this way feels more radical than it should. As Deitch wrote Rule in her initial request to adapt the book, “My objective in making a film about lesbians is not that we are the best of all possible women, but that we are real, sympathetic, beautiful, intelligent human beings capable of good and bad."

Deitch spent three years soliciting support for the movie by hosting fundraising parties, getting permission from Gloria Steinem, Stockard Channing, and Lily Tomlin to use their names on her invitations. In addition to a National Endowment of the Arts grant, she raised the full $1.5 million budget needed to produce the movie by selling $15,000 shares to individual investors, both queer and straight. The relatively small budget shows in the movie’s charmingly lived-in sets and lowkey production. And with cinematography from Robert Elswit, who would later win an Oscar for his work on There Will Be Blood, the desert landscapes of Nevada and neon signs of Reno shine as brightly as a string of lights around your heart.

The movie brims with sentimentality and veers toward the conventional, but its earnestness serves a purpose. In interviews after the movie came out and over the decades since, Deitch has affirmed her intention to make a movie that wouldn’t just be shoe-horned as a “lesbian movie” or a “queer movie,” but that would instead be accessible to all audiences. She followed the typical tropes and beats of Hollywood romances in order to create a love story that any viewer could find emotionally compelling. In terms of lasting legacy, Desert Hearts recouped its budget by over $1 million, received a warm reception at both the Toronto Festival of Festivals (now TIFF) and Sundance Film Festival (winning a special jury prize), and sparked a minor bidding war resulting in worldwide distribution by the Samuel Goldwyn Company. Beyond that mainstream success, though, Desert Hearts has become a touchstone for queer audiences across generations. As a contemporary review in queer magazine The Body Politic exclaimed, “Maybe we do need a good, unabashed romance now and then!”