‘Desert Hearts’ at 40: The Cast and Director on the Groundbreaking Lesbian Romance Everyone Was Waiting for

With perhaps the exception of its singularly focused director, Donna Deitch, even the people behind the windswept lesbian romance “Desert Hearts” didn’t imagine it would be the topic of histories and critical essays four decades after its release. But in the spring and summer of 1986, Deitch’s first feature, loosely based on Jane Rule’s “Desert of the Heart,” defied expectations to become a commercial hit and instant queer classic — one still very much alive in the cultural zeitgeist.  

In celebration of Pride Month and a forthcoming presentation at Frameline in San Francisco, we’re revisiting the making of the seminal sapphic work through the voices of the three women at its heart: its director and its stars, Patricia Charbonneau and Helen Shaver — better known to fans as Cay Rivvers and Vivian Bell. From anecdotes about living on location in the Nevada desert to shopping it around to distributors on videotape, their accounts illuminate the film’s winding path from a gutsy grassroots project to a Sundance hit that changed how lesbian love stories were shown on the big screen.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Setting the record straight

“It’s a good opportunity to correct a few things, for me, if you don’t mind,” Deitch said at the top of one of our early conversations, which touched on everything from being inspired by John Huston’s “The Misfits” to what reporters have gotten wrong about “Desert Hearts” over the years. “I mean, there are all sorts of wild things I’ve read, like I sold my house to pay for the film. I didn’t have any house to sell.”

With each major anniversary and rerelease, Deitch happily revisits how, as a young documentarian without a feature credit, she turned the rights to Rule’s understated 1964 novel into an acclaimed film. But she takes issue with certain details that have made their way into the narrative, including that she had to jockey for the rights and almost lost control of the project because studios wanted to replace her with a man. In reality, she said, it was relatively easy to convince Rule she should be the one to adapt the age-gap romance between a casino change girl and a professor looking for a quick divorce in late-‘50s Reno. And she only briefly entertained accepting studio money before realizing how much it would compromise. 

“I was thinking about writing an original screenplay, but somebody gave me the book [‘Desert of the Heart’], and I thought, ‘This encompasses, for a central metaphor, everything that I’m thinking about in terms of what this story needs. The script I’m going to write is, in some way, in this book.’ That’s what got me reaching out to Jane Rule,” Deitch said, adding that, at the end of the ‘70s, all you had to do to reach the well-known resident of British Columbia’s Galiano Island was send a letter with “Jane Rule, Canada” on the envelope.

Deitch — who interpreted the book’s central theme as “if you don’t play, you can’t win” and made it a line in the film — recalled that Rule had received an offer or two to adapt “Desert of the Heart,” but decided early on in the conversations “she was not going to give them, whoever they were, the rights.” Meanwhile, her talks with the author about the direction the film should take proved to be much more fruitful, even if her own interactions with studios were not.

“Once I got the rights from her, which was very simple, I had a couple meetings myself, probably two in total, about getting the financing for the movie. We never got past that,” Deitch said, refuting another detail that has circulated in some accounts. “There was never any conversation about replacing me with a male director. I never was in a meeting long enough, because they wanted to change the ending.”

After deciding she wasn’t interested in the strings attached to a financing offer, an agentless Deitch began a two-year effort to raise funding for the film through backer parties. The young director got it into her mind that Gloria Steinem’s endorsement was the key to attracting potential investors to the gatherings, where she sold shares in the film at $15,000 a pop. And after being connected through a mutual friend, Deitch convinced Steinem — who screened the UCLA graduate’s thesis film, “Woman to Woman: A Documentary About Hookers, Housewives, and Other Mothers,” at Ms. Magazine’s offices — to come on board. 

With Steinem, Lily Tomlin, and Stockard Channing’s names on invitations to parties in New York, San Francisco, and elsewhere, Deitch was able to raise around $1 million for the film. It was still a few years before she would actually get to shooting, with staffing, casting, and bringing the script up to scratch all still in the works. But by 1984, she finalized the script with the help of screenwriter Natalie Cooper, and she’d not just found her leads in Charbonneau, a young stage actor from New York, and Shaver, a more experienced Canadian-born beauty, but she’d also managed to cast Audra Lindley as the film’s pivotal supporting character, Frances Parker. 

Before the year was out, the director and onscreen talent set out for a month of filming in the desert, along with a crew led by future “Boogie Nights” and “There Will Be Blood” cinematographer Robert Elswit and “Tender Mercies” production designer Jeannine Oppewall. Armed with references like a photo book of the West called “Vanishing Breed” and Huston’s tragic 1961 Reno romance, the enthusiastic band of creatives was ready to bring Deitch’s atmospheric love story to life. But only time would tell if they’d be able to actually make it come together with just a shoestring budget and early-career energy behind them.

Patricia Charbonneau, Audra Lindley, and director Donna Deitch on the ‘Desert Hearts’ set©Samuel Goldwyn Films/Courtesy Everett Collection

Life at the Grand Motor Lodge

When the cast and crew gathered at their Reno home base, the Grand Motor Lodge, for a few days to get to know each other before the tight shoot got underway, Deitch set the tone for what would be one of the most memorable filming experiences of their careers. 

“When I arrived in Reno, in my room at the Grand Motor Lodge, there was this huge bundle of gladiolas and a note from Donna [that said], ‘I need all of you. I need your experience, your intelligence. And we don’t have time to carry resentments, so when we have a disagreement, we need to solve it right away’ — which was just a stunning place to start,” said Shaver, who starred in several films and TV series before and after “Desert Hearts,” but eventually became an award-winning director herself.

“That was really the attitude, that we were making something together — the cast, the crew, everyone — and everyone felt invested,” Shaver said, adding that she never even thought to ask Deitch if there was a hint of imposter syndrome behind the self-assured approach.

Over the years, including in Criterion bonus footage, Deitch’s collaborators on “Desert Hearts” have underscored both her clarity of vision and the remarkable buy-in she received from everyone involved in the project. Some of her success with collaborators seems to have come down to luck and an eye for talent, as in the case of the still-up-and-coming Elswit and Oppewall, who served as her informal producers during filming.

“I remember Jeannine coming up to me one day on set… She said, ‘You’re obviously still rehearsing this scene. Just take your time.’ I mean, what production designer would ever say that to a director?” Deitch said, laughing as she described the uniquely close bond among the three of them and how she later realized the extent to which they helped her manage the shoot.

But Deitch also had the foresight to have all of the cast and crew live on location for the four weeks of filming, so that when the cameras weren’t rolling, they were somewhere at the motel — mingling, watching dailies, or taking a rest — and still immersed in the world of the film. “The experience really was kind of like a little theater group out of town somewhere, putting on a show,” Deitch said, describing the motel, which Shaver nicknamed the “Not-So-Grand Motor Lodge,” as one of those “U-shaped places” encircling a pool. “I mean, all films are collaborative, but it was like a little community, a family-ish kind of environment. And there were no agents coming around and talking to their clients — none of that stuff was going on.”

‘Desert Hearts’©Samuel Goldwyn Films/Courtesy Everett Collection

Like her more seasoned colleagues, Charbonneau, who had worked exclusively on the stage up until that point, thrived in the intimate environment. “Since we were all living together — we weren’t in Hollywood, we weren’t in the L.A. scene, we were in this hotel outside of Reno — we were really our own little microcosm. And there was never this feeling of, ‘OK, we’ve got to rush, rush, rush. We’re not getting this,’” said the actor, who was 25 and newly pregnant when filming began. “I had nothing to compare it to at the time, but boy, oh, boy, afterwards… Well, every other set was stressful.”

Like Oppewall, who had gone out early to scout locations, the New York-based Charbonneau had arrived ahead of schedule in Reno to prepare for her screen debut by moonlighting as a change apron. But spending her nights on the casino floor was only Charbonneau’s first step toward embodying Cay, a free-spirited sculptor by day who unnerves Vivan from their first, cinematic encounter. Once she stepped onto set, dressed in denim and collared shirts selected by costume designer Linda M. Bass and surrounded by Oppewall’s transportive interiors, the brunette stunner really began to immerse herself in the character inspired by romantic Western figures, like Clark Gable’s troubled cowboy in “The Misfits,” and a young Elvis.

“Never for a moment did I not think we were in 1959. There was nothing that made you feel like it was 1985. It was definitely 1959,” Charbonneau said, referring specifically to the furnishings occupying Cay’s small abode, the dude ranch Oppewall transformed into Frances’ lodging for divorcees, and an abandoned hotel that served as the fictional Golden Ring casino.

“I mean, with Jeannine’s sets, the costumes, Robert and his DP work, I knew enough — even though I was 25 — to know that this was an extraordinary group of people. So there was just sort of the excitement of, ‘What are we going to make?’” she said.

Charbonneau wasn’t the only one filled with expectation once filming got underway. As the film’s dusty, dreamy world populated with period elements but detached from reality began to come alive in the daily footage, “everybody was excited,” Shaver recalled. “We would say to each other, ‘Do you know who’s going to see this movie? Scorsese’s gonna see this movie.’ We would list all the people that were going to see the movie,” she said, laughing nostalgically. 

“But who could have ever known?” she added. “Here we are 40 years later, and people are finding this movie for the first time, or seeing it for the 15th time, and resonating with it. That, I certainly never anticipated. I don’t think any of us could have.”

Making a groundbreaking love scene 

While the filming of “Desert Hearts” often sounds like a monthlong poolside retreat, there were inevitably challenging moments for both the director and stars, including the making of the climactic love scene that defines it — even more than the film’s evocative design and sweeping vistas. 

Deitch waited until the last week of the shoot to capture the two-part scene during which Cay and Vivian, having been kicked off the ranch, finally consummate their romance. But from the time she began dreaming of her first feature, well before she read Rule’s quite chaste romance, she knew sex would be central to the film. “I did not want to make yet another movie that ended in a bisexual triangle or suicide. None of that was of any interest to me. I just made the movie I wanted to see — and it had to have a really hot love scene,” Deitch said, joking that sexless lesbian movies seem to work for a lot of people, since “everybody makes them,” but not her.

‘Desert Hearts’Criterion

In addition to being hot, she was intent on the moment carrying weight, unlike so many of the sex scenes she’d watched for research. That meant it needed to have a beginning, middle, and end, like any other thoughtfully constructed sequence. But it also required two actors who had the chemistry to make it feel genuinely earth-shattering. 

“For the most part in Hollywood films, if anybody involved is a movie star, they don’t go to auditions. So what happens is that thing called ‘chemistry’ is never seen until you’re shooting the film, and it’s either there or it’s not. Everybody makes an effort, but they don’t always arrive at it,” Deitch said.

“So that was the thing in my mind: I have to see, because if I don’t see it in the audition, then it might not be there,” she added, recounting how she landed on the relatively inexperienced Charbonneau first, and then chose Shaver based on the connection between the actors at a casting session in L.A. “In that audition that she [Charbonneau] did with Helen, there it was — without a doubt.”

Both Charbonneau and Shaver understood how key the breathless moment between Cay and Vivian was to Deitch’s vision — and didn’t have reservations about filming it, despite their agents’ warnings. (“People didn’t think anybody should be in this film, even if they didn’t have to take their clothes off and make love with another person of their same sex,” Deitch recalled.) But when it was time to strip down for the closed-set shoot involving Deitch, Elswit, the focus puller [Martin J. Layton], and the stars, the scene proved to be challenging in unexpected ways.

“After doing that scene — after feeling extremely intimate, extremely vulnerable — I did go home that night to my little hotel room, run a bath, and break into tears,” said Charbonneau, who, along with being pregnant, had never done onscreen intimacy, unlike her co-star. “It was a long time ago, obviously, but I can remember that moment very clearly. It was just [a moment] of relief, of accomplishment.

“It was tough for me. I wanted it to be right. I was in very good hands, so it wasn’t really about that. It was just that, being able to find that sort of sensuality and be comfortable with a couple of other people in the room — you know, at 25,” she said, pausing for a moment. “It was so important to get that right, because why make the film if you were going to cheat on their true-love moment?”

For the 33-year-old Shaver, filming the sequence was perhaps a bit less overwhelming, partly because she had experience being nude on camera and partly because she’d been pushing so hard to get out of her own head and into her character’s. Elswit had been particularly helpful in that latter part, coaching her on letting go of small things the audience wouldn’t see, like a tired look in a close-up. And when it was time to film Vivian’s orgasmic sexual awakening, she became swept up in the momentum of the scene, which she described as “emotionally draining” but also “fulfilling and exciting,” and the fact that Vivian was letting herself be overcome by her desire for Cay and where it could lead.

“For me, the difference between a really good performance that you can’t fault and a great performance that you can’t look away from is whether the actor is willing to be totally present in the moment, accepting the imaginary circumstances but speaking from [their own] truths. But, like any intimate relationship, that doesn’t happen on the first date,” Shraver said, ruminating on Vivan’s evolution during the weeks of filming.

Audra Lindley and Helen Shaver in ‘Desert Hearts’©Samuel Goldwyn Films/Courtesy Everett Collection

During the love scene, “I accepted the reality that I’d never had an orgasm with another person… And there’s a moment where [my hand] comes up, and you see the baby finger just… shudders,” she said, describing the minute, involuntary gesture that felt like a breakthrough. “Now, I don’t know if people in the audience see that or not, but I felt it when it happened, and I allowed it to happen.”

After more talk of intimate moments that occurred during the shoot, and a few anecdotes about nipples, Shaver then redirected the conversation, lighting things up in her characteristic way. “I’ll tell you the hardest scene, the scene I struggled with the most, oddly was the walking with the horses,” she said, referring to a sequence where Vivian and Cay are guiding horses, for logistical reasons, along the mesa. “I’m like, ‘Why aren’t we on the horses, riding?’ number one. But there was something in the dialogue that I was really struggling with. And then, one of the horses stepped on my foot.”

Cigarettes and videotape

Once the love scene and final shots had been wrapped, the cast and crew of “Desert Hearts” decamped from Reno, hopeful but still uncertain about the film’s fate. Deitch now had the all-important task of selling the feature, but first she had to find an editor, which meant raising more funds. “I didn’t have the money to have an editor while I was shooting,” Deitch said, explaining she had to work out postproduction once the shoot was finished out of necessity. “That’s very unusual. But if you don’t have the money, you don’t have the money.” 

Deitch returned to selling shares in the film to raise cash — including from Lindley, who gave her a $15,000 check at the wrap party — and her efforts were rewarded with a bit of luck. “Badlands” editor Robert Estrin, who had launched a new operation working exclusively on videotape, was available, and Deitch jumped at the opportunity to work with him despite the unknowns. “He said to me, ‘Look, I’m cutting on video now. This is my new thing… If you want me, this comes with it,’” Deitch said, describing how she got Estrin on board when other filmmakers were too afraid of the process, which in her case involved transferring the masters from 35mm film to 3/4-inch videotape. 

“And he said, ‘And the second thing I need to tell you is that, I wasn’t there, as you know, while you were shooting this thing, so I need to do something that is probably going to be kind of disturbing to you. I have to take those 3/4-inch cassettes, all your dailies, and I have to connect master to master to master to master. I need to look at the film that way… because I need to see the continuity of the whole scene,’” Deitch said, joking that “if you really want to live a nightmare,” hand over the masters to your film and then watch them be spliced together on videotape that degenerates during the process.

“So he did that, and then we started. I don’t think I sat through that whole first video because it was just too hard to look at. But that’s how we started,” she said.

Deitch eventually got over the shock of seeing the footage played back to her on video, accepting that all would be well once she saw the final cut on film. As they neared completion, both she and Estrin — whose old-fashioned transitions lend even more romance to Elswit’s wide-angle landscapes and intimate close-ups — were happy with their progress, so the first-time feature director decided to host a screening for a select group of distributors in anticipation of the upcoming film festivals. That proved to be a difficult public debut for “Desert Hearts” but at least confirmed to Deitch that she had made the hot lesbian film she was going for. 

Andra Akers, Helen Shaver, and Patricia Charbonneau in ‘Desert Hearts’©Samuel Goldwyn Films/Courtesy Everett Collection

“It was horrible, because they just never had seen anything like that,” Deitch said, referring to the attendees’ reaction to seeing the video edit, which convinced her to wait until the film was back on 35mm to shop it around. “But what was very funny is that we’re in this screening room and then, when the love scene comes along, some people started lighting up cigarettes.”

Conjuring a time when people still smoked in theaters, she added, “It was a laugh. But other than that, it was a horror. Because, you know, you’re in a screening room watching your film and you can feel what’s going on.”

When the final version of “Desert Hearts” was in front of studios, however, it was an entirely different story. After showing at the Toronto Telluride film festivals in the fall of 1985 and then becoming a Sundance sensation a few months later, the film caused somewhat of a bidding war — in addition to fulfilling the cast’s dreams of the industry’s biggest names seeing it — according to its director. In the end, the Samuel Goldwyn Company won the rights to distribute the title for 20 years, and was rewarded with a box office return in the spring of 1986 that far outpaced estimates. By the summer, the movie was being hailed as a first-of-its-kind by queer viewers and critics for its cinematic quality, thrilling love scene, and hopeful ending.

Of course, the unapologetic lesbian romance starring two straight women wasn’t without its detractors. Charbonneau, who returned to Reno with Shaver and Deitch just weeks after giving birth to shoot the poster, took an outsized amount of heat for bringing her infant to press events. (Charbonneau recalled one interviewer, maybe at the Village Voice, writing something like “Is it her badge of heterosexuality?” in reference to her nursing infant being around.) But unlike with many queer classics, even the initial reactions to “Desert Hearts” were overwhelmingly positive. The director and stars began to understand that they had made something of real cultural significance, which would end up, in many ways, defining the next four decades of their lives.

“It was the beginning of everything for me, in a sense — of a dream coming true, of being able to make a film, of starting motherhood,” said Charbonneau, who gets emotional when she watches the film now, both from seeing herself as a 25-year-old girl and thinking about the people, like Lindley, who are no longer around. 

“What can I say? It’s one of the loveliest experiences I’ve had in my entire life and certainly a highlight of my career,” she said.

Like her co-star, Shaver described making the film as a watershed moment that had ripple effects in both her career and personal life — helping to push her into filmmaking and introducing her to her second husband, with whom she had a son. “None of us were doing it for the money. None of us were doing it because we thought, ‘OK, this is going to be a film that lives for 40 years, that has legs.’ It wasn’t like that. It was a much purer, simpler, ‘I need to do this. I want to do this. This film needs to be made,’” Shaver said, adding that the experience was “life-changing on every level” for her.

“When I opened the script and read the second paragraph — which was, like, ‘Train’s pulling into the station, off steps this woman, Vivian Bell,’ and there’s a description of her — I knew I was doing the film. It was a shockingly clear thing,” she said. “So, I guess, when I go back to that moment, I go, ‘Well, that bell rang.’ But I didn’t think I’d be here, 40 years later, a grandmother to a 14-month-old boy, talking to you.”

Deitch, who often finds herself chatting with strangers about the film and inviting them to screenings, is probably the least surprised of everyone that her first feature has had such reach. From the beginning, the director, who went on to make “The Women of Brewster Place,” embraced the mantra “if you don’t play, you can’t win,” almost as if she always knew the bet would pay off. And her feeling that it’s the kind of movie that needs to be out in the world has only strengthened over the years.

“I think it’s, like, I am the steward of this film. I’m not the producer and director, but I am the steward, because this film is going to outlive all of us,” Deitch said, summing up where she and the “Desert Hearts” stand four decades on. 

The 40th anniversary screening of “Desert Hearts” at Frameline takes place on Thursday, June 18.