by Andrew Bowcock

It seems like Nicolas Cage has always had a spotty career.  Despite his massive success in Hollywood over the years, he manages to repeatedly be typecast and appear in sub par, critically-panned films…so when a unique, ambitious director such as cinematic titan Werner Herzog decided to cast him as the lead in one of his films, it caught my eye right away.  The other thing that peaked my attention (and has caused quite a bit of a stir) is the film’s title: Bad Lieutenant. Even though this isn’t the whole title of the film, the fact that it seems lifted directly from Abel Ferrara’s controversial yet transcendental film of the same title (which also features a crooked cop for the protagonist) was enough to enrage Ferrara to the point where he wished death upon Herzog and Cage.

Let’s try pushing all the craziness surrounding the film to the side, and examine the craziness within The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.

As you may have guessed, the story involves a cop in New Orleans (post Katrina).  The city is a dump, and there’s no getting around it…things seem almost as bad as they were right after the hurricane.  None of this is discussed, but we all understand the backdrop, and some of the exterior shots wink at us at quite a bit, but without shoving it in our faces.   The protagonist, Terence McDonagh (Cage) is a detective that is formally revered by his precinct, but if somebody follows him on any given day, his or her respect for him would quickly plummet.  His unbridled addiction for drugs and gambling always get the better of him on and off duty, causing him to engage in sociopathic behavior, cruelly bossing people around, blackmailing, and using every dirty trick in the book to get his way.

However, some may argue that McDonagh isn’t all bad, since he is dedicated to his work to a certain degree and seems to believe in some form of justice (despite how twisted and distorted it may be).  As he’s thrown into a case involving the murder of five Senegalese immigrants we witness his character unravel during the investigation, meanwhile trying to keep his enemies away from his drug-addicted, call-girl girlfriend (played by Eva Mendes) and his father (Tom Bower).  The rest of the plot is fairly straightforward, with a couple twists here and there…but by the end of the film you’re simply left with the choice of whether or not you’re going to sympathize with McDonagh.

In the end, this film really just feels like an acting vehicle for Nicolas Cage – channeling what I like to call the “crazy Cage” (something I miss, thinking back to films like Matchstick Men and Adaptation).  In this film Cage gives a fantastic, over-the-top and yet nuanced performance.  Though he takes full advantage of his character being an addict and a maniac, we are able to realize this character through more than his crazed ranting and gun waving: believe it or not, Cage actually adds depth to his character (well…about as much depth as you can add to such a selfish lunatic).  This can be recognized by the continuous crazy glare he has in his eyes throughout the film, the strange strut he has to his walk, the way his tie is always stretched a bit too long and his gun is sloppily shoved into the front of his pants.  There’s even a demeanor about the way Cage’s voice changes throughout the film according to his drug high – all very specific character choices that remind me very much of the method acting of Herzog’s old acting tour de force, the infamous Klaus Kinski.

Recently, Herzog’s choice of film direction seems peculiar in comparison with the rest of his canon, which often explores the savagery of nature and man’s struggle against it.  Both this film and My Son, My Son, What have Ye Done? take place in urban settings, which is something that feels entirely new for Herzog…and yet (at least in the case of this film) he still manages to make it feel entirely true to his naturalistic style of filmmaking.  Specifically, there are a couple of hilarious sequences in this film where the detective has some particularly strange run-ins with some iguanas and alligators (if you’ve seen the trailer you’ve already gotten a taste of it).

Though the two films are actually barely related, it’s hard not to make comparisons with the original Bad Lieutenant. I love both films, but they are attempting entirely different (in some ways opposite) goals.  Ferrara’s version was about a cop struggling with guilt and trying to find redemption, whereas Herzog’s feels like more of a loose-mooded satire on cop films, or possibly even on political authority in general.  Watching Harvey Keitel’s deterioration in Ferrara’s version almost put me on the verge of tears, whereas Cage’s ridiculous antics make it hard not to laugh (and I can almost guarantee anybody with a sense of humor WILL laugh).  They’re both great films in their own right; Ferrara’s version will break your heart while Herzog’s, though not entirely farcical, is essentially just silly entertainment with a more subtle (even ambiguous) message.

Not only did I find this to be one of the most entertaining films of the year, but it also reminded me once again that sometimes Nicolas Cage can transcend his poorer performances; Herzog knew how to bring out the right man for his odd vision.  Though it would no doubt be a strange choice, I wouldn’t be surprised if Cage managed to get an Oscar nomination for this.

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is rated R for drug use and language throughout, some violence and sexuality.

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photo sources:

http://static.reelmovienews.com/images/gallery/bad-lieutenant-port-of-call-new-orleans-poster_517×764.jpg

http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/

http://www.thehollywoodnews.com/

other resources:

http://www.imdb.com/

http://www.nerve.com/CS/blogs/screengrab/archive/2008/05/27/abel-ferrara-would-like-werner-herzog-and-nicolas-cage-to-please-die-in-a-fire.aspx

He is an American writer and director. His well-known movies are The Diller Killer (1979). He was born in Bronx and have the Irish relation or blood flood in himself. On his opening, his styles are base on the violent and raw material in the movies. He starts his movies, which a extremely low budgets, until now he have money but still he make a low budgets movies. He once won a Best Filmmaker award from the Gotham Awards.

"Bad Lieutenant : Port Of Call New Orleans" Movie Poster

I know what you’re thinking. You’re outraged. Disgusted. Maybe even mortified if you’re especially sensitive, at the very least perplexed if you’re not. What kind of a human being would incorporate a play on words about the tragic flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the title of his post? I mean, that’s just beyond tasteless, right?

Yes, it is. And yes, you should be royally pissed at me right now. That’s intentional. You see, I want you to stop reading this review. I want you to shut your computer off. Hell, if you’re not winning the lottery or getting it on with the woman (or man, as the case may be) of your dreams right now, I think you need to stop what you’re doing. You need to stop what you’re doing, get in your car, on the train, on the bus, on your feet, whatever — and get down to the theater and see “Bad Lieutenant : Port Of Call New Orleans.” It’s just that good. Whatever else you’ve got going on can wait. In fact, I’ll even helpfully stop the review right here so you can get back to it after you return.

Long pause.

Followed by another long pause.

And another.

Then a final, really long one.

Okay, back? Good, welcome back.  Great stuff, wasn’t it? Now let’s continue, shall we?

No, Nicolas Cage and Eva Mendes have not just read the script for "Ghost Rider 2," despite appearances

I’m a lot like you, dear reader. When I first heard that independent film legend Werner Herzog was working on a “reimagining” of Abel Ferrara’s “Bad Lieutenant,” my first reaction was “why?” I mean, it’s not like it’s a movie that necessarily has “remake” or “sequel” written all over it. Like most of Ferrara’s stuff, it’s a pretty singular work that doesn’t exactly scream out for a fresh set of eyes to reinterpret it. And Harvey Keitel’s performance — I mean, shit, how are you gonna top that? Hell, how are you gonna even come close to equaling it? Why try? What’s the point?

Well, there wouldn’t be any point. And Herzog knows that. And to his credit, he doesn’t even try to go that route. This new “Bad Lieutenant” only tangentially relates to the first in that it explores the same theme of a monumentally crooked and sleazy cop trying to crack a big case in the midst of a tremendous, and entirely self-inflicted, downward spiral in his life.  Apart from that, the two have nothing to do with each other. Gone are the obsessive visual and thematic references to Catholic iconography and catechism. The setting has been transposed from New York to a just post-Katrina New Orleans (well, technically the first scene takes place as the flood waters are rising, then we jump ahead six months,  into the city’s  “rebuilding” — and Dear Lord do I use that term loosely — period). Hell, even the main character has a different name, different set of life circumstances, different everything. In truth, the only reason I think Herzog stuck with the title is because otherwise audiences would have come out of the theater saying “you know, that one kinda reminded me of  ‘Bad Lieutenant’” — so by invoking the original so plainly he’s able to, at the very least ironically if not downright perversely, have this film taken as a more stand-alone work than if he had just called it something. File that under “go figure.” (And file this under “go figure,” as well — and probably of interest to absolute obsessives (who? me?) only (and it shouldn’t even be to us) — the title of this film in all the posters and other advertising is listed as “Bad Lieuteanant : Port of Call New Orleans,” while the opening credits read “The Bad Lieutenant Port Of Call : New Orleans.”)

The next thin your reviewer found a bit suspect in the pre-production stages, after wondering just why Herzog was even making this thing at all, was the casting of Nicolas Cage in the lead. Cage is a bit of an enigma, isn’t he? I mean, here’s a guy capable of delivering mind-blowingly good, once-in-a-generation performances in films like “Leaving Las Vegas,” “Lord of War” and “The Weatherman,” yet also of absolutely mailing it in, so to speak, in drivel like “Next” or the atrocious remake of “The Wicker Man.” In between the two poles we have his numerous stints as, either literally or essentially, a second-rate Elvis impersonator.

Needless to say, the end result on display here proves my worried were entirely groundless, as the best always are. Cage is in absolute top form here, giving arguably the very best performance of his entire career. He’s wiry, main, and absolutely seething with, to quote my own headline, visceral intensity. He doesn’t sweat whether or not he’s sometimes so frightfully over the top that his performance reaches caricature-like levels — hell no, instead of tiptoeing up to that metaphorical line in the sand, he rubs and smears it out with his shoe and stomps all over the spot where it used to be just for good measure. He’s absolutely fucking gone as  drugged-up, degenerate gambler (and, oh yes, cop) Terence McDonagh, and he doesn’t look back. Keep up with him if you can.

And herein lies another crucial difference between the two “Bad Lieutenant”s. In Ferrara’s version, Keitel is just completely foul. He’s not what you’d call charismatic or engaging in the least (not that I’m saying this is a bad thing, it’s exactly the type of performance that was absolutely required in the “first” film). He’s already lost. The central thematic question in the “original”, therefore, is whether or not a guy who’s absolutely beyond all hope of redemption can still find it, if not earn it, by bringing to justice the scumbags who brutally gang-rape a nun. And frankly, whether or not he even should since she’s already forgiven them herself. It’s taking place on an entirely different psychological playing field than Herzog’s film, because in this there is still some, God help me for thinking this but it’s true, likable insanity in Cage’s character. He’s got dangerous, maybe even death wish-style reckless charisma oozing out of him on a goddamn cellular level. In that respect, one could argue that this new “Bad Lieutenant” is somewhat more accessible than Ferrara’s version, because McDonagh still has enough (barely) on the ball to pull himself out of his living nightmare if he really wants to. But damn, with lines like ” I thought it was coke but it turned out to be heroin and I gotta be at work in an hour,” and “Shoot him again! His soul is still dancing!” you gotta wonder if he isn’t enjoying his ride to hell waaaayyyy too fucking much to stop the ride.

And that’s the brilliance (and I loathe the unearned overuse of that word way more than you can possibly imagine) of Cage’s performance here in a nutshell : he’s a coiled snake that you know will strike at any moment, and you can’t decide whether you’re dreading that or looking forward to it. Then you realize you’re doing both.

"Shoot him again! His soul is still dancing!"

The nominal plot of the film itself concerns Cage’s investigation of a brutal execution-style murder of a family of Senegalese immigrants, but as with Ferrara’s earlier effort, Herzog here concentrates far more on the backdrop this story plays out in front of (or, more accurately given the focus here, behind) — that of McDonagh’s exhilarating and dreadful descent into madness. Our guy Terry does everything a bad cop oughtta do : shakes down suspects for cash and drugs, gets in gambling debt up his eyeballs, rips shit off from the police property room, smokes crack, snorts coke, drinks booze, skips out of town, runs a thoroughly crooked investigation, helps the bad guys, screws around on his girlfriend (who’s a hooker herself, played by Cindy Craw—err, Eva Mendes), and worse. And while he doesn’t consistently engage in the type of outright abusively soulless depravity that Keitel did in the “original,” he pulls off one stunt so hopelessly fucked-up-beyond-all-reason that even old Harvey would probably blush.

The decision to set the story in the ravaged post-Katrina Big Easy really pays dividends, as well. Not only is it thematically appropriate on a pretentious “film scholar” asshole level (rising metaphorical flood threatens to swallow main character ), but the overall atmosphere of a decimated Third World-style “law enforcement” operation (although from what I understand the New Orleans cops weren’t exactly famous for honesty and integrity pre-flood, either) gives ample narrative “breathing space”  (did I just badmouth pretentious “film scholar” assholes a minute ago? I should have read ahead to the point where I sounded just like one — except I hadn’t written it yet. But I digress — as regular readers of this blog, if any such creatures exist,  know I so often do) to the idea of a situation where a guy like McDonagh could actually get away with some of this shit. On a purely aesthetic level, I’ve gotta congratulate Herzog, as well, for his decision to shoot this movie on an apparently cheaper grade of film stock than normal. It gives the whole flick an added level of immediacy and realism that a slicker overall appearance just couldn’t maintain. It’s a grimy story about a grimy guy shot in a way that looks grimy. Well played, Werner.

The rest of the cast holds up pretty well, too. While I’m sure nobody was dying to see a reunion of the principal players in “Ghost Rider,” Mendes does a nice turn as McDonagh’s high-priced hooker/junkie girlfriend, Frankie, Cage’s fellow Elvis-worshiper Val Kilmer is solid as his almost-as-crooked-as-he-is onetime parner, now subordinate, Stevie, the always-underappreciated Vondie Curtis-Hall turns in a seasoned pro’s performance as McDonagh’s commanding officer, rapper Xzibit is seriously bad-ass awesome as crime boss “Big Fate,” the (again always) underappreciated Brad Dourif turns in another dead-on perfect (because he always is) portrayal, in this case as McDonagh’s understandably impatient small-time bookie Ned, solid vet Tom Bower puts in  a solid vet turn as Terance’s ex-cop, ex-alcoholic father, Pat, and the (stop me if you’ve heard this one before) always underapp—forget it, I won’t even go there, I’ll just say Jennifer Coolidge has deserved a best supporting actress Oscar a couple of times now (and no, I’m not talking about her turn as Stifler’s Mom, although she sure is a million miles away from MILF territory in this movie — truth be told, I was thinking specifically of her roles in the various Christopher Guest-helmed ensemble/improv comedies, particularly “Best In Show”) and she’s an absolute scene-stealer here as Pat’s still-alcoholic second wife, Genevieve.

The two best Elvises (or is that Elvii?) since The King himself? Kilmer and Cage in "Bad Lieutenant : Port Of Call New Orleans"

So what we’ve got here, folks, is essentially the ultimate “bad cop” movie, and quite likely the best film of the year, period. It’s certainly going to take one hell of an effort to top it. Even Herzog’s usual, and frankly in other films sometimes jarring, asides into purely interpretative realms of surrealism (just what are the giant iguanas about? Each viewer will probably have a different explanation) work here since by the time he goes there, he’s already established such a forceful groove (do those two words seem incompatible together? I assure you they’re not) that you’re just willing to go with his frantically rushing flow.

And that’s it. I’m all out of praise to lavish on this movie. It grabs you from the word go and never lets up. It’s absolutely exhiliratingly debauched and I loved the hell out of it. All I can do at this point is tell you one more time  to rush right out and see it. But there’s no need for that because you already have. Right?

Abel Ferrara, born in July 1951, is an American film director and screenwriter. During the early years, his audience was attracted to the his cult style grindhouse films such as “The Driller Killer”. But it was “Ms. 45″ that really brought his films to the critic’s attention for his hardcore and explotitive styles. Ferrara also worked in television and some of his works were “China Girl and “Cat Chaser”, which still carried out his style. Other famous works by Ferrara are “King of New York” and “The Funeral”.

I was raised a Catholic and when you’re raised a Catholic they don’t teach you to think for yourself. You’re taught not to think too deeply about things. - Abel Ferrara

Somehow I’ve developed a slight preoccupation with cyberpunk, as if two months in Chiang Mai has rendered me fifteen again. Maybe it’s the crumbling concrete and the thirteen different languages heard a day and my gradual slide into nocturnal habit. I don’t know, but it’s there, and it somehow led to things like torrenting the Japanese cut of Johnny Mnemonic (still really awkward and goofy but now with more Lundgren and Takeshi!), and Snatcher, for the Sega CD, emulated on my netbook, played with a cheap USB pad bought in something something Plaza at the edge of night market. I write things, and realize I’m glossing Effinger.

Somewhere in the idle hours I read about the other Gibson story adapted to film, New Rose Hotel, described in some places as an “erotic thriller”, directed by Abel Ferrara of Bad Lieutenant and King of New York fame. Had I heard about this before? I don’t know. More and more it seems I remember nothing that I don’t write down in my own hand.

I was curious, so I took the steps, waited on my copy. Didn’t expect much from it, though I had enjoyed the other Ferrara movies I’ve seen. Most reviews indicated obscure for a reason.

So: Two men, Fox and X, Christopher Walken and Willem Dafoe. They hire a woman, Sandii, to seduce a scientist away from one corporation and convince him to work for another. It seems to go smoothly enough, but X falls in love with Sandii, and Sandii betrays them. Fox dies, X holes up with his memories and self-pity. Nothing to complex or involved, about par for Gibson’s work. A few notes:

The film clings tenaciously to X. He isn’t there for most of the corporate espionage shenanigans, so you don’t see them. If the only word he gets is a phone call and some grainy video, that’s all you get in turn. I appreciate the way it follows one character’s point of view, letting the overall arc of the plot be suggested rather than dwelled on. In a way, this reminds me of Gibson’s fiction, or at least his most recent work (it has been some time, maybe as long as a decade, since I actually read the Sprawl or Bridge novels), where he focuses on incidental, peripheral things that work their way slowly around to some climax so muted as to seem ghostlike, a parodic dream of the thriller. The difference is that Gibson fills his foreground with minor action and the psychological landscape of his characters, and Ferrara fills it with dialogue.

Not all of the dialogue works: scenes go on for too long, breaking the rythm and the mood of the film. The vague near future is sketched through grainy pans of industry at sunset; a PDA with green-tinted video superimposed in it; jerky, blown-up videotape of streets, alleys, flashes of memory. At times, its hypnotic. Then someone won’t shut the hell up.

New Rose Hotel reminds me of a coarser, talkier Wong Kar Wai movie, with corporate espionage suggested somewhere in the negative space instead of just further layers of emotional whatever. Nat King Cole replaced by Schoolly D, more oblique layers of emotion replaced with frank, “erotic thriller” sleeze. There’s even that slightly jerky frame-doubled slow-motion.

About twenty minutes before the end of the film, everything has gone to pot: Fox dies, awkwardly. Sandii’s betrayal becomes implicit. X heads to the titular hotel, where the remainder of the film dwells with him, flashing back to previous scenes, nursing a gun. This has been criticized as padding or, in the cases where there’s some new details or dialogue added to the scene, as needless structural tomfoolery, but I kind of liked it. Usually, the additions focus on a moment of doubt X has about Sandii, doubt that he quickly disregards because of his infatuation. The film being from X’s point of view, it makes sense that it would gloss over the things he glosses over, ignore the things he chooses to ignore and then come back, with him, to the memory of those things once he realizes his mistakes. The old “character has a realization so we’ll show you some flashbacks to spell it out” bit, which usually offends me with its air of handholding. But here it’s revealing information that was withheld, or recontextualizing what you’ve already seen. It was withheld, not just to provide for a twist (like most of the film, her betrayal is so underplayed as it occurs that it hardly feels like a twist), but to be consistant with the film’s point of view. The actual execution is a bit clumsy, but I appreciate the idea.

A little cheap, a little slow, a little awkward when it tries to play the straight thriller, but it pushes my narrative point of view buttons. Overall, it feels like a sloppy first draft for a film that could have been really compelling.

Harvey Keitel does a lot of bad things in "Bad Lieutenant".

(Abel Ferrara, 1992)

December 6, 2009

by Joel Crary

“Bad Lieutenant” may be Harvey Keitel’s crowning moment as a badass, heightened by the ferocity of his character’s drive to mess up his life as much as possible. Nameless, angry and addicted, the lieutenant behaves like a nihilistic Dirty Harry, or Paul Kersey if he had tried to take revenge on himself. After watching Keitel in “Mean Streets” recently, I’ve gained a new respect for his ability as an actor. This is a brave performance, one that took sheer guts.

In one scene, Keitel stands totally exposed before the camera with his arms outstretched and weeping, high as a kite in the company of two prostitutes. How has this man reached such a low point? He has kids, a badge, a place to sleep at night. Though he wears a wedding ring prominently, his wife (Peggy Gormley) is rarely shown, and they certainly don’t converse. The lieutenant is shown waking up on the couch at home in a hungover daze while his family gazes at him solemnly, as though they’ve already begun their grieving process.

Director and co-writer Abel Ferrara knows we’ve seen this archetype before. Whatever the reason for the lieutenant’s decline, he is heading straight for the bottom, his ethical failures typified in scene after scene. I was fascinated by the film’s abandon in capturing the fall as Keitel gambles, smokes and injects drugs, attempts to steal drugs from a crime scene, engages in illicit sex, forces two women to get him off, laughs in an indignant bookie’s face, snorts cocaine off of a picture of his kids, shoots his pistol at his car radio and takes stolen cash from a pair of robbers rather than arresting them. The film received an NC-17 rating on its release. Certain scenes remain hard to watch, yet are compelling in their rawness.

Keitel is gloriously over the top in the midst of it all, culminating in a scene in a church, where a vision of Christ (Paul Hipp) appears before him. Keitel howls like a wounded animal, crawling on his hands and knees and pleading for forgiveness. Emotions of guilt and sadness have swelled to the bursting point in this figure, who bets thousands on the Dodgers but can no longer dodge the consequences of his actions. He collapses next to a kneeling nun (Frankie Thorn), a rape victim who has forgiven her attackers. Disheveled and nearly broken, he demands her explanation, not because he can’t understand but because he desperately wants to forgive himself.

In not revealing too much about the lieutenant’s character beyond his self-destructive behaviour, Ferrara and co-writers Victor Argo, Paul Calderon and Zoë Lund simplified a formula, letting only its most affecting parts bristle on screen. It works because of Keitel’s commitment. The lieutenant is bad by virtue of his actions, but he is also hurt and unable to fully turn away from his faith. In the end, he redeems himself by action and is fittingly relieved of his misery.

“We eat away at ourselves until there’s nothing left but appetite,” the lieutenant is told in a drug-induced haze by a fellow junkie (Lund). A position of power can take hold of a weak-willed individual. That power can come to feel deserved, leaving justice as an afterthought. Bad things can start to seem rational in a career that can bend toward moral ambivalence. In “Mean Streets”, Keitel held his hand over an open flame to get himself used to the fires of hell. In “Bad Lieutenant”, he plays a man already in hell, dousing the flames with liquor in a vain attempt to extinguish them.

Nicholas Cage stars in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, and the movie is awesome. Some disagree. Let me explain why these “some” are wrong.

First, some reviews compare the movie to a 1992 flick directed by Abel Ferrara. In this movie, a corrupt cop does a bunch of ridiculous things, earning the movie an NC-17 rating. Such reviews complain that this movie isn’t as offensive, graphic, or gritty, and they’re right, but that’s because Werner Herzog wasn’t aiming to follow up Ferrara’s movie, and comparisons between the two movies miss the point.

That’s because as I see it, the latest Bad Lieutenant is not a crime drama or a cop story, but rather a very sophisticated comedy. The movie isn’t going for grittiness or offensiveness, though I think it sometimes achieves both of those moods; rather, it’s going for a kind of sarcastic commentary on New Orleans, a devastated city filled with ruined people. The satisfying point of the movie is that it’s funny, but not because the characters are trying to be funny. This isn’t a comedy in that crude sense. The characters take everything deadly serious; their world is no joke. But for us it is a joke. The antics of Nicholas, the deus ex machina ending, and Cage’s sprinkled hallucinations all create a cynical humor that pervades the movie. Cage is simply a bad lieutenant, and he gets what he wants. Awesome.

Also, there is a philosophical point to the movie, which I think is that immoral people succeed best when they can find a moral community to parasitically infect. Even the gangster’s behave somewhat morally in that they fulfill their bargain with Cage and don’t just shoot him at various opportune moments. Cage is the bad guy, as the title suggests, but he needs the rule of law, honor, and authority to fulfill his impulses. Like the Fool in Hobbes, the most successful egoist is the one that knows how to fake altruism.

Finally, I want to note that the director, Werner Herzog, wins the war of words in terms of defending his movie. Abel Ferrara melodramatically said, in reference to Herzog and his crew, “”I wish these people die in Hell. I hope they’re all in the same streetcar, and it blows up.” Die in hell? Is that possible? It doesn’t matter because Herzog’s response was pretty good. When asked about Ferrara’s comments, Herzog replied “I have no idea who Abel Ferrara is. I don’t feel like doing homage to Abel Ferrara because I don’t know what he did — I’ve never seen a film by him. I have no idea who he is. Is he Italian? Is he French? Who is he?” I think this is funny because Herzog is famous (among movie people) and successful, and so his response nicely leverages his social status against an immature and obviously pretty insignificant rival. Way to be strong Werner.

Considering the fact that every third film today is a re-make or, more pretentiously, a re-imagination of an earlier success, it’s always galling to hear filmmakers giving the hard sell on why it’s so vitally necessary to re-do what’s been already been done; why in many ways, Freddie Krueger’s story is even more relevant today than it was in 1984, or why this generation must have a DEATH RACE to call its own… Of course, the only real reason to re-make, or re-imagine a film is to appeal to its “built-in” audience – and make bank. Any filmmaker who claims otherwise is full of what they’re peddling.

And then there is THE BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS, a film being discussed with refreshing honesty by both its director Werner Herzog, and the director of the first film to bear the BAD LIEUTENANT title, Abel Ferrara. And when I say ‘refreshing,’ I mean that Ferrara has been quoted as saying that that all those involved in remaking his film “should all die in hell.” (An actual quote – and it’s worth noting that Ferrara’s follow-up to his own LIEUTENANT was BODY SNATCHERS, a re-imagining of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS.) Herzog, for his part, claims never to have seen Ferrara’s 1992 film, and has freely admitted that the BAD LIEUTENANT title was added to his project to secure financing. There’s the movies for you, kids: an original story, even one with a great director and bonafide Disney movie star, requires association with a pre-existing title to get made. But in what could be considered a Hollywood judo move, Herzog has put together a unique, even bold crime film, by taking on the name of another. It’s in this subversive spirit that BL:POCNO (such a fun acronym) seems to have been produced, and that, fortunately, translates into a viewing experience full of freaky pleasures.

Nicolas Cage (second from right, caucasian) in THE BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS

In one of his two greatest and least-unbearable performances of the ’00’s, Academy Award Winner and Japanese commercial pitchman Nicolas Cage plays Lieutenant Terence McDonagh, who, at film’s open, appeals to his better angels and rescues an inmate from a flooding prison cell during Hurricane Katrina. In saving the con, Terence injures his back, and is prescribed some serious painkillers. Before long, these are supplemented with every other type of narcotic imaginable – and Terence is in deep with all the bad elements of the Crescent City. What follows is a surprisingly tight, and altogether surprising noir, in which Terence juggles gambling debt, drug addiction, a hooker girlfriend with a heart of gold, and an assortment of well-cast ne’er-do-well’s. It’s a highly-entertaining depiction of a man mentally and emotionally spiraling out of control, and like all real noir, it’s not on a moral bent against either its pro- or antagonists. Herzog certainly doesn’t present a sinner just to tear him down; there’s too much to explore in the symptoms of moral and mental descent.

If Cage is to be the modern Klaus Kinski, Herzog’s new and wild American muse – all I can say is bring it. Bring that shit on, Werner. Director and actor here make a perfect fit, Herzog the great documentarian of madness, and Cage, who does crazy in a way all his own. Cage’s style pushes so far in one direction of artifice, from PEGGY SUE to CON AIR, he almost dares you to accept him in a role, and to enjoy him faking it, as he clearly does. When Cage is bad, as well as when he’s good, he goes for broke, and in BL:POCNO, he goes so broke, he’d better be lining up some of those bonkers Japanese commercials, and fast. In one scene, before a pair of old ladies, Cage waves a .45 Magnum and screams, unprovoked, “I hate you! You’re why this country’s going down the shithole!” If this doesn’t make you laugh, you haven’t accepted the dare of Cage and of this film. And I feel so very sad for you.

How'd it get BUUURNED?!

Herzog himself colors in the margins of a smart, if somewhat straight screenplay with bizarrerie that improves the pace in the film’s midsection. Between the appearance of drug-induced iguanas, (with shaky, patent-pending Iguana-Cam,) and a metaphysical break-dancing ho-down that begs to be watched on repeat, it’s hard not to get a thrill from the genuine weirdness Herzog injects into what would appear by its title to be another unnecessary remake. He manages to make a strong case not only for his own remake’s existence, but even a case, in some cases, for remakes.

—

THE BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS

Mann’s Chinese Six, Hollywood

Sunday, November 29, 4:10pm showing

Pod koniec lat 70-tych pojawiło się sporo filmów, których akcja rozgrywa się w brudnych zaułkach Nowego Jorku, a ich głównymi bohaterami byli zupełni popaprańcy: wykolejeńcy życiowi, narkomani, przestępcy i brutalni policjanci. Sztandarowym filmem tego nurtu jest “Taksówkarz” Martina Scorsese z 1976 roku. Odrobinę mniej znane są niektóre filmy Briana de Palmy, Abla Ferrary czy Sidneya Lumeta. Stosunkowo najmniej znany z tego grona jest scenarzysta i reżyser James Toback i jego film “Fingers” z 1978 roku, zasługujący na zdecydowanie większą uwagę, bo to obraz nie mniej wstrząsający niż “Taksówkarz”.

Główny bohater filmu – Jimmy, rewelacyjnie zagrany przez Harveya Keitela, jest postacią nietuzinkową. Za dnia rozbija się po mieście z przenośnym radiem nastawionym na pełen regulator i ściąga długi dla swojego ojca – lokalnego gangstera, wieczorami zaś z pasją ćwiczy grę na fortepianie, by zostać sławnym muzykiem i spełnić przy okazji ambicje matki. Wieczna huśtawka emocjonalna i zawieszenie między dwoma odmiennymi światami powoli doprowadza nie do końca zrównoważonego Jimmy’ego do obłędu. Wyjątkowy obraz o przemocy, muzyce, pożądaniu, pasji i cienkiej granicy między nimi. Na tyle interesujący, że doczekał się niedawno francuskiego remake’u. Film “W rytmie serca” (oryginalny tytuł: “De battre mon cœur s’est arrêté”) Jacques Audiard’a z 2006 roku z Romain’em Duris w roli głównej, to dość wierna przeróbka “Palców” Tobacka .

by: Grzegorz Kruk 2009

WARNING! MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD!

Once in a great while, a movie comes along that is so insane, so crazy, so completely out of its mind wild, that you almost can’t believe what you are seeing. BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS (or THE BAD LIEUTENANT PORT OF CALL: NEW ORLEANS as it’s written in the opening title) is that movie! It’s the most delightfully cracked out movie about a crazed drug addict policeman I’ve ever seen in my life. It is not one of those so-bad-it’s-good movies at all. This movie is the result of some very talented artists getting together and having a great deal of fun making a really cool, weird, funny and surreal cop movie.

I don’t know if this is an actual remake of ABEL FERRARA’S brilliant 1992 BAD LIEUTENANT, which is an agonizingly hellish character study of an out of control cop, that is played with amazing intensity by HARVEY KEITEL. There are several similarities in both the plot structure and character details, but this new BAD LIEUTENANT is a much different beast altogether. The original was much more serious and there was very little sympathy for the protagonist, who wasn’t even given a name, but referred to only as The Lieutenant in the end credits.

The new BAD LIEUTENANT is named Terence McDonagh and is played with comic exuberance by NICOLAS CAGE, who hasn’t been this awesome since LEAVING LAS VEGAS. His career of late has been spotty to say the least, with a few great movies like ADAPTATION and LORD OF WAR, mixed in with a lot of big budget action fluff. It’s been awhile since he’s really cut loose in a role and he tears this movie up with his energy. This is the CAGE of VAMPIRE’S KISS and RAISING ARIZONA. The manic, funny and inventive CAGE who makes the most out of each take. His character is a man addicted to crack, coke, heroin, vicodin, gambling and sex, who abuses his power at every opportunity he gets, and yet he’s a very likable guy. Even though his methods are totally crazy and completely unpredictable, he’s a really good detective and he gets results, as he breaks every law imaginable in the process. CAGE’S performance is a tour de force! He should get 10 Oscars!

HARVEY KEITEL as the o.g. BAD LIEUTENANT, whom is quite different from...

NICOLAS CAGE'S BAD LIEUTENANT! Those old ladies deserve it, trust me.

How this movie came together is beyond me. I can’t imagine there’s been a clamoring for a BAD LIEUTENANT revisit over the 17 years since the first. When I first read that WERNER HERZOG was directing a remake, I thought “The legendary German filmmaker responsible for FITZCARRALDO, NOSFERATU, GRIZZLY MAN and RESCUE DAWN wants to do a reboot of BAD LIEUTENANT? Huh?” It’s an odd choice indeed, but HERZOG is an odd director and he has made a very odd film and I’m so glad of that. His BAD LIEUTENANT is given humanity right off the bat, where with the original you really have to search for something to feel sympathetic for.

NICOLAS CAGE and WERNER HERZOG must have had a blast making this movie.

The film starts off in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, with detective Terence McDonagh (CAGE) and his colleague (VAL KILMER) emptying out a fellow officer’s locker. They come across a criminal still locked in a flooding cell and in an act of heroism, McDonagh jumps in to save him, injuring his back in the process. He is prescribed vicodin by a doctor and when we see him a year later, he’s become a full blown addict who’s graduated to crack, coke and heroin. He also has a bad gambling problem that gets his bookie (BRAD DOURIF) a bit testy.

When he’s put in charge of an investigation to find whoever was responsible for a drug related multiple homicide (in the original it was a case involving the rape of a nun), he throws himself fully into the assignment. The movie then swings back and forth between CAGE’S working the case and engaging in his own criminal activities. One scene he’s interviewing a suspect and gathering clues, the next he’s robbing drugs from a young couple of club goers and forcing the guy to watch him fuck his girlfriend.

EVA MENDES is great as the BAD LIEUTENANT’S  hooker girlfriend. Despite the fact that their relationship is based on doing drugs together and ripping off her johns, they actually have a few very tender scenes together. There’s a moment they share concerning a hidden silver spoon that’s downright heartwarming. No shit!

FAIRUZA BALK shows up as a corrupt traffic cop with some really nice boots and BRAD DOURIF is typically terrific as CAGE’S bookie, whom unlike his character’s counterpart in the original, joins the rest of us in falling for the BAD LIEUTENANT’S charm. Also, the rapper XZIBIT turns out a really well executed performance as Big Fate the gangster. He too, is a totally likable scumbag.

EVA MENDES as the BAD LIEUTENANT'S girlfriend.

"Shoot him again, his soul's still dancing!"

There are individual scenes in the new BAD LIEUTENANT that are sheer brilliance. One of my favorites involves a crack hallucination CAGE has involving two iguanas, that’s set to an old blues tune. The scene just keeps playing out,  supremely confident in its own complete absurdity and I couldn’t stop laughing.

Another one involves a group of gangsters being shot down. CAGE, in the midst of another drug delusion, exclaims to the killers, “Shoot him again, his soul is still dancing!” The camera then pans over to someone dressed like the fallen gangster, breakdancing in the middle of the room. It’s fucking AMAZING!

The film was written by WILLIAM FINKELSTEIN and I’m curious if it was his intention to pattern it after the original BAD LIEUTENANT, or if it was an original idea and the marketing department attached it to the FERRARA film. There are a few similarities in the plot, but overall this is a far different film and stands on its own as a great piece of cop noir. FINKELSTEIN’S previous work as a television writer for NYPD BLUE, LAW & ORDER, L.A. LAW and COP ROCK have served him well and he has written a truly unique and funny film.

WERNER HERZOG’S direction is probably what sends this movie sailing over the fence the most. His attachment alone is what takes this film from being a simple cop thriller and turns it into an art-house masterpiece. It’s his genius in taking such care with the little moments, (like CAGE reading a child’s poem about a fish) that make this a much more enjoyable BAD LIEUTENANT than we’ve previously seen. Not that ABEL FERRARA’S film is any less great or powerful, it’s just a different sensibility with the exact same subject.

Which is why I’d like to see a BAD LIEUTENANT franchise develop out of this. My pitch is this: each new film is the exact same formula – drugged up Lieutenant tries to solve a case he’s assigned while on a self destructive gambling and crack binge. It’s a different city, director and lead actor each time. A franchise that continues to remake and take a new spin at the same storyline. I think that would be cool. BAD LIEUTENANT: LOS ANGELES directed by DAVID LYNCH and starring ROBERT DOWNEY JR.; BAD LIEUTENANT: DALLAS directed by the COEN BROTHERS and starring MATT DILLON; BAD LIEUTENANT: PARIS directed by ROMAN POLANSKI and starring GERARD DEPARDIEU; and BAD LIEUTENANT: MIAMI directed by LARS VON TRIER and starring DON JOHNSON (now that would be REALLY crazy!).

See BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS because it is an awesome piece of crazy independent cinema! It’s like smoking a rock out of your lucky crack pipe, without the withdrawls and iguanas. I leave you with trailers for both the original and the new one. Enjoy!

1992: The Bad Lieutenant di Abel Ferrara

I 98 minuti forse più crudi e morbosi del cinema americano in un film giustamente celebre e celebrato.

La discesa agli Inferi di un essere umano, un trovare il Divino che è in ognuno di noi, la colpa e il perdono costituiscono il tema portante di questo intenso lavoro (surreale ed estremamente realistico al contempo): ritratto di un individuo (“abitatore del sottosuolo e scalatore del cielo”, Roberto Escobar) che è metafora del male della società contemporanea, viaggio angoscioso dalla perdizione alla redenzione tra l’indifferenza generale.

La ricerca del significato da dare alla vita in un film che colpisce come un pugno nello stomaco nella sua sgradevolezza e che mostra senza veli un mondo dominato da perversioni sessuali, droga, alcol, bisogno di danaro… Non sappiamo perché il protagonista si è ridotto così: al regista interessa mostrarci il “nulla” in cui è caduto ed Abel Ferrara è più audace del Martin Scorsese (col quale condivide l’amore-odio per la religione cattolica) di Mean Streets e Taxi driver, nell’illustrare una città, un ambiente, un uomo… più animaleschi che umani, disperati e autolesionisti nella loro abiezione.

Gabriele Niola ha giustamente scritto: “Il Cattivo Tenente è uno dei più lucidi viaggi nella redenzione umana, quasi un percorso di santità fatto camminando di spalle”. Un film senza misura, esasperato, “eccessivo”, provocatorio, smodato, disturbante… Un film in cui “il divino e il diabolico stanno l’uno nell’altro: ognuno funziona come uno specchio sulla cui superficie si riflette l’altro” (Il Sole 24 Ore). Un film da vedere e rivedere, che fa riflettere e discutere, che scuote la nostra coscienza e ci pone mille interrogativi.

Un intero cast dalla performance eccezionale. Un indimenticabile Harvey Keitel dalla bravura impressionante, tragicamente grande.

Una fotografia altamente suggestiva (in perfetta armonia col tema del film), una colonna sonora appropriata e mai invadente, un montaggio sapiente e serrato arricchiscono questo lavoro presentato al 45° Festival di Cannes.

Da condividere in pieno quanto scrisse Paolo D’Agostini su Repubblica: “Raramente un film è riuscito ad essere più cupo, mortuario, senza un filo d’aria; a dispetto del suo contenuto abbondantemente blasfemo, dovrebbe interessare chi osserva l’uomo secondo un punto di vista cristiano. Raccomandarne la visione ai deboli di stomaco sarebbe cattiveria, ma anche non segnalarne la forte personalità – non superficialmente appagata di scandalo e morbosità – sarebbe una grave omissione”.

scheda

premi e riconoscimenti

Da série, “Ferrara me faz gozar”, mais screens exepcionais.

E assim acaba uma vida grandiosa de um homem grandioso!

Já que o Luiz postou lá no Zabriskie Point eu vou postar os meus aqui também. Só que vou postar os meus preferidos. E pela ordem cronológica, começa pela abertura do filme que me exita por de mais.

Os enquadramentos de Ferrara, a pose marrenta de Dafoe e a puta música tema fazem dessa junção de quadros uma das minhas preferidas de todos os filmes que já vi.

Un film del 2011, regia di Abel Ferrara, con Michael Pitt / Nelly / Riccardo Scamarcio. Prodotto da ()

Drammatico / Poliziesco

Pericle Scalzone è un fallito che vive compiendo malefatte per un boss locale, tale Luigino Pizza, padrone di alcune pizzerie nei quartieri spagnoli di Napoli che il malvivente utilizza per lo spaccio di eroina e il riciclaggio di denaro sporco. Un giorno Pericle viene incaricato dal suo principale di dare una lezione al prete del rione, la cui colpa è quella di denunciare le malefatte del boss dal pulpito della sua chiesa. Pericle obbedisce ma c’è una testimone, Signorinella, la potente sorella di Don Ermenegildo Coppola, altro boss locale. Pericle tenta allora di uccidere quest’ultima e si trova incastrato in una situazione più grande di lui. Tutti gli vogliono fare la pelle: Don Luigino per farsi perdonare da Don Ermenegildo, quest’ultimo per vendicarsi dell’offesa subita. A Pericle non resta che scappare. Inizia un viaggio nell’entroterra italiano che lo porterà a Pescara. Qui incontrerà Nastasia, una donna polacca con due figli che lavora in una fabbrica di copertoni e con la quale instaurerà un rapporto, dapprima fatto solo di sesso, ma che in seguito si trasformerà in sentimento vero. Pericle l’animale diventerà uomo e acquisterà consapevolezza di sé attraverso il rifiuto delle regole del suo mondo.

“My emotions are dead.”  So says Christopher Walken’s gangster and New York City drug kingpin Frank White, recently released from prison and eager to revitalize his life of crime and vice, at the beginning of Abel Ferrara’s 1990 film King of New York.  White might as well be describing King of New York itself, Ferrara’s gritty portrait of one man’s quest to ride a cocaine-fueled wave of excess into a position of power among New York’s cognoscenti.  Ferrara’s cinema has always been a cinema of absence, of emotional distance and detached observation, whether he’s tackling police corruption (Bad Lieutenant, 1992), rape trauma (Ms. 45, 1981), alien invasion (Body Snatchers, 1993), or even graduate school (The Addiction, 1995).  There is no room for sympathy in Ferrara’s movies, and equally little space for hope.  This cold lack of emotion is fully on display in King of New York, perhaps Ferrara’s finest film.  Long shots of empty prison hallways, blue-filtered nighttime takes of vacant ghetto streets, and unoccupied steel gray subway cars are but a few of the spaces and images that populate Ferrara’s New York, and the distancing effect such shots have is both stunning and palpable.  Even wild coke parties and upper class, plush and warmly lit townhouses remain at a remove, providing the viewer with no vicarious pleasure – we are here to watch and observe, not to participate.  Richly drawn characters, such as Laurence Fishburne’s henchman Jimmy Jump, while certainly engaging and enticing onscreen, invite our cold calculation as to their probable fates, not our emotional attachment.  (And this is saying a lot, as Fishburne’s performance is outstanding.  His onscreen exuberance counts as one of the greatest film performances since the 1970s.)  As such, we might consider Ferrara’s gangster picture to be the antithesis of Martin Scorsese’s body of work.  Scorsese envelops us in his New York crime dramas through revelations of individual character interiority, as with Henry Hill’s (Ray Liotta) voice over in GoodFellas, where emotional states are literally described for us on the film’s soundtrack.  Ferrara’s characters might just be all exteriors – as darkly empty as a Chinatown alleyway, as sleek and cold as a black limousine cruising the Lower East Side several hours before dawn.

Abel Ferrara em seu melhor trabalho, e ensinando como se fazer Cinema.

Há dois filmes maravilhosos dentro de Olhos de serpente, de Abel Ferrara, e eles não apenas coexistem de maneira harmoniosa como ainda por cima se completam.

O primeiro deles é um visceral metafilme que impressiona também pelo fato de parecer um compêndio das aspirações cinematográficas de seu diretor, especialmente pela íntima e conflituosa relação entre vício e religião.

O segundo, por sua vez, fala sobre até que ponto uma pessoa pode ser consumida, física e mentalmente, pelo processo de criação artístico. (desafio: tente não pensar em Heath Ledger)

O mais perturbador, no entanto, é quando percebemos o elo com a mente do criador — seria Keitel o avatar do próprio Ferrara? Não sei, mas assusta a maneira como ele insufla que essa Hollywood imunda não é lá muito diferente dos submundos nova-iorquinos de seus outros filmes.

4/4

Vinícius Laurindo

ou: Olhos de Serpente (Abel Ferrara, 1993) – Daniel Dalpizzolo – 4/4

Há dois filmes maravilhosos dentro de Olhos de serpente, de Abel Ferrara, e eles não apenas coexistem de maneira harmoniosa como ainda por cima se completam.

O primeiro deles é um visceral metafilme que impressiona também pelo fato de parecer um compêndio das aspirações cinematográficas de seu diretor, especialmente pela íntima e conflituosa relação entre vício e religião.

O segundo, por sua vez, fala sobre até que ponto uma pessoa pode ser consumida, física e mentalmente, pelo processo de criação artístico. (desafio: tente não pensar em Heath Ledger)

O mais perturbador, no entanto, é quando percebemos o elo com a mente do criador — seria Keitel o avatar do próprio Ferrara? Não sei, mas assusta a maneira como ele insufla que essa Hollywood imunda não é lá muito diferente dos submundos nova-iorquinos de seus outros filmes.

Just in time for next month’s release…

Welcome to Remake Radar, where we take on Hollywood’s penchant for remaking films for better or worse (which is most of the time). This month’s movie:

“Bad Lieutenant” (1992)

Stars: Harvey Keitel, Victor Argo, and Frankie Thorn

Director: Abel Ferrara

Story: Harvey Keitel plays the main character, a guy who is as much a criminal as a cop. Buried under gambling debt and looking for the next score, he ends up helping out a nun (Thorn) and reflecting on his life, searching for forgiveness.

What do we know now?: Werner Herzog has taken the reins on this one, subbing in Nic Cage for Keitel and relocating from NYC to Bayou country. Cage is investigating the killing of five Senegalese immigrants. Eva Mendes (who was with cage in “Ghost Rider”) shows up in this one as well. Also starring is Val Kilmer, Fairuza Balk, and Brad Dourif.

The release date is set for November 20, 2009.

Original trailer:

Remake trailer:

Eden and After (Robbe-Grillet, 1970)

If nothing else, Robbe-Grillet’s films are always formally inventive, and this one is no exception. The editing is immaculate and provocative. Robbe-Grillet continues his fascination with sadomasochistic behavior, narrative dismantling and associative editing. Eden and After surpasses the other two Robbe-Grillet films I’ve seen fairly easily by maintaining a palpable string of ideas regarding 60s/70s youth and presenting them in an intriguing and unique manner.

The Addiction (Ferrara, 1995)

I’ve had a bit of a streak with Ferrara lately. Beginning with Ms. 45 a while back, I moved onto The Driller Killer, then The Addiction. All 3 great in their own ways. The Addiction feels like a bit of a departure from those two with its use of black and white and philosophical preoccupations. The title refers to the protagonist’s addiction to blood mirroring that of a heroin addiction through the use of needles to “shoot up” in the film. Ferrara’s  morality play is highly expressive, and Taylor is a blast in the lead. Walken’s cameo roughly 2/3’s in is worth the watch alone.

Salt for Svanetia (Kalatozov, 1930)

Most people know Kalatozov from either I Am Cuba or The Cranes are Flying. I decided to check out one of his earlier works and was treated to the Soviet gem that is Salt for Svanetia. Pure propaganda, the film is a tribute to the working class citizen and the communal aspects of Communism. The montage is on par or better than I’ve seen Eisenstein accomplish, and the film itself superior as a whole. It’s a rousing work, and the last 10 mins really hammer it home in the best possible way.

Irene in Time (Henry Jaglom, 2009). Jaglom’s still going at it, these days with his latest protegee, Tanna Frederick, who makes a point of not leaving any emotion unexpressed – but then it’s a Henry Jaglom movie, what would you expect? This time out the nattering women are talking about their fathers, the men are on the make. Makes you want to slap people. (full review 10/30)

Chelsea on the Rocks (Abel Ferrara, 2009). The legendary Manhattan landmark, given a kind of first-person oral history by denizens past and present. You just know off-camera interlocutor Ferrara is going to get himself onscreen eventually, and he doesn’t disappoint. (full review 10/30)

A l’origine un livre et l’idée originale de Bram stocker et son “dracula” sorti en 1897 .

“Les vampires romantiques me fatiguent. La tyrannie de la jeunesse et de la beauté est suffisamment ennuyeuse dans le monde réel pour que je n’aie pas envie de la retrouver dans des romans et j’ajouterai à cette phrase du réalisateur guillermo del toro ( hellboy, blade 2…) ET AUSSI DANS LES FILMS !!!

Au plus loin que je me souvienne, j’ai été un jeune spectateur. On évolue avec le temps et les films ne vous font plus le même effet à 10 ,25 ou 40 ans.Mais en les revoyant on redécouvre d’autres facettes et surtout on mesure le fossé qui existent avec des films, pardon des “produits” comme TWILIGHT ,caractéristiques de notre société et donc d’un CERTAIN cinéma d’aujourd’hui (je vais m’en expliquer) .
Le film de tod browning “dracula” “(sorti en 1930) joue sur la peur classique de l’homme devant l’inconnu. Chez Murnau ,qui adapte le livre de Bram Stocker sous le titre de “nosferatu” (sorti en 1922)le film est guidé par la peur de l’étranger et suggère par exemple dans une scène un rapprochement entre des immigrés de l’est et un troupeau de rats .Pour l’anecdote, la consigne avait été demandé avant et pendant le tournage de “nosferatu”, de faire croire que le comédien Max Schreck était véritablement un vampire .
( “L’Ombre du vampire ” sorti en 2000 avec john malkovich traite de cette rumeur et raconte le tournage du “nosferatu” de 1922 )
Malgré tout le film fonctionne ,sous son aspect “vieilli”, dans le registre de la terreur au point qu’il est régulièrement cité par de grands cinéastes comme une influence majeure . Ainsi on retrouve le comédien christopher walken qui incarne un personnage nommé Max Schreck dans “BATMAN le défi ” de Tim Burton (Sorti en 1991 ).De même un extrait de “nosferatu” passe dans “the king of new york” d’Abel Ferrara (sorti en 1990) et dans scream 2 ( juillet 1998) . Film d’horreur dont on sait qu’il est truffé de références .
Références (antisémites de surcroit) dont on été accablés les films de Browning et surtout de Murnau. C’est ce qui a peut être poussé certains réalisateurs a dépoussiérer le genre. Ainsi comment passer à coté du génial “bal des vampires” de Roman Polanski (1967). Celui ci disait en 1966 ” toute peur qui n’est pas accompagnée d’un véritable danger doit vous faire rire une fois passée“. En partant de ce postulat ,Polanski manie nos peurs et s’en moque tout en respectant les codes du film de vampire.

Je serai assez bref sur les deux films suivants qui derrière de grands réalisateurs (jordan et coppola) et des comédiens renommés n’ont pas été si audacieux que leur mise en scène nous le suggérait.
Je pense notamment à “entretien avec un vampire” tiré des romans d’Anne RICE qui aurait pu être excitant sans Brad Pitt et Tom Cruise. C’est d’ailleurs une future “star” Kirsten dunst qui tire son épingle du jeu et qui peut être a donné des idées aux réalisateurs récents de films de vampires (la jeunesse).

L’érotisme , le romantisme des vampires, apparaissent là et le fantasme de la vigueur sexuelle prend définitivement le pas sur une certaine terreur collective présente dans l’imaginaire des spectateurs .
Que retrouve t’on aujourd’hui , que ce soit dans” twilight 1″ et des séries comme “true blood“???.Il n’est même plus question de parler d’ail,” d’haleine fétide de teint blafard et de peau glaçée“! ( tiré de jean de marigny “la fascination des vampires”)
. Nous retrouvons une jeunesse éternelle, un désintérêt total pour la nourriture et un appétit sexuel sans limite (mais attention , protégé !!même si ce n’est pas précisé mais dans l’inconscient des spectateurs les plus jeunes)
La fascination collective est passée à la moulinette de scénarios aseptisés. Un seul mot d’ordre aujourd’hui: les vampires ça rapporte gros!!!! d’où une suite à twilight et un succès grandissant pour “true blood” (des millions d’américains regardent cette série tous les dimanche soirs sur HBO)

Le film “THIRST ceci est mon sang” par le réalisateur de “old boy” ( prix du jury ex aequo à cannes en 2009) que je qualifierai de délire mystique (et intéressant à voir) nous propose l’histoire d’un prêtre sud coréen catholique transformé en vampire suite à une expérience médicale. Le sang y est montré comme une véritable addiction voire comme une drogue et le meurtre d’autrui comme une véritable punition.
Ce thème se retrouve dans ce qui est surement un des films de vampires les plus intéressants de ces 20 dernières années “the addiction” ( 1995 tout est dans le titre!!) d’Abel Ferrara .
Je vous recommande enfin “MORSE” de Tomas Alfredson (2008) où la jeunesse n’est pas synonyme de vide culturel et culte de la beauté.Magnifique!! et on retrouve une tension et une terreur tout à fait particulière procurée par une extraordinaire actrice de 10 ans !un film de vampire!un vrai!

Allez pour la fin , la cerise sur le gâteau ou plutôt l’extrait d’une scène culte.Et où l’on rêve qu’elle ne se transforme jamais en bête assoiffée de sang… S’il te plait , continue à danser pour nous SALMA….