The movie that made Harvey Keitel an icon at last, and without sacrificing a molecule of his mulish integrity, Abel Ferrara's "Bad Lieutenant" (1992) was a high watermark for both men – an autopsy of a man’s ruined life, and an examination of appetite and its consequences that fixed hell's location inside the human heart. The Lieutenant – whose real name is never revealed – is a worst-case scenario of hypermasculine weakness, a crooked, boozing, dope-shooting cop who hustles around New York trying to track down a couple of teenagers who raped a nun while simultaneously trying to avoid getting killed by gangsters to whom he owes hundreds of thousands of dollars in gambling debts. Judged purely as a spiral into darkness, it was damned hard to beat. Ferrara and Keitel were Bertolucci and Brando doing “Last Tango in New York,” only this time, the suicidal hero fucked himself. 
I first saw this movie when I was writing movie reviews for the Dallas Observer, and it didn’t just impress me, it wiped me out. I believed then, and still believe now, that it’s a classic, possibly Ferrara’s purest and most direct statement of who he is and what his career has been about. In the repertory house of my imagination, I’d put it on a double bill with “Raging Bull,” another study in rage, sexual dysfunction and Roman Catholic attraction-repulsion in the face of sin. Ferrara, I wrote in 1993 when the film finally played Dallas, “…is a spiritual man, but not traditionally religious. Raised Catholic, he has few good things to say about the church. Like Martin Scorsese, he’s fascinated with sin, spirituality and redemption, but aside from that, he has little in common with Scorsese (except, perhaps, for the street milieu). Scorsese loves visual representations of sin; they make for gorgeous images, and he alternates between embracing them and jumping violently away from them. The visceral artist in him conflicts with the moralist, and this clash makes his detractors (and sometimes even his fans) livid.”
But Ferrara, I wrote, seems to work “…more from his rational mind and less from his gut. Like Scorsese, his images are crude, kinetic and sometimes staggeringly beautiful, but his attitude toward them is more level-headed. He doesn’t deal with sin and salvation, but with the idea of sin and salvation. Watching ‘Bad Lieutenant.,’ you find yourself keeping a mental tally of the protagonist’s offenses. Ferrara’s meticulous account of the lieutenant’s descent into degradation, coupled with the film’s distancing style – long, long takes; lots of medium shots; eerie silence punctuated by apocalyptic bursts of pop music – grants you a privileged, even godlike perspective.” Ferrara’s subject: a man’s systematic self-destruction and partial redemption. 
Which brings us to Keitel. Novelist and essayist Steve Erickson wrote in a rave review of “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me” that one of the clearest measures of a committed artist was how willing he or she was to risk looking ridiculous. By that admittedly reductive yardstick, Keitel’s performance is one of the most committed in movie history, so naked, in many senses of the word, that you can barely look at the screen. Yet miraculously, after two decades of always-a-scene-stealer, rarely-a-leading-man, the one-two punch of this film and Keitel’s revelatory romantic lead in “The Piano” (he showed his penis in both!) finally made him a star. Or maybe the phrase is anti-star: a leading man with no fear, no shame and, it seemed, no limits. From 1993 onward, he stopped being underrated and became impossible to escape – a self-made lumpenprole icon, an American Gerard Depardieu. More than any of Keitel's early '90s career-reinvention projects -- more than "Bugsy," "Thelma and Louise," even "Reservoir Dogs" -- “Bad Lieutenant” cemented this shift. 
Deeply Catholic filmmaker that he is, Ferrara’s films often depict autonomous individuals getting lost in their own appetites, abasing themselves or being figuratively or literally destroyed (and often actively participating in that destruction). Yet this descent into hell is never just a sadomasochistic exercise, because the soul transcends the flesh. No matter what Ferrara’s characters do to themselves or others, a spiritual flame never stops flickering.
Keitel’s performance embodies Ferrara’s preoccupations and more importantly, his temperament, which is more coolly analytical than his material might suggest. In the hands of a lesser filmmaker and lesser actor, this story could have been another self-indulgent exercise in Indie Edginess – the kind of movie that confirms its artsy bona fides by making every other scene a big Oscar clip setpiece and rubbing your face in blood and shit every five minutes. “Bad Lieutenant.” has many such moments – when you remember the film, there’s a 
good chance you picture the protagonist staggering around a nasty apartment, drunk and naked, weeping like a lost child, or seeing the apparition of Jesus in church and calling him a rat fuck. But upon repeat viewings, the lieutenant’s self-awareness -- his complicity in the destruction of his last shreds of dignity -- becomes more clear. As I wrote in my original review, “Like Ferrara, Keitel’s Lieutenant is interested in the abstract idea of corruption even as he wallows in it. Sometimes, when he’s shooting up, cavorting with whores or peering at his cute kids as if they’re alien beings, you sense something more than mere debasement: excitement at the idea that he’s pushing the frontiers of evil, and repulsion at the realization that he’s excited.”
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This essay was written for the Abel Ferrara Blog-a-Thon, coordinated by fellow film blogger Girish Shambu. For a complete lineup of Ferrara-related essays, click here and scroll down.
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Brothers in sin: Abel Ferrara, Harvey Keitel and “Bad Lieutenant"
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54 comments:
This was a movie that I read about for over a year before I had a chance to finally see it, on video. After reading countless reviews and articles about the movie, I was actually a little scared to watch it. Maybe scared isn't the right word. I was nervous. I sort of knew what I was in store for, but I wasn't prepared for how it was going to hit me. And it hit like a sledgehammer. This was my first Ferrera movie, and since I have caught up with all of his movies and have always had that sense of nerves before everyone. After BAD LIEUTENANT, I knew I was in the hands of a director that was not afraid to take me anywhere. While most of his films since this one have been disappointing, they are never not interesting.
It is a pretty overwhelming movie, no doubt. Even if you think of yourself as having a pretty strong stomach, this movie will test it. it's not just the specific acts of violence and degradation, though those are rough in and of themselves. It's the character's active participation in, and awareness of, his descent that makes it truly disturbing.
Nice essay, but not entirely convincing. Whatever his merits as a visual artist, Ferrara does love to rub our nose in it, and he has a hackish side that often comes out even in movies as personal as this one. There's a can you top this quality to the entire movie that leaves a sour aftertaste. Also, I could have done without your lead piece of art, an image of Keitel I do not especially ever need to see again.
Holy fuckin' shit!
(And I mean that, too.)
BAD LIEUTENANT is a film I used to worship. (I still do, I just don't attend mass with the same frequency as once I did.)
I first saw it on a screener tape provided to me, per my request, by Pioneer back when I was the buyer for a laserdisc store in S.A.
That tape got so much freaking play over the next few weeks. The culmination of all those viewings occurred one night when some friends of mine and I all tripped on some damn crazy acid. As the night wore on and our collective peaks faded, I pulled out THE TAPE and inserted it into the VCR.
To my amazement - which I still hold on to to this day - they sat and viewed the entire affair and when it was over they all fucking hated me and couldn't believe what I'd done to them. Real life in the form of a Harvey Keitel movie crashed in on their Timothy Leary-esque world and they were changed people for it.
Come to think of it, so was I - because I watched BAD LIEUTENANT under the influence of some really strong hallucinogenic chemicals and it was even a new movie to me in those moments.
I've always loved that movie poster which Matt has posted above and I've got an original of it I really should get framed someday. I've also got the video release poster where he's brandishing his other piece in the direction of whoever looks at it. I've even got a super wornout T-shirt with the nude shot on it that I still pull out and wear from time to time (the wear on the shirt works its style in a strange sort of way).
But my most prized piece of BL swag is my pristine laserdisc copy. Why?
Because it is as it should be: Rated NC-17 ~AND~ before Led Zeppelin stepped in and forced LIVE Entertainment to remove the "Kashmir" rap song (called "Signifying Rapper", I believe), which in my mind comprises about a quarter of the film's power. I've got the original, untainted LIEUTENANT and I'll probably always own a laserdisc player just so I can spin it every couple years.
henryfive: There's a can you top this quality to the entire movie that leaves a sour aftertaste.
Your essay is wonderful, Matt, but excepting your praise for Keitel's performance in BL and The Piano, I'm with henryfive on this. Ferrara is a hack, and he makes grungy movies that occasionally have dynamite performances in them, (Keitel here, Christopher Walken in King of New York) performances that deserve better movies. He throws oodles of images that are supposed to be repugnant onscreen, shows a little directorial style, and suddenly he's the master of onscreen sin and degradation. I don't buy it. I'll take Scorsese any day, or I'll go back to my alma mater, if I want to deal with Catholic hangups. (I'm a Protestant--our hangups aren't as much fun, and there's far less Italian artist-based religious imagery too. Poor me.)
You're right about Keitel, one of my favorite actors. This is the most daring performance I have ever seen, which pisses me off all the more that the movie is so unintentionally hilarious. It made me think of Evil Dead 2 because like that movie, after about 20 minutes it stopped being disgusting and just became surreal and funny. And Jesus showing up...that was priceless.
Except the assault on the nun, there was nothing in this movie that bothered me. Not even Keitel running around naked. To quote Forrest Whitaker in The Crying Game: "It's just a piece of meat. It has no major diseases!"
Maybe I needed some of Ross' NC-17 rated acid. Or maybe I have no heart at all. Only my hairdresser knows for sure.
Make a run for that ammo belt, Odie- I'll cover ya. When I saw Bad Lieutenant way back when, I thought it was heavy handed to the nth degree. Abel Ferrara on David Letterman acted quite possibly insane, not that I always expect my artists to be sane, mind you. Harvey Keitel is brave, and he does look ridiculous. Me and a buddy used to mimic Keitel's fist-clinched, constipated caterwauling. When it is obvious that a great actor is giving 110 percent, like he is here, I fault the director for mishandling the performance and leaving it so open to mockery.
There are some good scenes, but without taking the cigar out of my mouth, I wanna tell Ferrara to go back and reedit. That said, it still would make a good double feature with Raging Bull.
Odie think BL is a comedy. This is OK as long as everyone understands I thought ANCHORMAN was hardcore drama, because I didn't laugh once.
It's easy to poke fun at Keitel's performance because it's so damn honest. It just is and honesty of that ilk is so rarely seen on movie screens (just like it's easy to poke fun at Brando's "Stick your fingers up my ass" scene in LAST TANGO). Keitel never once appears to be acting in that film and Ferrara just sticks the camera in front of him and fails (wisely) to cut away. There's a huge amount of power in the film's simplicity.
Bob knows had my most dire moments as a human being been captured on film, I'm pretty sure they could easily have been played back for laughs & audience participation. To appreciate it, BL may require a certain amount of self-loathing(which I was full of back in the mid 90s [as opposed to what I'm full of now].)
You people really need to watch this thing when you're brain is sizzling quicker and harder than those eggs in the TV commercial.
I'm a huge fan of Ferrara and I really liked this reading of BL, Matt. Your comments on his much under appreciated analytic side are dead on. It's why I tend to think films like Dangerous Game, New Rose Hotel and The Funeral are perhaps his best. There is enormous, startling complexity on display in those particular pictures and they make equally enormous demands upon viewers. I remember that Ferrara's biographer Brad Stevens said that he had seen New Rose Hotel many, many times; that it was an inexhaustible text. I think that's the best thing that can be said about anyone's work.
One of my favorite directors, one of my favorite films. (Though Ruediger is dead on about the vitality that was sapped with the court-mandated (?) absence of Schoolly D's "Signifyin' Rapper".)
I love that Ferrara follows all of his instincts out to the bitter end; not just the outrageous shock effects but the serenely arty ones as well. Sure, Matt's right that my first mental image when Bad Lieutenant comes to mind is a toss-up between naked weeping Keitel and infuriated smashing-his-radio Keitel. But the second is invariably that marvelous ending shot, our shock ebbing away as life keeps walking along.
It's moments like that I treasure from Ferrara, the way a clever exploitation gimmick is lingered over until it drifts seamlessly into overwhelming profundity. See also the Lieutenant's perversely humane crack communion with the rapists, Zoë Lund blessing her bullets before the final massacre in Ms. 45, Walken's death and Victor Argo shooting off his handcuffs in King of New York, the sunlight streaming down to the hospital room cross in The Addiction. Or for that matter the entirety of The Funeral (I agree with Nathaniel that it's his best).
Throw in his recent penchant for showing everything in his films except the plot (New Rose Hotel's offscreen bioweapon attack, R Xmas's kidnapping plot) and Ferrara seems to me the missing link between Robert Bresson and Sam Fuller. Which is why he's invaluable to me, though I can understand those who feel that's a link that was never worth making.
Ross: Odie think BL is a comedy. This is OK as long as everyone understands I thought ANCHORMAN was hardcore drama, because I didn't laugh once.
and
To appreciate it, BL may require a certain amount of self-loathing
First, Will Ferrell is one of our great "dramatic" actors, Ross!! But I do think Anchorman is funnier than anything else he appeared in, which is kinda like saying my pinky toe doesn't smell as bad as the other four.
Second: Self-loathing didn't change my reading of the movie. Perhaps, as yuu so eloquently stated, I need to watch the movie with some of that 2001: A Space Odyssey dippity do.
I'm sure, if I dig hard enough, I can find a copy of that Schooly D song on a mix tape I bought off the street "back in the day." Led Zeppelin should be ashamed, especially since they lent Kashmir to Puffy for that HORRIBLE song I saw him and Jimmy Page do on Saturday Night Live.
Wagstaff, thanks for coverin' me! (Cut to odienator and Wagstaff outrunning an enormous, Joel Silver worthy fireball that says MZS on it).
Anon: Ferrara seems to me the missing link between Robert Bresson and Sam Fuller.
I can't say I agree with that, but the mere idea that such a link would exist gives me chills. Wow.
Wow, it's a pleasure to not be a lone wolf in my opinion. I was under the impression that dissing this movie meant surrendering a certain amount of cool cred, that I might as well be wearing a shirt that says "middlebrow." The only thing I would add to this is that I am happy that Mr. Ferrara has conducted his career with a fair amount of freedom, and I admire his willingness to explore dark material, but I do wish the movies were generally better. I like the idea of Ferrara better than I like Ferrara. "Body Snatchers" is pretty scary, though.
The missing link idea makes sense to me. To add more blasphemy to this discussion, Fuller often had some of the same problems as Ferrara, at least from where I sit. While admiring his cantakerous independence, I wish the movies weren't such a mess, and that he didn't insist on using a mallet when a tuning fork would suffice.
But given the chronology, wouldn't Fuller be the missing link between Bresson and Ferrara?
No huge surprise, I'm sure, but I'm with Nathaniel and Ross on this one. I don't love everything Ferrara has done, but this particular movie seems just abotu perfect for what it is -- a truly hellish portrait of a man's psychological and spiritual disintegration. Ross' point about the style is well-taken; a movie that's so totally dependent on one performance, and that prides itself on its rawness of emotion and rawness of expression, needed to capture that performance in as raw a way as it could. A more measured, edited, structured approach probably would have yielded a more elegant movie, and it definitely would have eliminated some of the over-the-topness, the sense that the entire movie is perpetually on the verge of spinning out of control. But I like that quality and I think it's integral to the movie's effects. It works for some viewers and not for others, but I personally wouldn't change a frame. To whip out one of my favorite Pauline Kael quotes, great movies are rarely perfect movies. And as Girish Shambu notes in his opening essay for Ferrara-thon, Ferrara is a messy director. (The Fuller comparisons in this thread are dead-on.)
Oh, yeah, one other thing---
Click-CHACK......BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA! BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA! Blee-owww! (Ricochet noise.) BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA! Ker-pow!
Scrutch. (Sound of grenade being removed from commando belt.) Shlunk! (Pin pulled.)
Long pause as commenters scramble for cover...
Ker-BOOOOOOOM!
Matt, Matt, Matt.
I keep coming back to this blog and now I know why. You did it again. You skillfully tapped into a film that shook me to the core. The only other one that has had this kind of affect on me was Pasolini's Salo. This film is intense and shocking and probably the purest, most unencumbered film of Ferrara's sometimes dodgy career.
Regarding him being a visceral sometimes messy director, it comes with the package. Yes, there is a certain B-film director quality to his work. Look at his roots: he is the director of Ms. 45 and Driller Killer. The film is sometimes over the top (J.C. on the cross was a little heavy handed) but the film does have a crude fearlessness to it. Keitel did go to THAT place and should be commended for pulling out the stops on probably one of the most bravest performances ever committed to film.
I always felt that there should have been a third in a NYC trilogy. He was on such a roll with KONY to Bad LT., it just seemed logical. One more guilt-sick corrupt soul, one more film to take us into the depths.
One thing can be said about Ferrara is he's a piece of work. Check out the short film on the KONY DVD. All his collaborators speak of a missing in action Ferrara with the reverence of a soul who had just passed into the night.
All I know is the film followed me around like a black cloud weeks after I saw it at the Angelica. I couldn't stop talking about it, chatting people up about it. Yes, I was that freak. I even went so far as to (Matt you will appreciate this) take an ad out in the NY Press after I saw a photo of Ferrara wearing a Bad Lt. baseball cap. I pleaded with anyone who worked on the film who would be willing to part with an extra cap. I got a response from the line producer, Diana Phillips. After leaving numerous messages on her machine she responded with "Stop calling this number". She wasn't amused by my rabid fandom. I finally had my own made.
Beat that!
I also saw a screening with the screenwriter Zoe Lund at the Anthology before she died.
Oh yeah, I forgot, Irreversible is another one that will make you crawl under your bed and weep like a five year old.
I think it'd be disappointing if this talkback wasn't full of polarized feelings. If everyone admired it with equal fervor, I'd feel somewhat disillusioned.
I'm not in general a huge fan of Ferrara either, but BL is his masterpiece. I remember being really excited about DANGEROUS GAME and even liking it alot at the time. I still kinda like it, if for no other reason than to see Madonna gettin' slapped around by what's-his-face.
But you can sorta tell that all the hype that had surrounded BL went to Abel's head, and he followed it up with this Hollyweird-head-trip (actually, I guess BODY SNATCHERS was sandwiched snug in-between, but I'm sure that only added to DG).
If I'm not mistaken, Madonna had these horrible, atrocious things to say about Ferrara after making DG, and I've always gotten the impression that some shit went down between the two of them that will probably always remain between the two of them. Although I'd kill to read some sort of tell all on the subject.
Does anybody else recall that BL opened in NYC on the same day as ALADDIN, playing at the same two-screen theatre? I'm sure at least one person wandered into the wrong auditorium by mistake (which could be a weak premise for another bad Ferrara film).
Like Steven Seagal in Under Siege II, I have outrun your MZS fireball!
William: Oh yeah, I forgot, Irreversible is another one that will make you crawl under your bed and weep like a five year old.
Not me. I have a platform bed, so there's no way I could get under it. And the director's name is exactly what one should respond if asked if Irreversible is worth seeing.
I'm surprised Harvey Keitel didn't show up at your house after you phonejacked the line producer. He would be wearing a Bad Lieutenant hat, and nothing else. "Here's your hat," says Harvey, before he starts screaming and running around your living room. Abel Ferrara could then show up with a drill.
Ross: Does anybody else recall that BL opened in NYC on the same day as ALADDIN, playing at the same two-screen theatre?
That's how I saw Bad Lieutenant for free. I snuck in after seeing Aladdin because I had no desire to pay for an Abel Ferrara movie. There were no kids at either movie, I recall.
When I went to see The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, Her Lover and the Odienator, I recall a woman asking me outside the Loews theater if her kids would enjoy it. Apparently, she was dumping her kids to another movie so she could see something R-rated. The Cook et al. did not have a rating on it (which is why it even played at this particular Loews) so she wasn't sure. I told her that her kids would be better off at anything else but that movie. Imagine if I hadn't been there!
Odie:I'm surprised Harvey Keitel didn't show up at your house after you phonejacked the line producer. He would be wearing a Bad Lieutenant hat, and nothing else. "Here's your hat," says Harvey, before he starts screaming and running around your living room. Abel Ferrara could then show up with a drill.
Hey, I'd finally get my hat.
Regarding Schooly D: I know some of you love that song and think it's used effectively, but for me it seemed clunky even on first viewing. Ferrara's aesthetic was so naturalistic most of the time that the design of that particular scene -- the slow-mo of the nun and her rapist grappling, the nun's smokin' bod, the toppling of the statue, the really loud rap/rock music -- just seemed too MIAMI VICE or CRIME STORY. It was the one scene, strangely, that backed up complaints that Ferrara was just a B-movie hack pretending to be an artist. I think the movie is far more successful when we're just in the moment with Keitel, watching him as his character disitegrates, or better yet, in the final shot, beautifully described by anonymous, above: "...our shock ebbing away as life keeps walking along."
In other words, if Ferrara was bummed about losing that song, I feel for him as a filmmaker. But as a moviegoer, I don't care for that song or the scene that it's in, and I think it should have been either better done or omitted altogether (since almost the entire movie is from the Bad Lieutenant's POV anyway).
Meant to say rapists. plural, but you probably knew that.
henryfive: “But given the chronology, wouldn't Fuller be the missing link between Bresson and Ferrara?”
Resorting to logic in a discussion about Ferrara? For shame! Although yeah, “the offspring” would have been a better choice of words on my part.
matt: “Click-CHACK......BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA! BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA! Blee-owww! (Ricochet noise.) BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA! Ker-pow!”
Cat CHASE-er! Cat CHASE-er!
ross: “If I'm not mistaken, Madonna had these horrible, atrocious things to say about Ferrara after making DG, and I've always gotten the impression that some shit went down between the two of them that will probably always remain between the two of them.”
Has Ferrara ever held his tongue about anything? If we ever get a director’s commentary I’m sure all your questions will be answered. In a one-sided, grudges-holding, self-serving (and semi-coherent) way, but still.
odienator: “I told her that her kids would be better off at anything else but that movie. Imagine if I hadn't been there!”
Eh, a quirky bit of programming at an art-house cinema led to my 11-year-old self following up a Leone western—Fistful of Dollars, I think—with El Topo. (My dad doesn’t walk out on any movie.) They’d of been fine.
anonymous: one of the first movies my brother Richardremembers seeing in a theater was STRAW DOGS, at age age eight in Times Square. Just a boy going catching a show with his pop.
Either it's a wonder he loves movies, or it's no wonder.
Fourteen years later, and my wife is still pissed at me for taking her to see Bad Lieutenant. I don't think I'd even read any reviews beforehand, which is unusual for me; I just wanted to see Harvey Keitel. Now all I can really remember are a few particularly vivid scenes and my wife's irritation.
Matt wrote:
Ferrara's aesthetic was so naturalistic most of the time that the design of that particular scene -- the slow-mo of the nun and her rapist grappling, the nun's smokin' bod, the toppling of the statue, the really loud rap/rock music -- just seemed too MIAMI VICE or CRIME STORY.
But the song was used in more than just that one scene - if memory serves me correctly, it's used maybe 3 or 4 times in the film, in such a way that it should have been subtitled "LT's Theme". It's so difficult for me to imagine the film without it.
That said, I'm now forced to show where my BL fervor comes to a screeching halt: I've never seen the version without "Signifying Rapper". The way you describe the rape scene in particular, Matt, is intriguing to me. It *almost* makes me want to see the version you describe for comparison purposes.
And I'd now like to award bonus points to anyone else who can find a way to put the phrase "the nun's smokin' bod" into a sentence.
That song isn't on the Anchor Bay DVD, right? I didn't read anything about the Schooly D legal wrangling until after I watched the DVD (my first Ferrrara experience) last Friday, but I don't remember hearing anything "Kashmir"-y at all. And I found the musically sparse sound design in the version I saw to be one of the most effective elements in helping to create the film's distancing hyper-real atmosphere.
Matt, I'm really glad you chose BAD LIEUTENANT as your contribution to the Ferrara-Thon. Your entry has the critical context my newbie take on the film was unable to provide, and you talk about the qualities of Keitel's soul-of-the-film performance that I totally skirted around in my piece. I enjoyed reading your entry as much as writing mine.
Watching the film was another matter; I enjoyed it about as much as I enjoy as a trip to the hosptial; I can admire the skill of a talented phlebotomist and I can appreciate feeling healthier afterwards, but the experience itself is totally unpleasant for me. I'm pretty sure I won't be trying out that double bill with RAGING BULL, though if there's one thing that could draw me to watch the film again it would be if a plucky theatrical booker decided to show a print.
brian wrote:
That song isn't on the Anchor Bay DVD, right? I didn't read anything about the Schooly D legal wrangling until after I watched the DVD (my first Ferrrara experience) last Friday, but I don't remember hearing anything "Kashmir"-y at all.
As far as I know, it's never been on ~any~ DVD release. I know it was on the earliest laserdisc & VHS releases, but I suspect it's fairly hard to come by at this point - so much so that I'm half-surprised bootleg copies do not abound on eBay, but it realistically seems like one of those little tidbits of film trivia that only a handful of people seem to know or even care about.
The only way to know for sure you've got a copy with the song on it would be to play whatever copy you've got on hand. I don't think there's any way to tell other than that. And you would definitely notice it, make no mistake.
Ross writes, "But the song was used in more than just that one scene - if memory serves me correctly, it's used maybe 3 or 4 times in the film, in such a way that it should have been subtitled "LT's Theme." You are correct, sir. I actually forgot it was used elsewhere -- it's been a few years since I saw the movie all the way through -- but that tells me that the other times it was used, it fit in a way that didn't take me out of the film, as i was taken out during the rape scene.
it wasn't the rape itself I objected to, it was the way Ferrara aesheticized it to the point of MTV abstraction. Bear in mind, though, that this is a small objection in light of how much I admire this particular movie.
Louis: My girlfriend didn't get into my movie club until she gave a thumbs up to Bad LT. I'm serious. It's like the test Eddie (Steve Guttenberg) gives his soon to be wife in Diner to see if she knows enough about the Baltimore Colts before he can marry her. Needless to say I don't think I can get her to watch it again.
Matt: it was the way Ferrara aesheticized it to the point of MTV abstraction. Similar to that shot was where Ferrara has LT's POV focusing on the dead woman's breast at that crime scene.
I've heard Ferrara saying in interviews he doesn't have any "bread". Maybe he should release a Bad Lieutenant Special Edition DVD with commentary. I'd pre-order it. Be worth it just to hear him talk about the process.
I was just flipping through some bits of my LD copy, and it even plays over the end credits!
If anybody reading desperately craves a copy of the original version, I'd be willing to do some VHS dubs (provided I don't get 50 requests to do so). I've got plenty of blank tapes, but reimbursing me upfront for shipping & packaging costs would work for me. Shoot me an e-mail at lynchnut@gmail.com.
(If that's not a proper item to post here Matt, I won't be offended by you deleting it.)
You know, I think I would almost kill to get season tickets to the repertory theater in Matt's head. That would be the coolest movie house ever.
I'm really digging this Sam Fuller- Robert Bresson link thing. It feels right, though I've never seen a Bresson movie, so it's just Sam Fuller and the idea of Bresson I've built in my head. With BL, I'm not sure how to guard against somebody saying "Too heavy? What did you expect given the subject matter in the BAD LIEUTENANT?" It's not like I want all my Bad Lieutenant movies filmed in broad daylight, with singing and dancing.
My reaction to BL was similar to THE PASSION. I'll give Mel Gibson this much- he's going for it. I appreciate him trying to nail some flesh to that cross, but after that horrific flailing, with its skin-ripping moneyshot, the movie was so heavy it became funny. My mind started thinking about Jim Caviezel's lacerated flesh-suit. By the time the soldiers had to dislocate J's arms to fit him on the cross, and landed it facedown in the dirt, it was like some over the top Monty Python sketch. I had to stiffle my laughter.
That movie, by the way, was no more or less anti-semitic than the bible. What it was, was anti-roman guards. Now those sadistic hyenas were crazy. I also think it would work better without subtitles, so the heavy visual symbolism could play more like a silent movie, like GREED. But back to BL.
I agree that many a jagged, imperfect movie goes deeper and further than something more formally perfect. My reedit idea wasn't concerned so much with the dramatic unities. Plotwise, I think BL's trajectory is basically sound. It had more to do with the way we see Keitel's performance. It was just too much, I want to prune it back some. I don't think I would call Ferrara a hack. He doesn't lack for a certain gutter integrity and a full follow through. I could almost hear him saying "I'll make them take their medicine."
And that reminds me of the old TAXI DRIVER commentary, where Scorsese says something like "At that point in my life, I wouldn't have been able to make Taxi Driver unless I thought we were all like Travis Bickle." And I'm thinking, a good thing about Taxi Driver is it was made by a man who thought there's some Travis in all of us... and a bad thing about Taxi Driver is it was made by a man who thought we're all like Travis somehow.
I'm afraid LSD wouldn't help, because then I'd really have a fit of the giggles. So I'd probably be one of Ross Ruediger's compadres saying "Man, what'd ya have to go and do that for?" No sir, if I'm going on a laughing trip anyway, I think my next acid movie will have to be NELL with Jodie Foster.
Ross said: "If I'm not mistaken, Madonna had these horrible, atrocious things to say about Ferrara after making DG, and I've always gotten the impression that some shit went down between the two of them that will probably always remain between the two of them. Although I'd kill to read some sort of tell all on the subject."
Ross, there's a well-researched account of Madonna's participation and reaction to the finished version of Dangerous Game in Brad Stevens' critical biography on Ferrara. (This is an awesome book--easily one of the best book-length American-auteur studies ever written.)
Madonna: "The director is the one in control, and everyone else is a pawn for them. You have control over your performance when the camera is going, but you can take that performance in the editing room and completely change the character. That’s what happened to me with Abel. Because it was an entirely different movie when I made it – it was such a great feminist statement and she was so victorious at the end. I loved this character. But he edited out all the brilliant things that I had said telling Harvey and James' characters to fuck off. He took my words off me and turned me into a deaf mute, basically. When I saw the cut film, I was weeping. It was like someone punched me in the stomach. He turned it into The Bad Director. He's so far up Harvey Keitel's ass, it had become a different movie. If I'd known that was the movie I was making, I would never have done it, and I was very honest with him about that. He really fucked me over."
Ferrara: "She expected to be on equal ground with Harvey and Jimmy. You know, you’re not on equal ground. Harvey is on a different plane. She could've learned a lot, but...she didn’t. She was just in the wrong place. She accused us of sucking Harvey's dick, of being afraid of him, or intimidated. But we just learned from him, and respected him.
And Madonna didn’t know we were filming her. We were filming during rehearsals, a month before we started shooting. She had no idea we were gonna use it in the film. She felt betrayed and she used that as an excuse."
Apparently, Madonna called the editor (Anthony Redman) crying, saying, "What happened to the film we made?", to which he said, "Well, we decided to take it in a different direction."
Ferrara adds: "She’s a fuckin' jerk...Like we sit around taking out the best scenes in the movie to spite her. You know how paranoid you gotta be to fuckin' say something like that ?
Matt, I do see your point about the use of the Schoolly D song and the tawdry obviousness of the rape scene in Bad Lieutenant. But part of the appeal of Ferrara’s willful disregard for commercial success is that he’s so cheap and exploitive he knows how to get a hit if he really wanted.
It’s always a special pleasure when a film contains charms unexpected from its context. Ferrara, in an appropriately perverse manner, pulls this off going both ways. As lurid actioners caught late at night on cable or video, his films’ patient rhythms and somber demeanor unbalance their audience. But in the arthouses where he usually gets played these days, at least here in Seattle, the films have no less of a subversive kick, this time for how poorly their bad-hangover plot development and unabashedly sleazy aesthetic match up with trailers for the latest Miramax Europudding and the vintage Renoir posters in the lobby.
I’m talking about more than just the fond evocation of grindhouse fare that Tarantino pulls off so skillfully. These films are so skid-row, and Ferrara is so expert at conveying so, that they even seem to smell bad, simultaneously overripe and stale, like the alley behind a porn theater at 3 in the AM.
Girish -
Thanks for posting that - twas ~tres~ informative. This particular bit from Madonna cracked me up:
But he edited out all the brilliant things that I had said telling Harvey and James' characters to fuck off.
I've probably sounded like a Madonna-hater in this thread, and I'm really not, but something happens in that film that takes her to a place she'd never been before or has ever been since and that same something brings out my Madonna mean-streak.
Actually, Ross, I tried to be even-handed in reproducing the quotes but truth be told I'm totally on Ferrara's side on this one!
Girish: Thanks for the quotes. They really do afford insight into Ferrara's mindset.
I wish i still had a hard copy of my own Ferrara interview from back when BAD LIEUTENANT came out. He spoke to me for all of ten minutes, he was very terse and clearly wanted to get it over with, and he had zero patience for my film criticky-type questions about composition, editing, lighting, etc. He acted like he was answering questions at a blood bank or something. It was still a really funny interview, though. At the end of it, I asked about the NC-17 rating, and whether he was worried that it would endanger the movie's long term commercial prospects.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Well," I said, "If it's NC-17, Blockbuster and a lot of other big video stores won't carry it. So what will people do if they want to see it after it's gone from theaters?"
"I dunno," he said. "Buy it at a fuckin' gas station, i guess. Take care, chief." Then he hung up.
Moment-to-moment Ferrara works a high steaks artistic game with the greatest of ease, he is matchless in this. There is no more thrillingly, daringly alive filmmaker presently working. None. No filmmaker since Cassavettes gets inside the action quite like Ferrara does. "Snake Eyes"; "The Addiction"; "The Funeral", and "Bad Lt.", such wild, brutal, excessive, often transgressive work, and straight down the line it stands in fine relation to the most morally rigorous work anyone may care to cite. I will follow Ferrara anywhere.
If you really want a treat, you must listen to his commentary to "The Driller Killer". I'm ruined. I cannot listen to another commentary by anyone. In his zonked-out, raw, but completely alive in the moment delivery, Ferrara puts the lie to all those countless fatuous commentaries that exist as only advertisements for oneself.
I can't wait to see "Mary".
Matt, you always come up with great quotes for movie posters! Remember your famous "Not much of a ball-kicker" critic blurb for your very own movie, HOME? Well, I would buy a copy of Bad Lieutenant's DVD just to keep the cover if it said:
"Buy it at a fuckin' gas station." -Abel Ferrara
Why did Ferrara even cast Madonna? I think he was just being cruel by putting her in a movie with people who actually can act, but then again, Ferrara seems to have never cast an actress who could.
wagstaff, thanks for bringing up Da Lawd Gets Da Beat Down, I mean The Passion of the Christ. Forgive me for this brief story about the day I went to see it. I was standing on line outside the theater doors. People started coming out of the theater, or rather, they were stumbling out as if they'd been hit by a bus. Little kids were coming out with wet, red faces and the kind of bloodshot eyes reserved for the singer in the song Lush Life.
The first "normal" looking person to exit the theater was this heavy-set, older Black woman. She reminded me of the women who frequented the church I used to go to when I was growing up. I knew her type well, as some members of my family are just like her. She had a cherubic face, and she smiled at me, which put me at ease. She seemed so poised in a church lady kind of way.
As she passed me, she touched my arm. I said "yes, ma'am?" And she looked me in the eye and said, as seriously as a heart attack, "Child, I mean they WHUPPED...HIS... ASS!"
All throughout the movie, I kept flashing back to this woman. She was running commentary in my head. "See, I told you! I told you!" She was saying. "Tore His ass up, right?!" I had to hold my breath to keep from cracking up, and getting the entire audience to have me executed for "blasphemy." She made the movie watchable. Thank you "they beat his ass" lady, wherever you are!
a man’s systematic self-destruction and partial redemption.
Yeah, there's no sudden redemptive burst of Haydn, no voiceover marvelling at "What a strange trip I've had to take to get with my girlfriend", and certainly none of Paul Schrader's paint-by-numbers "Place Redemption Here". No, like a good, questioning Catholic, Ferrara understands that even to grant redemption is to close the book on his subject. If there is some sort of afterlife (above or below) Ferrara's character's will be a quarrelsome presence. Like that sign says that we see at the end of "Bad Lt." (A sign which just happened to have been there, how perfect), and which perfectly encapsulates Ferrara's very materialist vision, "It All Happens Here", baby.
Odie: Talk about an inappropriate but perfect blurb. I would love to see this one splayed across the top of the PASSION OF THE CHRIST poster: ""Child, I mean they WHUPPED...HIS... ASS!"."
kj: Yeah, it's the "partial" redemption that really makes the movie. And truth be told, there's a part of me that's uncomfortable even with the idea of the Lieutenant purchasing that redemption by helping a couple of violent felons escape the law. (My family has a lot of Jehovah's witnesses, Mormons and Episcopalians, but no Catholics, so maybe I'm not plugged into the right wavelength.) But within the movie's extremely personal moral/philosophical context, it works.
"Redemption" is like a contract clause for some filmmakers and it drives me nuts. KJ: Good call on Schrader. Are we all saved or is it just the lucky few?
I mean how appropriate for our anti-hero (and if there ever was an illustration of what that is LT would be it!) to go down in front of Port Atrocity after trying to make the lives of two junkies better. How Catholic of him? Sacrificing the flesh to save another's soul.
kj: no Paul Schrader's paint-by-numbers "Place Redemption Here". No, like a good, questioning Catholic, Ferrara understands that even to grant redemption is to close the book on his subject.
I've been on both sides of the Christian fence, having been raised Baptist but attending a Catholic college (complete with theology lessons). Schrader has a very Protestant take on redemption. Unlike Catholics, Protestants don't have confession. It allows us to do our dirt and repent without having to blurt out what we did. It makes it far more cut and dry, and less complex, soul-searching and soul-baring. (After all, I got THROWN OUT of the confessional when I was forced to attend as a means of "understanding Catholicism." The priest said "there aren't enough Hail Marys to save your eternal soul! Get out!" I wasn't even done confessing, either!)
Plus, no matter how penitent you are, Protestant Heaven has a velvet rope, and if you're not holy enough, you ain't gettin' in. So that explains the exclusivity of Schrader's redemption.
If Harvey Keitel is redeemed in a "Catholic fashion" in Bad Lieutenant, then I can see why I got a B in theology and not an A. I don't understand what the hell you guys are talking about; it's not the read I got.
And thank you, my namesake William, (OK, my first name's actually Willie, not William, but still) for using the term "Port Atrocity." I haven't heard that in about 20 years.
Matt, how about doing a 5 for the day on "Great NYC based scenes?" Or "scenes that show the best/worst of NYC?" Ferrara's own Ms. 45 would be on that list of showing the worst in NYC, and the cin-tog in both When Harry Met Sally and Manhattan are like visual love songs to the City.
Odienator, check this out: http://www.unomaha.edu/jrf/Vol7No1/ferrarabadlt.htm
The writer, grappling with "Bad Lt"', explains why the "inadequate theology of salvation" he finds in the film isn't a bad thing, necessarily, rather, he acknowledges it as a fundamental aspect of Ferrara's disturbing vision.
Darn, the link was snipped, but it's only the "m" at the end of the link that was lost.
Matt: Did you start this analysis of Bad Lieutenant because of the corrupt cops mob trial going on now or was that just coincidence?
No, it was just a coincidence. In fact, this article started out as a "5 for the day" citing five revelatory performances in Ferrara movies, but when I looked over a draft in progress and realized I'd already written about a thousand words just on "Bad Lieutenant," I figured I'd listen to the material and just concentrate on that particular movie.
Hey Odie!
Um, I hope you don't mind, but I used your POTC story on my own blog (giving you due credit, of course):
Check it out.
HOLY MAC AND CHEESE!!!
I just went and read what you posted, and I actually responded, which now makes me a House Next Door adulterer; I'm cheating on Matt when I promised I'd be faithful.
I am absolutely flabbergasted and flattered. This explains why I was struck by lightning twice today, rather than the one time I was expecting. I thought it was because Da Lawd found out I'd been doing
BLAM!!
Ow.
Arrgghhh! Now you're making me feel bad - as though I'm hijacking Matt's loyal audience.
I could never in a million years write about film with the enthusiasm and intelligence that Matt does. This is going to sound hugely kiss-ass (if it doesn't already) but I get embarrassed when I read his stuff, because I realize exactly how little about film history I really know.
I first read Matt's stuff ~years~ ago when he had what I guess was a syndicated column that ran in the local "alternative" newsweekly, the S.A. Current. It was great stuff, but it went away to be replaced by "The Straight Dope". He's got a unique, memorable name, and last summer when I was in L.A. with my better half at the TCA Convention, this guy was standing next to me and I noticed his badge and the rest is history.
~Anyway~, thanks Odie, for not pitching a fit about me stealing your words for the amusement of both people that read my blog.
Oh, fuckin' stop it, both of you!
PS -- I'll miss you, Odienator. (sniff!)
I'm late to the party -- but everyone loves a good story about Abel Ferrara. I interviewed him for Filmmaker Magazine for his film R XMAS and that article can be found right here:
http://filmmakermagazine.com/archives/online_features/trouble_paradise.php
But the story doesn't end there. I had to leave a great deal out of the interview, and with permission was allowed to tell a fuller and more rambling (and funnier) version of the story here. (You'll have to scroll to the bottom of the page, but it's well worth it.)
http://ofcs.rottentomatoes.com/pages/pr/interviews.20030515-2
An excerpt...
But 20 minutes in, Abel's attention is starting to go. We start talking about Victor Argo's funny costume on the cover of Shock Cinema Magazine (dressed as a bellboy) which gets him laughing hysterically. Then he starts falling asleep.
Abel fully nods off, and his friend starts talking to me about the critic's role, and her representation in the media as a theater actress. ("I was playing some skank ho and then everybody started treating me like I was a skank ho! Only Abel understands this.") I turn back to Abel, now snoring, and say, "Abel? Abel? Are we done?"
"No, man! Keep that tape rollin'! Ask more questions!"
So we go a little bit more, talking about filming in NYC. He starts complaining about how everyone's going to Toronto, and how it's no cheaper. His friend starts interrupting talking about a Julia Roberts movie in Toronto. "Shut the fuck up," he says. She keeps going, oblivious. "Turn that tape off. She's fucking up the whole interview. Shut up if you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Get outta here. [To Jeremiah] See what we have to deal with? [To Friend] Go in the corner." She goes in the corner and starts reading the Bible. "FUCK TORONTO, OK, man? Don't listen to this cunt. She starts talking, and your interview is gonna be filled with lies. I know what I'm talking about."
She reads a passage from the Bible. "You bring forth what is within you, and what is within you will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."
I think Abel is gonna freak again, but he's soothed. "That was a beautiful passage, baby. Thanks. That fits in with exactly what we're talking about."
* * *
As you can imagine, Abel is a very intense guy, and an absolute delight to hang out with. He has cultivated a reputation around himself that invites the demons in, then asks them to stay for a drink. I'm glad there was a Blog-a-thon made around him, since he's the real deal. The world of cinema is a better place with Abel Ferrara in it.
I got one too. This was back in the mid-nineties, I'm with a friend in an after hours club in the west village. These places didn't get rolling until after 4 a.m., when everything else has closed. An utterly strange woman had glued herself to my friend, or he had picked her up, I forget how this went down, and me, I'm drinking and checking out the local color- strippers just off their shift, plastered guys in suits, business types, drunk and/or coked to the gills, and other shady nocturnal types who frequent these establishments. So in walks Abel, pale, hair a mess, like he'd just woken up in the cheap grey suit he was wearing- with a clown-type t shirt- and hit the streets. The woman sees him and makes a big deal about calling him over. So he comes over and starts "baby, babying" her and hitting her up for twenty dollars. He says "Hi" to me and my friend and I right away tell him how much his work means to me and that I'm a writer who's enthusiasm has soured but that he and a few others keep me going, and when he hears this he seems as though he wants to sit and talk but this woman won't calm the fuck down, so he says to me he'll be right back (clearly he wants to get away from this woman) and off he goes while she's saying how, "Some women get Spielberg but she gets Abel" HA!! Anyway, I never did get to have that talk with him. He owes me.
Jeremiah: I was hoping you would chime in with that story.
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