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THE BAD LIEUTENANT PORT OF CALL: NEW ORLEANS.
In Werner Herzog’s highly anticipated new film, Nicolas Cage plays a man as devoted to police work as he is to scoring drugs. A high-functioning addict who is a deeply intuitive, fearless detective, he ranges over the beautiful ruins of New Orleans with authority and abandon. Adding to his tumultuous life is the prostitute he loves (played by Eva Mendes). Together they descend into their own world marked by desire, compulsion, and conscience. The result is a singular masterpiece of equally sad and manicly humorous. In this book devoted to the film, renowned photographer Lena Herzog’s documentation of the film captures the uniqueness of the director’s vision, the set, and the actors. The volume also includes the script, written by Billy Finkelstein, reworked by Herzog.
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First published September 8, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 24, 2015
This film wasn't as good as Grizzly Man or Stroszek, or any number of Herzog's other fictional works or documentaries, but it was at least as good as (if not possibly better than) the original Bad Lieutenant, and it was great to see Nicholas Cage really shine in a role after so many years of mediocre paycheck work.
January 17, 2015
It's easy to notice Herzog's interest in depravity and individual/societal collapse. What's more challenging is seeing the more hopeful components to his complicated life philosophy. It's in there though. He's not a nihilist, as key moments in Bad Lieutenant screenplay indicate. But he does understand how difficult it is to break bad habits; how easy it is to slide into chaotic moral bankruptcy. That his work so often shows that very breakdown should never be confused as endorsement of such actions. Quite the opposite. Herzog detests drugs, violence and warfare, while understanding that due to the structure of our world, these things happen and people are inevitably drawn into conflict they otherwise shouldn't be party to--we're all corruptible and always already corrupted. The goal then is to move through our own failings, seeking moments of respite and mercy, both for ourselves and others, where our humanity peeks through.
Lena Herzog's photos work along side the film, as other unseen aspects of these characters and the story told in Finkelstein's script as well as Herzog's revisions and the the final film. Seeing these photos and reading the screenplay divide the narrative, becoming separate entities to the finished film--each one offering a unique perspective that stands on its own, but is better served when joined to other parts. As the photos don't recreate the action of the script, they become quasi-impressionistic details we wouldn't have if we read only the script, or only watched the film. Similarly, people's lives are layered and complicated, where only looking at one aspect leaves us ignorant to others. We become aware of what we aren't seeing and what we don't know, and Herzog isn't interested in explaining those gaps to us.
The script, photos, and film won't tell us exactly why Terrence is such a bad dude (while being a pretty sharp detective), nor does it construct a more cliched quandary of Terrence being a bad human being, but a good cop. The closest we might get is his admission: "sometimes I have bad days." It's a pretty banal thing to say, while also completely honest; deeply enlightening, while opaque. Terrence embodies the tensions within as well as the tensions between people and the cultural and institutional structures they must inhabit and navigate. Terrence does so both admirably and detestably. That's not only complex characterization and storytelling, it's also just fairly honest and straightforward.
This is a lean and mean noir tale, offering valuable questions and insights into the human and cultural condition. It doesn't answer cosmic questions, but instead re-frames the questions to a more day-to-day variety, suggesting that those more ordinary inquiries might aid us more substantially than the supposed Big Questions. The future is uncertain, and the present difficult to manage. We're both the beta fish in the glass and Terrence looking through the glass. But that makes our lot neither meaningless or futile. It's a balance between chaotic order and total collapse. Somehow we've kept it together despite a sense of cultural slippage that is constant and unrelenting. That might be the best we can hope for, and it might be enough.
Lena Herzog's photos work along side the film, as other unseen aspects of these characters and the story told in Finkelstein's script as well as Herzog's revisions and the the final film. Seeing these photos and reading the screenplay divide the narrative, becoming separate entities to the finished film--each one offering a unique perspective that stands on its own, but is better served when joined to other parts. As the photos don't recreate the action of the script, they become quasi-impressionistic details we wouldn't have if we read only the script, or only watched the film. Similarly, people's lives are layered and complicated, where only looking at one aspect leaves us ignorant to others. We become aware of what we aren't seeing and what we don't know, and Herzog isn't interested in explaining those gaps to us.
The script, photos, and film won't tell us exactly why Terrence is such a bad dude (while being a pretty sharp detective), nor does it construct a more cliched quandary of Terrence being a bad human being, but a good cop. The closest we might get is his admission: "sometimes I have bad days." It's a pretty banal thing to say, while also completely honest; deeply enlightening, while opaque. Terrence embodies the tensions within as well as the tensions between people and the cultural and institutional structures they must inhabit and navigate. Terrence does so both admirably and detestably. That's not only complex characterization and storytelling, it's also just fairly honest and straightforward.
This is a lean and mean noir tale, offering valuable questions and insights into the human and cultural condition. It doesn't answer cosmic questions, but instead re-frames the questions to a more day-to-day variety, suggesting that those more ordinary inquiries might aid us more substantially than the supposed Big Questions. The future is uncertain, and the present difficult to manage. We're both the beta fish in the glass and Terrence looking through the glass. But that makes our lot neither meaningless or futile. It's a balance between chaotic order and total collapse. Somehow we've kept it together despite a sense of cultural slippage that is constant and unrelenting. That might be the best we can hope for, and it might be enough.
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August 8, 2016Werner Herzog may be the last living truly visionary film director. But of course there is also Malick. Since the death of Kubrick, the parade has mostly gone by. Tarantino does not fit the bill, as good as he often is, and the rest of the show is run by hacks, and at this point I'm including Scorsese in that bunch. Franchise whores like J.J. Abrams might be the epitome of art to the mentally impoverished.
Like a lot of Kubrick's movies, very few knew what to initially make of Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans when it came out in 2009. If you saw it and didn't know what to make of it, watch it again. And again. If you haven't seen it, strap yourself in; buy the ticket and take the ride. It's a visionary movie in the great tradition. Stuffed neatly into the frame of a noir policier in fetid New Orleans is a drama of Shakespearean gravitas, in which the anti-hero becomes more popular the worse he is. It's a perfect movie for the Trump era. I predict it will become a cult film, as it should.
Nick Cage is sensational in it; there has hardly been a more melodramatically gives-no-fucks performance in movie history.
If I can track down this book, I'll report back.
(KR@KY 2016)
Like a lot of Kubrick's movies, very few knew what to initially make of Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans when it came out in 2009. If you saw it and didn't know what to make of it, watch it again. And again. If you haven't seen it, strap yourself in; buy the ticket and take the ride. It's a visionary movie in the great tradition. Stuffed neatly into the frame of a noir policier in fetid New Orleans is a drama of Shakespearean gravitas, in which the anti-hero becomes more popular the worse he is. It's a perfect movie for the Trump era. I predict it will become a cult film, as it should.
Nick Cage is sensational in it; there has hardly been a more melodramatically gives-no-fucks performance in movie history.
If I can track down this book, I'll report back.
(KR@KY 2016)
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews