A kind of review
I was facing a film maker who does not only know how to tell a story, but also who knows how to tell that story beautifully. From the first scene of Port of Call: New Orleans I knew I was viewing something special: a cinematic jewel.
Herzog moves with complete fluidity and mastery of his medium from the darkest of dark film noir, exploring not only the inner recesses of human consciousness, but also the underbelly of an American Dream where broken glass lays underneath the streets paved with gold, to comedy and parody. A parody of the main character, the bad cop, the bad lieutenant, a deeply hero stumbling from shot to shot of whatever he can get, some times farcically. This film is also a parody of its genre, of noir thrillers: telling is not only the language of its characters, but also the scene where the bad cop asks to shoot again at a baddy already dead because he can see his soul dancing.
Post Katrina New Orleans is portrayed in all its luscious rusting decadence and dereliction, the cinematography being superb in conveying a feeling of impending doom, the film being a visual feast, pure and playful visual poetry. I can tell that not only Werner Herzog but also Nicolas Cage had loads of fun crafting Bad Lieutenant, regardless of the opinions of reviewers and the dons of film studies. Nicolas Cage’s performance as the bad cop is just magnificent in his portrayal of not only an obsessed man, a walking receptacle of drugs coming out of his eyeballs, but also in the mannerisms of a character played by Harvey Keitel in the original Abel Ferrara’s movie.
And I have done it, I have done what Herzog thought what we would do, refer his take on the character to that of the earlier film. The word has spoken, damnation on me!
Herzog moves with complete fluidity and mastery of his medium from the darkest of dark film noir, exploring not only the inner recesses of human consciousness, but also the underbelly of an American Dream where broken glass lays underneath the streets paved with gold, to comedy and parody. A parody of the main character, the bad cop, the bad lieutenant, a deeply hero stumbling from shot to shot of whatever he can get, some times farcically. This film is also a parody of its genre, of noir thrillers: telling is not only the language of its characters, but also the scene where the bad cop asks to shoot again at a baddy already dead because he can see his soul dancing.
Post Katrina New Orleans is portrayed in all its luscious rusting decadence and dereliction, the cinematography being superb in conveying a feeling of impending doom, the film being a visual feast, pure and playful visual poetry. I can tell that not only Werner Herzog but also Nicolas Cage had loads of fun crafting Bad Lieutenant, regardless of the opinions of reviewers and the dons of film studies. Nicolas Cage’s performance as the bad cop is just magnificent in his portrayal of not only an obsessed man, a walking receptacle of drugs coming out of his eyeballs, but also in the mannerisms of a character played by Harvey Keitel in the original Abel Ferrara’s movie.
And I have done it, I have done what Herzog thought what we would do, refer his take on the character to that of the earlier film. The word has spoken, damnation on me!
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