the one thing i feel like i can say about Herzog's Bad Lieutenant (besides that Nic Cage's hunched, manic performance is my very favorite in a career full of fifty awful performances and a handful of truly Great ones) is that it's the best full-concept gag since Antichrist; under the guise of a cop movie, Herzog presents us with a cartoon character study that goofily challenges our ingrained relationship to a cornered hero (or even a more run-of-the-mill antihero) with the odds stacked impossibly against him. in most cases these situations intend for us to wonder just how the protagonist is going to get out of this mess, and to pull for him every step of the way, while here we only wonder which particular hue of flames Bd. Lt. McDonach will end up going down in, and how many people he will end up taking with him. (hell, we are actively rooting for it to happen, because he deserves every one of a spectrum of horrible fates.) but Herzog sees nothing so boring as tragedy in this story -- it is not only a comedy, but one of the year's funniest -- and thumbs his nose at our spoiled expectations, ending the film with a conspicuously whiz-bang reverse house of cards as fearlessly, determinedly and downright gleefully amoral as anything i've seen in a long while. goddamn, what fun.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
werner herzog's THE BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS (2009)
the one thing i feel like i can say about Herzog's Bad Lieutenant (besides that Nic Cage's hunched, manic performance is my very favorite in a career full of fifty awful performances and a handful of truly Great ones) is that it's the best full-concept gag since Antichrist; under the guise of a cop movie, Herzog presents us with a cartoon character study that goofily challenges our ingrained relationship to a cornered hero (or even a more run-of-the-mill antihero) with the odds stacked impossibly against him. in most cases these situations intend for us to wonder just how the protagonist is going to get out of this mess, and to pull for him every step of the way, while here we only wonder which particular hue of flames Bd. Lt. McDonach will end up going down in, and how many people he will end up taking with him. (hell, we are actively rooting for it to happen, because he deserves every one of a spectrum of horrible fates.) but Herzog sees nothing so boring as tragedy in this story -- it is not only a comedy, but one of the year's funniest -- and thumbs his nose at our spoiled expectations, ending the film with a conspicuously whiz-bang reverse house of cards as fearlessly, determinedly and downright gleefully amoral as anything i've seen in a long while. goddamn, what fun.
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1 comment:
So fun!
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