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Jan. 14th, 2010 05:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andalus#4: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. Herzog movies generally take place in a world somewhere between the realities and the delusions of his main characters, and in this movie even the obvious fantasies: iguanas, break-dancing souls, etc, don't mark a clear line between reality and unreality. They're real to Nicholas Cage, and that's all that really matters. As the plot gets increasingly convoluted and nonsensical you might start to wonder if we're all tipping into fantasy-land with him. But no, turns out it's no more or less real than it ever was.
And Cage's performance is so strange, mostly because he's clearly wrong for the part. He walks around hunched over in suits too big for him, moving like he's fifty pounds heavier than he is, yelling like he has a voice for yelling. (He doesn't have a voice for yelling. He sounds more like a frustrated English professor than a professional, no matter what movie he's in.)
But Cage is fabulous at being miscast, I can't think of any other actor who so deliberately seeks out roles he is completely wrong for. If this movie were another Harvey Keitel vehicle you could imagine the Lieutenant as being actually frightening, actually loathesome, actually at times courageous and at times charming. With Cage, we have a character who is none of those things. He's nothing at all really, just confused and in pain, and the movie is better off for it.
The point of the movie seems to be that there's things out there (reptiles, water) that disaster lets in and once they're in they take hold and get stronger and stronger until at the end you're drowning in them.
Cage's question at the end is "Do fish dream?" Herzog's answer seems to be "Yes, they dream this movie."
And Cage's performance is so strange, mostly because he's clearly wrong for the part. He walks around hunched over in suits too big for him, moving like he's fifty pounds heavier than he is, yelling like he has a voice for yelling. (He doesn't have a voice for yelling. He sounds more like a frustrated English professor than a professional, no matter what movie he's in.)
But Cage is fabulous at being miscast, I can't think of any other actor who so deliberately seeks out roles he is completely wrong for. If this movie were another Harvey Keitel vehicle you could imagine the Lieutenant as being actually frightening, actually loathesome, actually at times courageous and at times charming. With Cage, we have a character who is none of those things. He's nothing at all really, just confused and in pain, and the movie is better off for it.
The point of the movie seems to be that there's things out there (reptiles, water) that disaster lets in and once they're in they take hold and get stronger and stronger until at the end you're drowning in them.
Cage's question at the end is "Do fish dream?" Herzog's answer seems to be "Yes, they dream this movie."
