All sallow skin, tombstone teeth and sunken eyes, Abel Ferrara is feeling his
age. “I hate to say it,” he says, “but when I look at myself, I think,
‘Who’s that old guy?’ ” Indeed, you could be forgiven for thinking that the
55-year-old maverick director is no longer quite the bad lieutenant of
cinema he once was. After nearly 30 years in the business, the brash
gunslinger who brought us King of New York has been replaced by this
jaded veteran. In Cannes this week with Go Go Tales, the 16th film of
his career in an industry that has long since left him behind, it’s a
miracle that he’s even here.
What’s even more remarkable is that it’s with his first comedy. Set entirely
in a New York strip club known as the Paradise, Go Go Tales stars
Willem Dafoe as the owner-cum-impresario Ray Ruby. Bob Hoskins plays his
side-kick and Matthew Modine his younger brother. Ray’s joint is facing
closure unless he finds cash fast. Then he wins the lottery. Then he loses
the ticket. Comparisons have already been made to Billy Wilder and Frank
Capra, though Ferrara has a different take. “It’s like an episode of Cheersmeets
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie,” he mumbles. “It’s like a
slapstick.”
It’s a strong contrast to his earlier work, which began in controversial style
with his 1979 debut, the video-nasty classic The Driller Killer. He
followed it with the likes of the vigilante movie Ms 45 and the
psycho-story Fear City, intoxicating urban thrillers punctuated by
preTarantino street-smart dialogue and lashings of violence.
By the time he made his back-to-back masterpieces King of New York
(1990) and Bad Lieutenant(1992), respectively with his favourite
actors Christopher Walken and Harvey Keitel, Ferrara had temporarily
overtaken Scorsese as the chronicler-in-chief of the New York underworld.
Yet, of late, you could be mistaken for thinking that Ferrara had made his
exit with the same quiet resignation as Walken’s mobster at the end of King
of New York as he slumps to his death in a gridlocked taxi. His last
film to receive a British release was the debauched Hollywood tale The
Blackout, in 1997, and it’s been much the same story elsewhere. “The
distribution of our films has been nonexistent, as far as I’m concerned, in
the States,” Ferrara grumbles. “Europe, there are a few situations that are
all right, but otherwise . . . it’s getting beyond a joke.”
It’s not as if he’s been inactive either. In between The
Blackout and Go Go Tales, he has made three films: the futuristic
industrial espionage story New Rose Hotel (1998), the drug-dealer
tale ’R Xmas (2001) and Mary(2005). This tale of an
actress who develops an obsession with Mary Magdalene after playing her in a
film even won the Grand Jury prize when it received its world premiere at
the Venice Film Festival. Yet only in Italy, where Mary became a
moderate hit, is Ferrara still afforded the recognition that he once
received in America.
Understandably, he now lives in Rome. A long way from the Bronx, where he
spent his Roman Catholic up-bringing, he evidently feels at home here, not
least because religion – from the lapsed Catholic cop of Bad
Lieutenant to The Passion of the Christ riposte that was Mary
– has often been a feature of his work. “I’ve never been in a place where
there are more atheists,” he laughs. “The closer you get to the Vatican, the
more atheists there are.”
Does he miss New York? “In this day and age, in the google.com universe, I
don’t see the difference between Rome and New York at all,” he says.
It’s no surprise, then, that Ferrara took the decision to make Go Go
Tales in Italy. Shot over four weeks in the city’s legendary Cinecittà
Studios, where Gangs of New Yorkwas also filmed, it marks the
conclusion to a ten-year production history. Ferrara conceived of the film
as an HBO series, then wrote it as a screenplay, initially with Walken in
mind. Keitel was then cast in the lead, with Robert Carlyle in the role now
played by Modine. Naomi Campbell was even set to play one of the strippers
(“She told me she’d do it,” Ferrara shrugs), but in the end the Italian
supermodel Bianca Balti got the part.
Eventually, the lead went to Dafoe, who now happens to live near Ferrara in
Rome. “It’s not mean or dark,” Dafoe says of Go Go Tales.
“It still comes from Abel but there is a sweetness to it.”
He doesn’t like the fact that it’s been called a “screwball comedy”, though.
“It’s misleading and it’s one of these things that’ll hurt the movie. It is
a comedy, but a very particular comedy. There is a charm to it that’s almost
like a Preston Sturges movie, in that the central character I play is a
dreamer, a gambler. The gap between where he thinks he should be and where
he is is the source of the comedy.”
The film also reunites Ferrara and Dafoe with that Italian minx Asia Argento,
the daughter of Dario, who is also one of the strippers at the Paradise.
“Everybody said he was terrible with women,” she chuckles, “but I think he’s
the least misogynistic director I’ve worked with.”
They all last collaborated – along with Walken – on New Rose
Hotel, Ferrara’s infamous William Gibson adaptation that was met with
howls of derision when it played in Venice. Severely tarnishing Ferrara’s
reputation, it was announced as a “work in progress”.
“I didn’t claim that!” cries Ferrara. “That was the producer [Ed Pressman].
The minute it got tough, he copped out and said, ‘It’s not done yet!’ It was
like the rats leaving the sinking ship.”
While he is still notorious for working on “Ferrara time”, the director denies
that his sets are chaotic. “The job’s got to get done. We just create the
mood.”
As Go Go Tales proves, he’s adept at reinvention. Though willing to
steer his recent films away from the crime genre on which he built his
reputation, he maintains that all his work is original. “They were all
uncharted. Every film is something new. I mean, you’re not going to make the
same film again.”
One thing’s for sure: he’s going to carry on regardless. “I really don’t have
any talent for anything else,” he says. “It’s this or nothing for me. I
don’t have a choice.”
Courting controversy: the films of Ferrara
The Driller Killer (1979)
Ferrara made his name by directing and starring in this exploitation shocker
about an angsty New York artist who stalks the streets and murders homeless
people.
King of New York (1990)
His most ambitious film to date is a violent mobster epic about an ex-con drug
dealer (Christopher Walken) who establishes a narcotics empire.
Bad Lieutenant (1992)
Controversy time again. This time blasphemy, raped nuns and a masturbating
Harvey Keitel feature in this tough tale of a bent copper.
