Abel Ferrara - C/D

it's definitely something, no? it's a mess, and he definitely hasn't developed his talents much yet (not unlike some of cronenberg's earliest stuff in that regard), but i do think it makes an impact that other films don't. the "knowingness" of it isn't very endearing.

i think he's talented and i like a lot of his films (and TV episodes!) but the way that e.g. the french appreciate him gives me pause. that is, as some kind of atavistic modern primitive who represents the soul of urban america or what have you.

As someone who's interviewed Ferrara in person (and likes a lot of his movies—seeing Bad Lieutenant at the Angelika when it was brand new, especially coming in the wake of the comparatively ultra-slick King of New York, was like being punched in the face), I gotta say his public image is exactly that. This Nick Pinkerton column from 2013 kinda sums up how I feel, particularly this bit:

Ferrara’s concern with the relationship between surface and subterranean truths is nothing new. In fact, the director’s greatest creation is a character called “Abel Ferrara,” a shambling, grizzled, reckless, perpetually drugged-up walking staph infection who just happens to have lined up financing for and successfully completed the shooting of twenty-some films since 1976—hardly a likely accomplishment if this persona was the whole truth and nothing but, though Ferrara is careful not to let the mask slip before his public.

he isn't the first director to have a persona that's kind of belied by his films.... i just watched the john milius documentary and the guy comes across as a fabulist and self-mythologizer and asshole. it's hard to take his persona at all seriously. for example, the first thing he says in the film is that he isn't a "pure cinema" guy, that he doesn't care about images, that he just wants to tell a story. which may be true but it doesn't explain the best qualities of his films by a long shot.

I still was not prepared for Ms 45 being a campfest, that's all.

Look at what we have here:

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/sep/04/pasolini-review-abel-ferrara-willem-dafoe-venice-film

got a NYFF ticket for it just now

looking forward to this one, although i worry a little about the "last days" vampirish approach to the biopic (last 24 hrs etc.)

pretty much none of his films have played my little town for over a decade, so this is another i'll probably have to see on DVD

ferrara is one of those dudes who took a while to earn the accolades (or just the scandal) he achieved pretty early (esp from the french)

Morbz look forward to anything you say on this.

Be of some interest to see how much space he gives to the various conspiracies surrounding his death and all.

i kinda don't see him being especially concerned w/ that, and i think interviews suggest same

ah got it, frankly I wondered if the Xan Brooks piece might've said anything but I despise him so didn't make it beyond the headlines.

did you guys like the last days on earth one?

not seen anything since Go Go Tales (and before that -- Mary? i think i saw and disliked?)

mary was pretty terrible

i roundly enjoyed the mulberry street doc, he's a born actor really

upset with IFC Films

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/venice-director-abel-ferrara-attacks-730624

got tickets to the thursday screening of pasolini. now the question is, to what ferrara films should i subject my sensitive and empathetic wife in preparation?

How about Accatone? Was just in Rome and hanging out at Bar Necci, which is now somewhat of a shrine.

I thought Last Days on Earth was terrible.

I will be at Thursday screening too if you want to meet, Adam. Are you there Thurs as well, Dr. M.?

he wants Ferrara films, not Pasolini films.

Thurs 10/2, yes

Well, I cant suggest any of those.

Let's all meet for a post-show cocktail.

i'm down.

king of new york is the "safest" ferrara i can think of but i haven't seen the more recent films. keep in mind this is a young lady thought the herzog bad lieutenant was too brutal.

obv the OG for her, then. She knows Pasolini meets an unhappy end, yes?

(VP, u know that BASEBALL PLAYOFFS will be running all days & nights that week)

don't shoot any car radios!

omg did u just spoil the end of pasolini

i'm trying to toughen her up anyway, it's a cold world

Go Go Tales is pretty innocuous Ferrara, it's Runyonesque.

In that case, let's have a beer at a sports bar of your choosing, Dr. M.

new rose hotel is kinda awesome.

Pleasantly surprised by Pasolini... many touches of the poetic, solid portrayal of a man of ideas by Dafoe. It doesn't all work, but Ninetto Davoli is instantly recognizable as a lead character in PPP's unmade film, same elfin face and presence. Of the ten films I've seen by Ferrara, only the third I've liked a lot.

Ferrara was pretty funny and direct in the Q&A, gently mocking Amy Taubin for speechifying and getting into it with a guy who wanted a more politicized slant on the murder.

i thought it looked great too. and the tony joe white music cue was fantastic.

i also liked it when ferrara and another gentleman got into an aging hipster-off over who saw _salo_ first and where.

yeah, yeah... the clips of Salo in this are the most I've ever seen of it. (I've only seen six Pasolinis i think)

Interesting that the screenwriter credit was the guy who wrote Gomorrah, wish someone had asked about that.

interview w/ Nick Pinkerton:

Well, me and Willem and the Americans—our native tongue is English, we read Pasolini in English. Willem speaks better Italian than me, but even he’s not gonna attempt to relate certain ideas—you’re talking philosophy, you’re talking poetry… And we’ve barely got it together in the language that we have. So we’re not gonna do those scenes—the Furio Colombo interview, the other interview—we’re gonna do those in English, man. But when he’s with the kid [Pino “The Frog” Pelosi, played by Damiano Tamilia], and the kid is speaking Italian, that language that that kid is speaking, you’re not gonna get that speaking English. You can’t translate that. You can’t drop that into American. What’d he be, a rapper or something? I don’t know what the fuck he’d be speaking. He’s a street kid, y’know? Thank God Willem speaks enough Italian, and can speak Italian well enough, that he can get that kid’s talking back, which to me is more important at that moment. It’s a stretch, but the audience has to stretch to the imagination of the filmmakers. I’m not gonna reduce our imagination, you gotta come up to the plate when you wanna watch a movie.

Is Welcome to New York going to see the light of day in the U.S.?

In the U.S.? Right now it’s a war with these people, these guys think they can just cavalierly take our film and do what they want with it just because they bought it. Just because you buy the Mona Lisa doesn’t mean you can put a moustache on it. It’s my job to protect that film, so we’ll see what’s gonna happen. But it’s out, it’s on the Internet, steal it, man.

http://filmcomment.com/entry/interview-abel-ferrara-pasolini-ifc-lieutenant

from H'wood Reporter via Keyframe:

“Abel Ferrara issued a cease and desist letter last week addressed to IFC Films and its global distributor Wild Bunch against the U.S. release of his film Welcome to New York.” IFC has responded and Ferrara has shot back in a statement the Hollywood Reporter has made public today.... “Ferrara says the message of the film is ‘no means no,’ referring to the infamous hotel rape scene. In an edited version of the film, the infamous hotel rape scene is turned into a flashback, leaving the maid’s credibility open to interpretation. In Ferrara’s original film, the guilt of Gérard Depardieu‘s character is apparent, and the director shows zero sympathy toward men in power who have an abusive relationship with women. As of now, IFC will release the edited version of the film as planned, and Ferrara tells THR he will pursue legal action against both IFC and Wild Bunch for releasing a version of the film he didn’t approve.”

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/abel-ferrara-responds-ifc-fire-783614

he made a movie about Dominique Strauss-Kahn?

ah noted upthread sorry

IFC version opens here Friday

"I wouldn't even accept the concept of an R-rated film—and I live in and work in Europe, so that doesn't exist [here]. These people, IFC, put out unrated films. That's their fucking thing. And Wild Bunch as a European-fucking distributor...c'mon man. Blue is the Warmest Color, Nymphomaniac, all these films, ya dig? And they [IFC and Wild Bunch] know who I am. We've made five films together. They [IFC and Wild Bunch] grew up watching my films. They know I don't make R-rated films. And this subject matter, this story, the way I shot it, you cannot. I wouldn't have made it, I wouldn't have done it. They're tyrants. They act with impunity. It's not going to fly with me, or people who have any sense of the truth."

http://flavorwire.com/510822/its-criminal-and-my-names-on-it-abel-ferrara-on-his-strauss-kahn-inspired-welcome-to-new-york-his-battle-with-distributors-and-pasolini/view-all

I like able more and more these days. Wish him luck with this. Fuck those guys.

Aghhhh! ABEL! I like ABEL.

wasn't aware of Pasolini and have just been gifted the DVD. excited.

This is one of those threads that, when it gets bumped, I assume it's because its subject has died, so - good news!

the dsk one wasnt too bad, showed a degree of restraint that i did not think ferrara capable of

also props for depardieu for twice showing his balls

Watched KONY tonight - clearly an anti-Goodfellas/Scorcese (or probably wouldn't make it onto a 'Martin Scorcese presents..' thing). Post-Scarface yet more subdued than that (then again anything next to Scarface is subdued, althoug its to do with its terrific use of night-time) and better than a lot of that - I mean just so much fun and outright bizarro stuff (Caruso giving Snipes first aid LOL, Larry and his gang cutting a deal while watching Nosferatu, those parties and the amount of hip-hop blasting thru, the weird theatre show with the small amount of applause at the end, the singing at the fundraiser). Loved almost all of the cast too.

Those Hong Kong action films have been on my mind a bit lately even before coming to this, and although its nowhere near as kinetic it has a similar level of the disposable to it (Walken just blasting Caruso off after the funeral as some kind of peak).

Caruso giving Snipes first aid LOL

Haha yeah, and shot-to-shit Larry Fishburne going to town a few feet away. It has that hyper-stylised thing where ppl can be riddled with bullets in every vital organ and still kicking, but a single gut shot means death 5 mins later.

I really loved this. Some of the rain shots near the end were gorgeous.

He did a documentary called Napoli Napoli Napoli which I saw in Porto at, like, the only edition of some weird film festival. I remember little of it, except a scene where Ferrara puts on a show in a female prison and there's all these middle aged ladies from Naples looking bemused as he goes through a punk rock cover of "King Of New York".

A couple of his lesser-known movies, The Addiction and Body Snatchers (which I remember being pretty good, though I still prefer the 1978 Donald Kaufman version), are streaming for free on Hulu now.

For a minute read the bump and thought Ferrara had a new movie about Joseph Kony (KONY2012). Which, location aside, would be in his wheelhouse.

monthlong NYC retro in May! Uncut European versions!

https://www.moma.org/calendar/film/5065

Also, Kino Lorber has picked up his latest movie, which stars Willem Dafoe as Pasolini.

Saw it at NYFF in 2014 (see above). Took almost five years...

He's finished another with Dafoe since, also 3 documentaries and a short.

never seen king of new york before maybe now is the time