Bad Lieutenant
Bad Lieutenant (from Weird and Wonderful II: Fifty More Cult Films by George Hughes, available from freefall-productions.com on 02/11/20)
1992 / US / 96 minutes
“I’ve been dodging fucking bullets since I was fourteen. No one can kill me. I’m blessed- I’m a fucking Catholic.”
Director: Abel Ferrara / Screenplay: Zoe Lund & Abel Ferrara / Director of Photography: Ken Kelsch / Music: Joe Delia / Production: Mary Kane & Edward R. Pressman for Aries Films / Cast: Harvey Keitel (The Lieutenant), Paul Calderon (Cop #1), Leonard L. Thomas (Cop #2), Zoe Lund (Zoe), Victor Argo (Beat Cop), Frankie Thorn (The Nun), Paul Hipp (Jesus), Heather Bracken (Nurse).
In 1990, Abel Ferrara had made his biggest film yet with King of New York. Designed as an NYC Scarface, the gangster epic starred Christopher Walken as complex, conflicted mob boss Frank White and featured an impressive supporting cast including Laurence Fishburne, Steve Buscemi and Wesley Snipes. But for all of it’s big budget credentials (the funds were somewhat dodgily acquired from Italian sources), King of New York was still very much an independent film and Ferrara retained complete control of it.
Having also more than proven he could work to budgets, schedules and studio rules with his TV work, Ferrara was due to start shooting Body Snatchers (a version of the regularly remade Invasion of the Body Snatchers) for a 1993 release but before starting work on that “Director for Hire” job, he had a very different, much smaller scale project in mind that could quickly and easily be done in the style of his early work.
Based on the true story of a nun raped in a church in Spanish Harlem and the reward put out to find those responsible, Ferrara’s idea was to put the last man you’d want on the case: an alcoholic, thieving, degenerate gambler detective partial to prostitutes, any and all drugs going and massive abuses of his authority. First putting the concept together as a song, he then collaborated with Ms. 45 star Zoe Lund to adapt it into a script.
Incredibly, considering the subject matter (and the end result), Ferrara and Lund had initially envisioned Bad Lieutenant as a comedy. Walken was set to star again but pulled out at the last minute after reconsidering the material. As Ferrara would later recall: “He said, “I don’t think I’m right for it” which is a fine thing to say unless it’s three weeks from when you’re supposed to start shooting”! Instead, Harvey Keitel, who had just had a major career revival with Reservoir Dogs, stepped in and made the nameless Lieutenant of the title very much his own.
Shot “Driller Killer Style” on the streets in just three weeks using a single camera with no permits or permissions whatsoever, Bad Lieutenant feels so authentic because it is. Characters either have no name or are given their performer’s name, the club the Lieutenant goes to was a real one cinematographer Ken Kelsch just followed Keitel through during opening hours and- most controversially- Lund injects real heroin in her cameo role.
Although Keitel’s character’s drug intake throughout the film was entirely faked, Ferrara has since admitted that he was also using heroin during production, saying that “The director of that film needed to be using- the director and the writer, not the actors”. Lund even went so far as to claim, on several occasions, that she wrote the script alone and even co- directed the film because Ferrara was so out of it.
Although Ferrara has sometimes referred to Lund as Bad Lieutenant’s “Writer” and says she directed some individual scenes in his DVD commentary, the truth of this is very hard to get to the bottom of due to his often incoherent interviews in which his recollections usually seem all over the place. Lund also developed a reputation as something of a fantasist throughout her life but it’s most likely that the idea and outline was Ferrara’s and that she wrote the final shooting script that he then directed most of with some limited assistance from her.
Lund’s relationship with Ferrara was strained after the release of Ms. 45 but they seem to have reconciled by the mid ’80’s as she has a small part in Miami Vice’s New York- set second season premiere that Ferrara probably got her through Michael Mann (several of Ferrara’s later regular actors- including Paul Calderon, Giancarlo Esposito and David Patrick Kelly- were contacts he made working on the series).
In any case, Bad Lieutenant is first and foremost Keitel’s film. The Lieutenant takes an interest in the nun’s case because the $50,000 reward could pay off his mounting debts to his bookie (the film takes place during a fictional baseball series - apparently, the details are all wrong- that he’s betting on). Learning that the nun knows the identity of her attackers but has chosen to forgive them, the Lieutenant sinks deeper into his addictions until ultimately breaking down and facing up to what he’s become.
Rich in the kind of Catholic drama so brilliantly summed up in Dylan Moran’s comedy (Ferrara’s regular screenwriter and keen God botherer Nicholas St. John wanted nothing to do with it), Bad Lieutenant does require a bit of knowledge and understanding of that particular hobby. As with Scorsese (a big fan of this film), it’s nearly always there in Ferrara’s work but is very much front and centre here. In fact, I’d say it goes well beyond simply Catholicism and pretty deep into the collective New York Italian American psyche too.
That said, other than his supposed faith, we find out very little about Keitel’s character. Crucially, the film never reveals if he’s always been the same way (it would seem unlikely since he’s got a house, wife and family from somewhere and, whilst police procedural accuracy’s not among the film’s priorities, the rank of Lieutenant isn’t one you can arrive at by accident). But then such questions probably wouldn’t interest Ferrara at all. In his commentary for The Addiction’s recent Blu Ray release, he’s asked by his biographer Brad Williams what the background of the lead character is and responds “Who gives a fuck”?
Despite being critically acclaimed (it’s still seen by many as Ferrara’s best film), Bad Lieutenant was predictably hugely controversial upon release. In the US, it was hit with an NC-17 rating, not that it’s director cared (asked at a festival if he was thinking about the film’s content while he was shooting, Ferrara answered “I wasn’t thinking about it at all- that’s why it got rated NC-17”) or that it mattered too much for such a low budget project.
The dramas surrounding Bad Lieutenant didn’t end there though. When it was first released on video in 1993, Jimmy Page spotted that the featured Schoolly D track Signifying Rapper used the riff from Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir. Somewhat ridiculously considering the film had already been out for a year (and the Schoolly song out for five), every unsold tape of Bad Lieutenant had to be destroyed and Signifying Rapper has been removed from all subsequent releases (according to Stevens in his book Abel Ferrara: The Moral Vision, “Anyone familiar only with this version has not experienced the film Ferrara made”).
Then in 2009, the film’s producer Edward R. Pressman decided to make use of a recognisable title he still held the rights to and released an unrelated Werner Herzog film with Nicolas Cage as Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call- New Orleans. Neither a remake or a sequel to Ferrara’s film, Port of Call- New Orleans has virtually nothing in common with it. Ferrara described hearing about his title being recycled as “A horrible feeling, like being robbed” but eventually got an apology from Herzog (who had been against using it) when they met at a festival.
Despite Herzog’s not inconsiderable reputation, it says a lot that Port of Call has been all but forgotten just a decade later, whereas the real Bad Lieutenant remains as notorious, shocking and divisive as ever.
1992 / US / 96 minutes
“I’ve been dodging fucking bullets since I was fourteen. No one can kill me. I’m blessed- I’m a fucking Catholic.”
Director: Abel Ferrara / Screenplay: Zoe Lund & Abel Ferrara / Director of Photography: Ken Kelsch / Music: Joe Delia / Production: Mary Kane & Edward R. Pressman for Aries Films / Cast: Harvey Keitel (The Lieutenant), Paul Calderon (Cop #1), Leonard L. Thomas (Cop #2), Zoe Lund (Zoe), Victor Argo (Beat Cop), Frankie Thorn (The Nun), Paul Hipp (Jesus), Heather Bracken (Nurse).
In 1990, Abel Ferrara had made his biggest film yet with King of New York. Designed as an NYC Scarface, the gangster epic starred Christopher Walken as complex, conflicted mob boss Frank White and featured an impressive supporting cast including Laurence Fishburne, Steve Buscemi and Wesley Snipes. But for all of it’s big budget credentials (the funds were somewhat dodgily acquired from Italian sources), King of New York was still very much an independent film and Ferrara retained complete control of it.
Having also more than proven he could work to budgets, schedules and studio rules with his TV work, Ferrara was due to start shooting Body Snatchers (a version of the regularly remade Invasion of the Body Snatchers) for a 1993 release but before starting work on that “Director for Hire” job, he had a very different, much smaller scale project in mind that could quickly and easily be done in the style of his early work.
Based on the true story of a nun raped in a church in Spanish Harlem and the reward put out to find those responsible, Ferrara’s idea was to put the last man you’d want on the case: an alcoholic, thieving, degenerate gambler detective partial to prostitutes, any and all drugs going and massive abuses of his authority. First putting the concept together as a song, he then collaborated with Ms. 45 star Zoe Lund to adapt it into a script.
Incredibly, considering the subject matter (and the end result), Ferrara and Lund had initially envisioned Bad Lieutenant as a comedy. Walken was set to star again but pulled out at the last minute after reconsidering the material. As Ferrara would later recall: “He said, “I don’t think I’m right for it” which is a fine thing to say unless it’s three weeks from when you’re supposed to start shooting”! Instead, Harvey Keitel, who had just had a major career revival with Reservoir Dogs, stepped in and made the nameless Lieutenant of the title very much his own.
Shot “Driller Killer Style” on the streets in just three weeks using a single camera with no permits or permissions whatsoever, Bad Lieutenant feels so authentic because it is. Characters either have no name or are given their performer’s name, the club the Lieutenant goes to was a real one cinematographer Ken Kelsch just followed Keitel through during opening hours and- most controversially- Lund injects real heroin in her cameo role.
Although Keitel’s character’s drug intake throughout the film was entirely faked, Ferrara has since admitted that he was also using heroin during production, saying that “The director of that film needed to be using- the director and the writer, not the actors”. Lund even went so far as to claim, on several occasions, that she wrote the script alone and even co- directed the film because Ferrara was so out of it.
Although Ferrara has sometimes referred to Lund as Bad Lieutenant’s “Writer” and says she directed some individual scenes in his DVD commentary, the truth of this is very hard to get to the bottom of due to his often incoherent interviews in which his recollections usually seem all over the place. Lund also developed a reputation as something of a fantasist throughout her life but it’s most likely that the idea and outline was Ferrara’s and that she wrote the final shooting script that he then directed most of with some limited assistance from her.
Lund’s relationship with Ferrara was strained after the release of Ms. 45 but they seem to have reconciled by the mid ’80’s as she has a small part in Miami Vice’s New York- set second season premiere that Ferrara probably got her through Michael Mann (several of Ferrara’s later regular actors- including Paul Calderon, Giancarlo Esposito and David Patrick Kelly- were contacts he made working on the series).
In any case, Bad Lieutenant is first and foremost Keitel’s film. The Lieutenant takes an interest in the nun’s case because the $50,000 reward could pay off his mounting debts to his bookie (the film takes place during a fictional baseball series - apparently, the details are all wrong- that he’s betting on). Learning that the nun knows the identity of her attackers but has chosen to forgive them, the Lieutenant sinks deeper into his addictions until ultimately breaking down and facing up to what he’s become.
Rich in the kind of Catholic drama so brilliantly summed up in Dylan Moran’s comedy (Ferrara’s regular screenwriter and keen God botherer Nicholas St. John wanted nothing to do with it), Bad Lieutenant does require a bit of knowledge and understanding of that particular hobby. As with Scorsese (a big fan of this film), it’s nearly always there in Ferrara’s work but is very much front and centre here. In fact, I’d say it goes well beyond simply Catholicism and pretty deep into the collective New York Italian American psyche too.
That said, other than his supposed faith, we find out very little about Keitel’s character. Crucially, the film never reveals if he’s always been the same way (it would seem unlikely since he’s got a house, wife and family from somewhere and, whilst police procedural accuracy’s not among the film’s priorities, the rank of Lieutenant isn’t one you can arrive at by accident). But then such questions probably wouldn’t interest Ferrara at all. In his commentary for The Addiction’s recent Blu Ray release, he’s asked by his biographer Brad Williams what the background of the lead character is and responds “Who gives a fuck”?
Despite being critically acclaimed (it’s still seen by many as Ferrara’s best film), Bad Lieutenant was predictably hugely controversial upon release. In the US, it was hit with an NC-17 rating, not that it’s director cared (asked at a festival if he was thinking about the film’s content while he was shooting, Ferrara answered “I wasn’t thinking about it at all- that’s why it got rated NC-17”) or that it mattered too much for such a low budget project.
The dramas surrounding Bad Lieutenant didn’t end there though. When it was first released on video in 1993, Jimmy Page spotted that the featured Schoolly D track Signifying Rapper used the riff from Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir. Somewhat ridiculously considering the film had already been out for a year (and the Schoolly song out for five), every unsold tape of Bad Lieutenant had to be destroyed and Signifying Rapper has been removed from all subsequent releases (according to Stevens in his book Abel Ferrara: The Moral Vision, “Anyone familiar only with this version has not experienced the film Ferrara made”).
Then in 2009, the film’s producer Edward R. Pressman decided to make use of a recognisable title he still held the rights to and released an unrelated Werner Herzog film with Nicolas Cage as Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call- New Orleans. Neither a remake or a sequel to Ferrara’s film, Port of Call- New Orleans has virtually nothing in common with it. Ferrara described hearing about his title being recycled as “A horrible feeling, like being robbed” but eventually got an apology from Herzog (who had been against using it) when they met at a festival.
Despite Herzog’s not inconsiderable reputation, it says a lot that Port of Call has been all but forgotten just a decade later, whereas the real Bad Lieutenant remains as notorious, shocking and divisive as ever.
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