IN
INTERVIEWS YOU CLAIMED NO KNOWLEDGE OF ABEL FERRARA AND HIS ORIGINAL BAD
LIEUTENANT.
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Until
this very day I haven't seen his film, nor any of his work. A few years after
my Bad Lieutenant came out I met Ferrara for the first time, at a film
festival, and though we sat down to talk, we didn't do it over a drink because
apparently he has problems with alcohol, and I had no desire to provoke
anything. It was actually wonderful that even before I started making the film
there was accompanying thunder from this man, who said he hoped I would rot in
Hell for remaking his film. It was good music in the background, like the
manager of a baseball team running out to the umpire, standing five inches from
his face, yelling and kicking up dust. That's what people really want to see.
At that meeting with Ferrara we laughed so much I barely recall what we talked
about.
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I
agreed to do Bad Lieutenant only after the screenwriter, William Finkelstein,
gave me a solemn oath his script wasn't a remake. The only thing that connects
my film to Ferrara's is that one of the producers owned the rights to the title
and was interested in starting a franchise; it was never a question of
different "versions." The two films have nothing to do with each
other, and the title - which was forced upon me: and which I told the producers
would waft after the film like a bad smell - is misleading. Calling it a remake
is like saying Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ is a remake of Pasolini's The
Gospel According to St Matthew, though practitioners of "film
studies" will surely be ecstatic to find a reference or two in my film to
Ferrara's. I call upon the pedantic theoreticians of cmerna to chase after such
things. Go for it, losers.
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The
producers sent the script to my agent, but when it comes to negotiating
contracts I prefer doing things myself, and chose to face them and their
henchmen man to man. At our first meeting I sat with five people from the
production company. My first question was, "Are any of you legal counsel
for the production?" one of them identified himself. I asked him to stay
in the room but not participate in the discussion, then said, "What I have
to say here isn't the invention of some industry agent who is trying to sound important.
I represent myself here. If you want to be in business with me, I need certain
indisputable prerequisites. I decide who the cameraman, editor and composer of
this film will be." They quickly accepted this, then asked me for my rate.
"What do you mean by 'rate'?" I said. "How much do you get for
directing a film?" they said. "What's your price?" My response
to such a ridiculous question was the most coherent I could muster: "I'm
priceless." How can I answer a question like that in any other way? With a
film like The Wild Blue Yonder I paid myself virtually nothing and used mostly
my own money, but with Bad Lieutenant I quoted them an exorbitant figure,
immediately adding, "I guarantee you I'll finish this film under budget,
so in effect you'll be saving money." The main producer wanted to shake on
it immediately, but I resisted. I prefer the overnight rule. "If I have a
contract in my hands at eight o'clock tomorrow morning," I told them,
"we have a deal." I have a general understanding of Hollywood: if you
don't have a deal in two days, you won't have it in two years either. The next morning
a messenger was at my house with a signed contract, which I looked at carefully
for a few minutes, signed without telephoning a lawyer, then handed back for
delivery to the producers.
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I
appreciate the value of money and know how to keep costs down because I've been
my own producer for so many years. If it's your own money, you had better learn
to look after it. I demanded a say on the size of the crew and asked for daily
access to the cash flow, which the producers acceded to. I needed to know if I could
afford another half a dozen police cars in this shot or twenty more extras in
that sequence. People often throw money at problems, but I have always
preferred to use vigilance and flexibility in advance, diffusing situations
that have a tendency to become problems. I put an end to things like having
duplicate costumes for actors with only a few lines and waived my right to a
trailer, a personal assistant and - that awful status symbol - a director's
chair. "I just saved you $65," I told the producers. The completion-bond
guarantor visited the set during production to see how things were going.
"You charge hundreds of thousands of dollars to guarantee that this film
will be completed, which makes you a complete waste of money," I said to
him. "I am the guarantee that this film will be delivered on time and on
budget."
?
I
met with Eva Mendes in a New York hotel and won her over by joking about her
not bringing her dog's psychiatrist to the set. Eva eventually showed up with
only two people: a make-up woman and a chauffeur, who doubled as her bodyguard.
Nicolas Cage's entourage was similarly small. I had very little time for
pre-production and in three weeks scouted forty locations, cast thirty-five
speaking roles, put together a crew and production office, and did the required
set design. Every penny of the budget showed up on the screen. I know what I
want and shoot only that, and on most days we were finished at three or four
o'clock in the afternoon. I would do a couple of takes, then move on. The crew
weren't used to my method of working and at the start of the shoot suggested I get
more shots so I would have more editing options, but I told them we didn't need
any of that. "Finally," said Nicolas, "someone who knows what
he's doing." We finished two days ahead schedule and $2.6 million under
budget. That's unheard of in Hollywood, and it meant I earned a bonus. I
delivered the finished film two weeks after principal photography was
completed. The producer wanted to marry me, and immediately offered me half a
dozen other projects.
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?
WHAT
CONTRIBUTION DID YOU MAKE TO THE SCREENPLAY?
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The
script is Finkelstein's, but as usual it kept shifting, demanding its own life,
and I invented several new scenes full of what we might call
"Herzogian" moments. The opening sequence was originally a man
jumping in front of a New York subway train and the lieutenant saving him, but
New Orleans has no subway. I wanted the story to start in the most debased way
possible, and came up with the new beginning of the two detectives placing bets
on how long it will take for the prisoner to drown. In that scene - for which
Finkelstein wrote the dialogue - we initially used fresh water, but it looked
too clean, so the set designer added dye, but that turned the water toxic.
Someone had the idea of using instant coffee, but that would have been
dangerous for the actors because caffeine seeps through skin and would probably
have induced cardiac arrest. In the end we dumped two and a half thousand
pounds of decaffeinated coffee powder into the water.
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I
added other moments, like the dancing soul and the alligator lying, run over,
in the middle of the road with a nylon fish line attached to its leg, which I
tugged on from off screen, so it looks as if the creature is still twitching.
The iguanas, which the bad lieutenant sees thanks to the drug haze he is under,
were my idea. There is nothing more wondrous than seeing Nicolas Cage and a
lizard together in one shot. I was walking through the city and saw one of
these creatures sitting up in a tree. "I need two of them," I told
one of the producers. I filmed them myself in a thoroughly demented way, using
a dirty lens at the end of a fibre-optic cable. Everyone on set asked me what
the meaning of the shot was. "I have no idea," I said, "but It's
going to be big." One of these little monsters bit into my thumb; its jaws
were a steel vice. I struggled to shake it off as the entire crew laughed
hysterically.
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Werner
Herzog? "Werner Herzog A Guide For
The Perplexed" (2015)
