Abel Ferrara

Contemporary Film Directors

by Nicole Brenez, Adrian Martin (Translator)

Nicole Brenez argues for Abel Ferrara’s place in a line of grand inventors who have blurred distinctions between industry and avant-garde film, including Orson Welles, Monte Hellman, and Nicholas Ray. Rather than merely reworking genre film, Brenez understands Ferrara’s oeuvre as formulating new archetypes that depict the evil of the modern world. Focusing as much on the human figure as on elements of storytelling, she argues that films such as  Bad Lieutenant  express this evil through visionary characters struggling against the inadmissible (inadmissible behavior, morality, images, and narratives).

Genres: Film, Nonfiction

210 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[V. Prince · Rating 2 out of 5]

An exhausting read, made only the more annoying by its premature publication, made obsolete by the digital late style output. Some interesting stretches (particularly on The Blackout as Ferrara’s tribute to Cukor’s A Star is Born), but far outweighed by hogwash about Body Snatchers as Ferrara’s statement on Hegel or whatever.