Very Bad Things

Werner Herzog interprets the word ‘remake’ rather loosely in The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. It’s based on the controversial 1992 Abel Ferrera movie, which saw Harvey Keitel abusing his authority, rampaging around LA in order to find good drugs, bad sex and worse.

In Herzog’s remake, Nicholas Cage is the bad lieutenant. Cage’s ... resorts to self-medication after an accident involving a permanent disfiguration to his spine; his doctor’s prescription of vicodin clearly proving insufficient. One year - and one bravery medal - after the accident, things have changed. He has a prostitute girlfriend, snorts cocaine and smokes crack. He’s also investigating a gangland massacre, in which five people were shot dead in an apartment.

Essentially, Herzog is donning his Hollywood hat once more, after his first brush with the industry with 2007’s Rescue Dawn. Like that movie – and, in fact, like most of his movies – it’s another story of a man who is part maverick, part maniac. And again like that movie, it’s almost mainstream.

Do note the word ‘almost’ in that sentence. There is a lot of darkness in The Bad Lieutenant. Terrence violently uses an old woman as bait to get her carer to talk. Cage abuses both his weapon and his gun so a stoned woman can avoid prosecution.

And like Terrence, the movie is also off its rocker. The amount of depicted drug taking alone earned The Bad Lieutenant an eighteen certificate. Cage’s character ingests so many substances, he sees lizards on coffee tables and the souls of dead old white men dancing. The casting is also a little left-field. Jennifer Coolidge turns up as an old lush, Val Kilmer is a dour cop and 90s survivor Fariuza Balk is a bent cop with a great body.

It’s exactly what you expect from Herzog. It is inherently bizarre. Which, depending on how you look at it, is either brilliant or rather boring.

Lost and found

Modern Art Oxford is known for bringing the art of established and rising national - and international - stars to the city. In the past we've had works by Tracey Emin, Miroslaw Balka and Robert Mapplethorpe. So it's rare then to find an exhibition with such a parochial focus.

Maria Pask's Deja Vu centres around the deprived local area Rose Hill. The place exists maybe five or so miles outside of the city centre. Sadly, it has a reputation; it's often dismissed as a crime-ridden flea pit, populated by undesirables. Flea pit or not, it's somewhere to go if you're looking to save rent money (and still be fairly central; it's all of a fifteen minute bus ride to the dreaming spires). I almost moved there, in fact.

Pask has worked with local people (and a few professionals) to produce a series of sometimes interlinked short films exploring the idea of community in Rose Hill. All pieces revisit the fifties and sixties, in which one local resident tirelessly wrote and self published a newsletter entitled The Roundabout; copies of the newsletter are displayed alongside the films. The films show scenes inspired by the publication: fashion shows, local theatre productions and scenes down the pub.

It's a melancholy nostalgia. Although what we see is not entirely positive (there's some nastiness in the pub sequences, for instance), there's a yearning, here. It's the idea these very different people (of varying ages and social backgrounds) can come together to create something incredibly powerful. As the films show, it is something they are more than capable of doing again.

It's not all clear cut though. Interestingly, a number of the scenarios are replayed with different actors playing each part. They swap roles regardless of age or gender. It's playful and funny. But there is a sense of mobility here. It's about transcending convention and approaching a subject in a different way. It's a metaphor for what is needed to regain community.