Werner Herzog is the kind of director that Quentin Tarantino used to be. Remember the nineties, when 'Pulp Fiction' had just exploded like a hydrogen bomb in Hollywood, and all of your asshole friends were so proud because they knew who Tarantino was before you ever did? Herzog is like that, except he's been that way for about forty years, balanced on the hinge of superstardom, but never quite tipping it. He's the indie rockstar who never signs a label because he's "too cool", like Green Day before "Poopie" or Metallica before "Load" or Tim Burton before "Sleepy Hollow". Like the characters from his movies, Herzog dances on the fulcrum between insanity and self-realization. You can see this clearly in last feature film (his first for a major studio), "Rescue Dawn", and you're likely to see it again in his upcoming "Bad Lieutenant".


"Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans" is a quasi-remake of Abel Ferrara's 1992 film, which starred Harvey Keitel as the coke snorting, heroine addict New York Detective trying to redeem himself while on the hunt for a rapist. I say 'quasi-remake', because it's unclear how much of Herzog's film will take from its source material. This film takes place in New Orleans rather than New York, and Nicolas Cage plays McDonald, a markedly different protagonist than Keitel's unnamed Lieutenant. It's also unclear whether or not Herzog even knew that this was a remake when he signed up for it. He claims never to have seen or heard of it.


This is no departure from Herzog's typical dealings with major studios. "Rescue Dawn" was rife with conflict behind the scenes between Herzog and Gibraltar Films, who greenlighted his script. If you'll recall the trailer and cover art for the film are incredibly action oriented, focusing on explosions and gunplay which make up a very small portion of the film. There's a wonderful article in "The New Yorker" that outlines Herzog's conflicts with Gibraltar Films, as well as his mad genius for filmmaking, called "The Ecstatic Truth". It also describes many of the kinds of things which you're likely to see in "Bad Lieutenant", such as uncanny metaphors, and a prolific style of filmmaking which remains unaesthetic, and looks more like his famous documentaries than a movie in the traditional sense.

Herzog's films are visceral, and often gut wrenching to a degree that makes casual movie watchers feel uncomfortable. The remarkable thing is that he's able to do this in style that minimizes gore (Herzog has stated that he can't stand the sight of blood) and infuses his films with an emotional charge that makes no exceptions for what it is. He is content to remain so, continuing documentary film work with the same vigor that he imparts to narrative film. His private exploits, which have included eating his own shoe and being shot in the gut by a sniper during a BBC interview (only to continue the interview), seem, much like his films, to be almost as natural as everyday weather that is at once clear and beautiful even as it is unfurling a hidden storm of catastrophe just over the horizon. This is why his films are unlike any we've ever seen before, and why "Bad Lieutenant" is likely to be a very different kind of cop movie.


Story by Eric Jones

Starpulse contributing writer