One of the true delights of this year has been re-reading two books about Abel Ferrara, alongside watching most of the director's films yet again, during the preparation of my forthcoming blog post for Little White Lies.
The first, Abel Ferrara: The Moral Vision, by Brad Stevens is a thorough monograph that digs deep into the history behind all of Ferrara's works that were in existence at the time of its publication in 2003. Through copious email interviews, close viewing of numerous distributed versions of Ferrara's films, the author's own insightful analysis and a valuable resource at the end of the book detailing Ferrara's unrealised projects, Stevens's book provides all of the historical information regarding one of the greatest living directors that any newcomer, or someone familiar with his work, could want. And to bring things up to date, Stevens's later article for the December 2008 issue of Sight and Sound Magazine, 'Sketches of the Ghost' looks at the director's more recent, under-represented features and documentaries including Go Go Tales and Chelsea on the Rocks.
For Stevens, Ferrara's moral vision sees each person, central characters and peripheral individuals alike, on a level plane but women are shown to be a regular, normalising force amidst typically male obsession and violence. Performance and identity, whether the individual is adaptive and fearless enough to confront the vicissitudes of living 'in the moment' or resigned to 'dealing with it' through a mask, is a central concern among the films, according to Stevens.
Stevens's book is an exemplar of the monograph and readers are also pointed in the direction of the author's book about Monte Hellman, another of American cinema's undervalued directors who has recently released a mesmerising feature film, for the first time in 21 years, Road to Nowhere that would form a rewarding double bill with Ferrara's New Rose Hotel, as Stevens suggested to me.
The other book, Abel Ferrara, is by Nicole Brenez and is quite simply the most inspirational piece of film criticism I have read to date. After a three-year course of Philosophy during my time at university I still did not feel strong enough to tackle Hegel. If only I had Abel Ferrara's films and Brenez's book to hand, I think I would have had the courage, as I have now. It seems a perfect turn of events for me that cinema largely considered confused, and badly made, should help me to gain an insight into some of the most dense philosophical concepts that I have struggled with until now, since this combines two of my passions: under recognised film and philosophy.
Brenez meticulously unpacks Ferrara's work to reveal a revelatory body of films that together seem to map out a treatise on the Negative, concerning crime, death, loss, identity, intoxication, capitalism and destruction. Brenez illustrates the use of a particular rhyming, or scheme of echoes that bookend the majority of Ferrara's films, Bad Lieutenant in particular (which Brenez will convince you is the most perfect film, due to the manner in which it is visually structured to reflect its themes). Brenez terms this "anamorphosis" and I previously used screenshots to complement a portion of the text in an earlier blog post. From one image to its echo, a particular concern is taken through a process of exhausting, whether it be the guilt concerning the crimes of the twentieth century (The Addiction), a fear of abandonment (The Blackout), the realities of the capitalist economy (Ms. 45), or unfaithfulness (Dangerous Game). Brenez also analyses the echoes and reversals, clarifications and alternating strategies between the films, for example New Rose Hotel's "figurative repentance" following The Blackout.
The books form a perfect introduction to Ferrara's work, are ever-useful reference points and are a continuing source of inspiration and ideas for further analysis. So, 'recommended reading' may be a little bit of an understatement.
