Uploaded on October 24th 2022
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Please do not read this if you haven't seen the film because this piece contains spoilers
Spirituality in Cinema 1 – Bad Lieutenant
Sure, I love movies. All of them. Comedies, action, drama, thrillers, horror, sci fi , art house – the lot. My personal favourites can be in any genre, and in some ways I'm a fairly typical cine-snob – I love Lynch, but I'm not big on Bay. I can watch silent German cinema, well made popcorn action thrillers like Die Hard 2 but you simply will not find me in the multiplex for any Fast and Furious films. I'm a musician by trade and by choice but overly commercial, poorly written music doesn't bother me. A badly written movie, though, sends me into an apoplectic rage that is, if eyewitness reports are anything to go by, quite frightening to witness. I could write a book about the number of actors and actresses I simply don't have time for, and I could write three books about the films I love. And yes, there is a very special place in my heart for movies that deal with the truly Big Issues – Man, God and Sin (to quote Peep Show).
There are a surprisingly large number of successful films that touch on matters Spiritual as well as lesser known movies and one day we'll talk about a few more of these but today, right now, I want to tell you why I love – love – “Bad Lieutenant”. Directed and co-written 9with Zoe Lund) by the maverick and somewhat wayward auteur Abel Ferrara,“Bad Lieutenant”, released in 1992, is a beautiful rumination on the relationship between God and Man in the form of the absolutely despicable character played by the legend that is Harvey Keitel and set against a backdrop of a police investigation into a violent sexual assault on a nun in a church.
The laughs come thick and fast in this movie, as Keitel slapsticks his way through....no, I can't lie to you, or try to joke about it. This is a movie that has a dark, twisted core and doesn't flinch from showing us some of the worst aspects of human behaviour one could ever think of.
Keitel plays a thoroughly corrupt NYPD police officer, the titular lieutenant (never given a name), who steals drugs from crime scenes, takes drugs that he's stolen from crime scenes, sells drugs he's stolen from crime scenes, drinks to excess, lies, gambles, owes money, frequents prostitutes and in one deeply uncomfortable scene, stops a car with two young girls in it and forces them to simulate oral sex on him while he masturbates. He lies to his wife, his children his colleagues and everyone he meets. But he cannot lie to himself and thus he is in the worst kind of Hell that a human can endure. His pain and shame are unbearable to watch, and he cannot escape his conscience no matter how he tries to self medicate.
In one scene, central to the emotional resonance of the film, Keitel drinks, takes drugs and has sex with two hookers but we see him, standing naked and swigging from a bottle, crying his eyes out. The squeals of anguish and pain emanating from Keitel in this scene, sounds so raw and full of his suffering, astonished me when I sat in the cinema watching the film when it was first released. Of course as an actor using his craft to tell the story, it's Keitel fully embodying his character but if, like me, you are fully immersed in movies you watch and are THERE with that character, then you'll understand why I sat crying while I watched this. I could feel his pain, his awareness that he was so far from where he wanted to be as a person, so corrupt and full of betrayal. So ashamed.
The other key scene has Keitel's character, who is investigating the rape of a nun in a church, meet with the nun in the church itself, to tell her that he'll find the two men who attacked her and he'll kill them but the nun tells him that she has forgiven the men, which send Keitel's character into a paroxysm of rage and bewilderment. How can she? How can anyone forgive such a brutal and heinous crime? How can God forgive, and most importantly, when Keitel is crawling on the floor in rage and pain, where is God when we need Him? When, in this state of turmoil and anger the figure of Jesus appears, covered in blood, Keitel's character can only scream.
“Where were you???” he cries.
“Where the fuck were you????” he screams.
When she needed you.
When I needed you.
It's a brutal scene.
Ok, so you get that it's a heavy movie. You get that it's well acted, and written and it deals with some big stuff. But why do I think it's 'beautiful”?
Because of the ending.
Through one single act of forgiveness, made in conflict with his own rage and need for revenge and thus enacted once again through a flood of tears, Keitel's character is redeemed and is put out of his Earthly misery by a single bullet.
I remember sitting there as the credits rolled. The cinema was a small one in Panton Street in London's Glittering West End, and I was with my then girlfriend. As people got up to leave there was a smattering of laughter, which I understood. The film was so tense, so heavy and emotionally devastating that laughter was a way of dealing with the emotions, in that it was nervous laughter. I, however, sat there weeping. The beauty of God's love was laid out very clearly for me - as soon as The Lieutenant had acted in Forgiveness towards someone whom he wanted to destroy he too was Forgiven and could thus be released from the prison of his Earthly hell and return to the bosom of The Creator. Whatever She is. Of course I'm reading into this ending what I want to read into it. That's me seeing what I want to see, the message that I want to hear and take with me and keep close to my heart. God (Whatever It is) loves us and will never forget us and will always be glad to see us when we go back to Him (Whatever He is). And Jesus was the embodiment of God's forgiveness towards us, and each one of us is a Prodigal Son or Daughter.
The film itself was and remains hugely controversial because of its subject matter and i's depiction of sex, degradation and violence. Keitel was nominated for various awards for his bravura performance although as far as I'm aware the film itself didn't receive any awards. Various versions were edited and released so you may not get the truly visceral experience of it on dvd that I got in the cinema. It's also controversial due to it's writer/director Ferarra, who first came to prominence as a maker of very suspect movies including early forays into hard core porn. He directed an early banned 'video nasty' (films on early VHS and thus available to view at home) called Driller Killer as well as later more artistically well received films and often excellent films like The Funeral, The King of New York and (one suspects a very personal take on drugs) The Addiction wherein blood thirsty vampires in New York are a symbol for heroin addiction.
Obviously Ferarra's NYC Italian American upbringing was infused with Catholicism so the film is rich in this imagery and one also suspects that Ferarra was examining aspects of his own life and feelings of regret but for me it's questions are exposition on human suffering goes far beyond mere religious iconography. For me this film was not a viewing – it was an experience.