Bad Lieutenant

Werner Herzog lets Nicolas Cage off the leash as a crack-addict cop in ‘Bad Lieutenant’

By now, George and Oprah and the rest of the Hollywood circus have left town, and with them the horde of U.S. media junketeers. They gave us a good ride, showing up with a glut of stellar films to promote. But even the best of them—from Up in the Air to the Road—only took us deeper into the psychosis of our own culture. And they kept people like me so busy that there was no time to get off the grid and explore the wilder extremes of world cinema that TIFF makes available. But finally I’ve had a chance to do that. My journey into wild began with two films by Werner Herzog: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans and My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done. These are urban American crime stories, and the former features a Hollywood star, Nicolas Cage. But no matter where Herzog shoots—the Amazon, Alaska, Antarctica or Los Angeles, he seems to find the jungle, and madmen who are drawn into it. My Son, My Son and Bad Lieutenant are both murder stories about characters going insane, and they form a good- cop/bad-cop matched set. It’s the murderer who goes crazy in My Son, My Son, which is based on a true story of matricide in Los Angeles by a actor who becomes consumed with playing Oedipus on stage; in Bad Lieutenant, it’s the cop, a crack-smoking maniac played by Cage. Despite the urban settings, in both movies Herzog finds room for a menagerie of exotic animals: fish, snakes, flamingos, ostriches, iguanas, alligators. It’s as if he travels with the jungle in his carry-on. I had the extraordinary pleasure of interviewing the German filmmaker on two separate occasions in the past couple of days. I’ll be writing more about that, and his movies. later. But I feel it’s more urgent to tell you about the most recent film I’ve seen, which may be my favorite of the festival so far—an amazing first feature from the wilds of Colombia called Los Viajes del viento (The Wind Journeys).