2023-06-03 18:00:00
More than 30 years ago Renfieldthe great Nicolas Cage already played the vampires… or almost in kiss me vampire. And it’s one of his craziest roles.
In the nice comedy Renfield, Nicolas Cage interprets none other than the Dracula tale in person, to the delight of his groupies. And he takes up the challenge with flying colors, skilfully alternating registers, between horror and parody. But this is not the first time that he has confronted the myth of vampirism; he even owes him in part his reputation as the mad dog of American cinema.
kiss me vampire, released in 1989 in the United States, however, has little to do with the gore delirium of Chris McKay. A strange paranoid comedy with a disastrous box office, it tells the ramblings of a man who convinces himself that he has been transformed into a vampire following an erotic vision. It would be perfectly forgotten today if the actor had not made it a platform in favor of his exuberant acting, staggering anyone who dares to lay eyes on it. Even today, there remains a one-of-a-kind histrionics compilation, within which perhaps lies the key to understanding the Cage methodif it existed.
Uncaged
In the twilight of the 1980s, Nicolas Kim Coppola has not fully proven himself. He started at the beginning of the decade in a few teenage comedies (Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Valley Girllisten)), then branched out in part through his uncle, Francis Ford Coppola, though he got rid of his name, in favor of the pseudonym Cage. Since 1984 he has appeared alongside Sean Penn, Matthew Modine, Kathleen Turner and Cher. In addition to Coppola, he began to collaborate with talented filmmakers, such as Alan Parker, who gave him his first real big role, or of course the Coen brothers, who let him have fun headlining their second movie Arizona Junior.
A rather extensive filmography, although sometimes uneven (if you don’t know The Race of Champions, it’s normal). At this time, Cage was not yet known for his cable farts. Fascinated by the writings of Stanislavsky, he would like to be able to show both sobriety and exuberance, just to deceive him. But he is still waiting for permission to let go.
Arizona Junior’s beautiful mustache
However, he is already talking about him. During the production of Peggy Sue got married, his daring insupported Kathleen Turner. According to actor Sam McMurray, interviewed by Insiderhe would have written “Tomorrow you will die” on a towel to a teenager who asked her for an autograph during the filming ofArizona Junior. The actor then refused to reveal his methods, but landed on the set with tons of ideas … for the most part rejected by the filmmaker brothers. « I learned how difficult it is for them to accept another artist’s vision. They have an autocratic nature. he slipped to David Edelstei. « The Artist » burning to express themselves.
So he tries a new extravagance. On the set ofMoonlighta 1987 award-winning film, he decided to imitate the deep voice of Jean Marais in The beauty and the Beastto lend a growling wolf look to his seductive baker persona. « I spoke like that in the film. I got a call from director Norman Jewison and he said, “Nicolas, the dailies [images filmées le jour même] don’t work”. And then I started hearing the names of other actors and I thought I was going to be fired. I quickly had to drop Jean Marais”. Will he regret in 2014 in the columns of The Talks. Nicolas Cage is only asking for a project where he can give free rein to his most baroque ideas. It can’t be long.
The beginning of the end
The lion associates with the cockroach
When he receives the script from Vampire’s Kiss (American title), a small production with a budget of less than 2 million dollars about an American petty bourgeois who sinks into madness, he is obviously very interested. His agent, much less. According to him, it is a very bad choice after the honors ofMoonlightwho won 3 Oscars, including Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor.
He is all the less reassured that the project is more and more fragile. Joseph Minion, then known for the screenplay of After Hours by Scorsese, wrote it alone in a hotel room in Barbados and is considering directing it. Dennis Quaid was expected before going to The Inner Adventure, and Cage is highly motivated to replace him. Only here: finally, Minion decides not to take care of the realization. The producers, panicked, recruit a regular in the pub, Robert Berman. Under pressure, Nicolas Cage quits, just days after meeting the poor new director.
Like a Monday
But while the executives seek to find him a replacement (they would have met Judd Nelson and Steve Martin), he is overcome with remorse. What if he missed the opportunity to finally express his talent because of his agent? After about a month, he sheepishly calls back Bergman, whose bosses had heard of his regrets. The next day, he is rehired, to everyone’s delight. And he’s going to give it his all. really thoroughly.
From the first days, on viewing the rushes, the producers are satisfied, but taken aback. They turn to the filmmaker to ask why Cage is playing with that accent. “No it’s OK !”, he defends it. With the blessing of the director, who lets him terrorize ordinary passers-by in the streets of New York, the actor experiments daily, choreographs his fits of madness. For one of the first scenes, during which a bat lands in the room where he took his evening conquest, he sends his assistant to capture a real animal in Central Park, the special effect not being functional . When he devastates his room, he destroys real furniture.
After a day chasing passersby with a wooden stake
“I guess I thought there could be a new expression of comedy. I had stuffed myself, strangely, with German expressionist vampire films, like Nosferatu or The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, and I wanted to use this approach to silent cinema., he will tell in the epic audio commentary of the DVD. From the cinematographer to the director, no one has much experience and no one tempers his game. He has a field day, even if it means risking a lawsuit by spontaneously intoning an aria by Stravinsky. Anecdotes of style, there are heaps, but the most famous – the one that will contribute to the Cage myth – is obviously that of the cockroach.
Wait, what?
In the script, self-proclaimed vampire Peter Loew must greedily devour a raw egg. His interpreter insists with the director and against the advice of producer Barbara Zitwer to swallow a live cockroach. For what ? Because it is his greatest fear, according to him. After consulting a doctor, who still advises to drink a glass of alcohol afterwards, he does two takes… and swallows two insects. It is the first that will be in the final cut.
Later, he will confess: « I really wanted to do something that would shock the audience, something unforgettable. I saw it as a marketing decision, because I saw the movie in the cinema and when people see this cockroach go in my mouth, it’s like the bus exploding in Speed”. A certain idea of the great show.
Don’t even cap
The result is mind-blowing. Without Cage’s performance, kiss me vampire would be a semi-academic comedy. Thanks to him, it’s an uninterrupted festival of anthology cable buggery. The review is mixed. THE New York Times currying the acting of the actor: “He gives Peter the kind of sporadic, over-the-top mannerism that should never exist outside of comedy school drills”. For the Los Angeles Timeson the contrary, “Cage takes it all on with manic intensity, which works with a certain flippancy, but must have required maximum concentration and energy – not to mention spontaneity”. The debate begins.
At the box office, it is also a cold shower: it crashes royally and brutally slows down the career of its authors. Held 18 months by its distributor, the film has a limited release during the week between Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade et Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, less than a month before the wave Batman. Cage is paid some 40,000 dollars, with which he buys his first sports car.
The oven will not particularly taint his filmography: the following years, he will continue with the drama of war Time to Kill and especially with Sailor and Lula, who won the Palme d’Or. The great David Lynch will understand that the madness that Cage deploys in kiss me vampire will benefit his outrageous road movie. And that’s just one step to the Oscar in 1995, then to action blockbusters in the second half of the 1990s, who will end up affirming his popularity thanks to his delicious histrionics.
Much later, an internet culture amused by its participation in the remake of The Wicker Man will take care of taking from Bierman’s film its most lunar sequences, such as this incredible recitation of the alphabet. At the end of the 2000s, a video featuring the delirious scene where he berates his secretary while grimacing is posted on the web. His bewildered face is copied and integrated into amateur web-comics. One of the first Nicolas Cage memes emerges, despite the film’s very dark subtext (the anti-hero commits rape in it). Many others will follow, to the point of becoming an integral part of the Nic Cage symbol, contaminating even his last films.
You don’t say ?
Insect tasting is on the program of Renfield. But no more question for the actor to swallow a new cockroach. “I wouldn’t do it again” did he admit to Yahoo !, “I regret having done so”. From now on, the critters are in caramel and the actor more measured. kiss me vampire will forever remain an American anomaly, the centerpiece of the character he shaped and developed brilliantly. And that is undeniably its greatest quality.
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