Nicolas Cage: The God of Acting

[Music] nicholas cage the mere mention of the name conjures up memories of many performances from the lovable baker and moonstruck to the crazy vampire in vampire's kiss cage is a movie star one might say he's one of the few remaining hollywood stars he's an actor who elevates the films he's in he makes great films greater and he makes even the worst movies at least somewhat watchable he was the only reason i was able to watch all of left behind i think he was the only reason i watched it in the first place man that movie sucked he's also the only star i know of that practices what's called nouveau shamanic acting it sounds kind of insane like cage is an ancient shaman summoning up the spirits of his characters into his body that's kind of what it is it's about completely opening oneself up to the character so that one doesn't feel like they're faking anything while acting in his words say you're playing a demon biker with an ancient spirit what power objects could you find that might trick your imagination would you find an antique from an ancient pyramid maybe a little sarcophagus that's a greenish color and looks like king tut would you sew that into your jacket and know that it's right next to you when the director says action could you open yourself up to that power the other acting style that cage utilizes is western kabuki if you know anything about kabuki theater then you know that the performances are heavily stylized and over the top just like a bunch of cages performances h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y three i could be intellectual and say that this style allows cage to express the emotions of his characters in operatic ways but really what i would mean by this is that it makes for some really funny scenes oh no not the beast not the beast and it makes watching an unhinged cage performance an absolute blast look nick cage has had a roller coaster of a career just so everyone knows cage is not his last name it's coppola yeah like francis ford coppola the guy who directed the godfather nick created the stage name so that he wouldn't gain popularity or work based solely off the namesake he actually didn't like people thinking of him as a coppola still a couple of his first movies rumblefish in the cotton club were directed by his uncle it didn't take long for cage to ascend to the status of star by the end of the 80s he had graced the silver screen with memorable performances in raising arizona moonstruck peggy sue got married valley girl and vampire's kiss come 1996 he was an oscar winner he was a prestigious actor who generally acted in pretty good or great movies and he had a certain charisma like no one else but it wouldn't stay that way due to his irresponsible spending habits and possibly people not taking care of his money well he found himself in massive amounts of debt so he started taking just about any role that paid who was once an actor that worked with the greats was now the prince of redbox he went from acting in at most three films per year to up to five movies a year many of which were terrible it also kind of tanked his reputation people associated him with bad movies and so just also assumed that he was a bad actor but recently his rap has turned around i think people now understand that he was just working to pay off his debts but also cages started to have a bit of a renaissance again acting in critically acclaimed films like pig and mandy with pig going completely against type forum after all these years of movies like rage he's proven to the public that he still has it but anyone who knows anything knows that he never lost it and now this nick cage assange if that's what we'll call it has gone meta with the release of the unbearable weight of massive talent i was able to catch an early screening of the movie and i'll give a short review of it at the end of this video before that i want to talk about some cage keynote that either i feel like is underappreciated or that just isn't talked about nearly enough on youtube i know that when people talk about their favorite performances by the italian shaman they bring up pig face-off leaving las vegas raising arizona conair or the rock if they're a woman they talk about nick cage and moonstruck those are all good movies but today i want to shed some light on some of his other films other films that deserve the spotlight just as much or even more than these other classics number one bad lieutenant port of call new orleans not only is this a nic cage movie but it's also a werner herzog film truly a match made in heaven the film is less story driven and more about lieutenant terence mcdonough a new orleans police officer investigating the brutal murder of a family terence is a man with some serious problems he has chronic back pain and so his doctor prescribes him by vance but he soon begins taking other drugs or maybe he was always on an assortment of uppers downers and the like mcdonough's behavior becomes more and more erratic as his drug intake increases it leads to some of the greatest cage scenes ever put to film he comes out of hiding in a nursing home while shaving his face he sees iguanas as recurring hallucinations he rants about his lucky crack pipe you don't have a lucky crackpot he puts a gun to an old lady's head but i think the scene that stands out the most is this one shoot him again what fool his soul's still dancing it's not just pure craziness though underneath the bombastic performance cage finds humanity in the character he's a man beset by addictions family problems and outside pressures but he still wants to be a carrier of justice he's a completely corrupt cop and probably not one you'd ever want to deal with so it's a monumental challenge for an actor to make this character likeable or relatable in any way but cage does there's a melancholic spirit that underscores terence's whole character i remember when i saw herzog speak at a class or q a type thing a few years ago he declared that cage gave his career best performance and bad lieutenant protocol new orleans and you know what he might be right that's one way of looking at it the other is you get to keep 75 and not go to prison for the rest of your life number two joe the director of joe david gordon green has had a pretty weird career he went from making naturalistic indie dramas to studio stoner comedies back to indie dramas and now he's making the halloween sequels joe which released in 2013 was with prince avalanche part of his low-key texan drama phase but if prince avalanche is more of a dramedy then joe is more of a southern gothic tale nick cage plays as the titular character an alcoholic ex-con making his way in this world by running a company that clears forest for paper companies farmers etc a teenage boy gary played by ty sheridan moves into town with his abusive alcoholic father and soon begins working for joe joe notices how gary's dad abuses him and he wants to do something but he's already entangled and a feud between other men in the small texas town he's got the local rednecks wanting to kill him while the law is breathing down his neck so he knows that if he stands up for the boy it might mean sacrificing everything the film feels like something between jeff nichols and terence malik but with enough edge to make it stand out green cast a film with a variety of non-actors and locals and it shows between the way the film is shot and the fact that most of the people on screen aren't actors the movie just feels real and gritty and raw your goddamn gonna get rid of you'll do something different so i'm gonna change the day cause tomorrow ain't gonna have this and don't expect any cages in here cage's performance is subtle yet intense we can feel the fire rising in him during the whole movie but he expertly internalizes it cage said in interviews about the movie that joe's character was the closest to his own persona that any character he has ever played has been i guess nick cage said that joe was literally him number three color out of space adapted from the hp lovecraft short story yes the hp lovecraft who had a famous cat color out of space blends science fiction psychological horror and body into a darkly entertaining movie in this highly stylized horror nick cage is the head of a household in the middle of the woods in new york he and his family farm alpacas and have found happiness in their solitude but all that comes to an end when a mysterious meteor lands on their property the meteor brings with it a strange color a color unlike anything here on earth well it's easier saying it's a color unlike anything else in a book but for a film you've got to work with the colors we know so it's represented by a mix of purple magenta pink and probably a few other colors the color changes its surroundings in several ways first it messes with the characters minds making them say and do things that they would never do or they imagine other people acting strange it completely warps their sense of reality they phase in and out of delusions and hallucinations becoming dangerous to both themselves and to everyone around them this is also when nic cage is allowed to stop playing as normal dad and start being the nic cage we know and love the color then changes the physical makeup of everything it touches transforming the film from psychological horror into body horror some of the scenes reminded me so much of john carpenter's the thing and i'm here for it once the film gets rolling it's neon soaked sci-fi fun don't sleep on this one number four bringing out the dead written by paul schrader and directed by martin scorsese the duo that brought classics like taxi driver and raging bull to the big screen you'd think that bringing out the dead would be a bigger hit i often see it on lists of the most underrated scorsese or cage films it's a movie that seems to universally be considered underrated but does that mean it's now regularly rated the film takes place over the course of one weekend in early 1990s new york city cage plays as a paramedic frank pierce who becomes more and more jaded about the job he wants to save people but lately no one has been surviving there's a new drug on the street called red death killing people left and right not to mention the crime wave and the aids epidemic one death in particular hangs over him the death of a homeless 18 year old woman a death for which he blames himself he sees her face all over town she won't stop haunting him on the flip side he brings a man back to life at the beginning of the film knowing full well that the man wanted to die he saved him only for the man to continue suffering as someone who only wants to make the world a better place he realizes that all he's been able to do is create more pain due to lack of sleep increasing hallucinations and failing mental health pierce becomes increasingly unhinged scorsese and schroeder section off his different mental states with different partners played by john goodman ving rhames and tom sizemore it progresses from neutral to spiritual and finally to utter chaos the transformation of pierce in his world is truly something to behold and the dark moody cinematography gives the film a great neo noir feel too bad patricia arquette is kind of annoying in it number five wild at heart sex crime and rock and roll starring david lynch's loose remake of the wizard of oz it's got all of lynch's trademarks his roster of actors strange distorted shots and a score by angelo battle amenti the film won the palm door at the khan film festival but it found mixed critical reception upon its release don't listen to the critics it's great it's also easily lynch's sexiest movie plus nick cage's performance throughout the film is basically an elvis impression this is a snake skin jacket and for me it's similar my individuality and my belief in personal freedom it's a rock and roll road trip with hitmen and hookers that slowly devolves into a southwestern nightmare it's something that feels like it shouldn't work wizard of oz as a lynchian road trip complete with flying witches but it just works it's not a film i can or really want to talk about a great length it's an incredibly emotional movie and it should just be watched and experienced so uh go watch it number six adaptation you know the movie is going to be a mind bender when it's written by charlie kaufman and directed by spike jones adaptation is a sort of sequel to being john malkovich it begins on the set of being john malkovich with nick cage playing as the film's writer charlie kaufman he's given a deal to adapt a book called the orchid thief but he finds a task extremely difficult his anxieties bad health and his low self-esteem hinder his creativity as he tries to find a way to adapt the book without it feeling like just another hollywood movie the movie then parallels his adaptation of the book with the story of susan orlean played by meryl streep writing the book meanwhile his identical twin brother donald is working on a script that's basically a parody of hollywood tentpole cinema that's right nicholas cage plays the two main characters in this film double the cage double the fun unlike a lot of his more well-known films cage's performance here is decently understated he nails down kaufman really well and this might be his most vulnerable performance next to leaving las vegas it's also interesting to see him play both as a nervous wreck and as an overly confident guy in the same scene but that's not the most interesting thing about this movie you see the plot of the movie is to script the kaufman writes in the film it's one of my favorite movies about filmmaking and the way the script blends reality fiction and an adaptation of the book the orca thief and then is able to wrap it up in a satisfyingly meta package is just amazing i also have to give props for this film for its oscar nominations both donald kaufman and charlie kaufman are credited writers of the film as they both write the script within the movie however donald kaufman doesn't exist so when adaptation was nominated for best adapted screenplay the academy nominated a fictional person for the award so go check out those films if you like nic cage you might like them i personally do but everyone has different tastes so i'd like to know what you think about them now on to the unbearable weight of massive talent i saw it at an early fan screening last week at the alamo drafthouse the cinema was filled with nick cage fans and they gave out cutouts of nick cage's face to everyone there that was a little cringe but it was fun so whatever the movie itself was eh decently good nothing extraordinary though i don't want to spoil the movie too much but i will say that the best part of the movie by far is the tense bromance between nick cage and pedro pascal there are some genuinely great moments between the two of them but the film is bogged down by its need to turn into a dumb hollywood action movie it makes it turning into a blockbuster type film a plot device which just made me think of adaptation and i realized that this movie has a lot of parallels with jones film but his film had way more heart i don't have a big problem with the meta aspect of it but i don't like how it's mostly used for reference humor to cage's previous work but hey you knew that that was exactly what you're getting into with this movie the problem is that unlike adaptation the film doesn't use its meta nature for any sort of introspection it's just there to make jokes and reference cages movies and his celebrity persona honestly the film feels like an early to mid 2010s r rated comedy with its aesthetic and sense of humor which i really didn't care for too much what i did like about the film is how it portrays nick cage as a down on his luck actor with alcohol and self-esteem problems while other people refer to him as a legend and see him as someone he's not he's also a synaest and it made me happy to hear him talk about classic movies plus it was pretty realistic that his in-movie teenage daughter didn't like the kino films he was showing her is nick cage's performance as himself or at least a version of himself good yeah of course even if his character he plays isn't like who he is in real life but like what redditors imagine him to be but you know what is the stuff of nightmares the de-aged version of nick cage that is like the devil on his shoulder it's supposed to be his younger self that wants him to be a movie star but man was that de-aging rough nick cage acting against himself again something that reminds me of adaptation is fun but i think they should have just used nic cage at his current age the cgi on his face took me way out of the film overall if you're a fan of nick cage and you want a light meta albeit very superficial action comedy you'll probably enjoy this movie is it kinda reddit yeah but that was obvious it's still a fun movie that will most likely get a few laughs out of you and entertain you for a couple hours still the films i suggested earlier in the video are better i'm not going to give it a numerical score because those are dumb instead i'll end this video with some wise words from the maestro [Music] do fish have dreams [Music] you

Channel: The Kino Corner

Views: 70,996

Keywords: nicolas, cage, unbearable weight of massive talent, pig, leaving las vegas, val kilmer, scorsese, literally me, the kino corner, schrader, taxi driver, bringing out the dead, acting, movies, cinema, kino, art, theater, kabuki, david lynch, wild at heart, adaptation, charlie kaufman, filmmaking, writing, coppola, werner, herzog, new orleans, face off, con air, mandy, color out of space, hp lovecraft, bad lieutenant, overacting, shaman, spirit, spiritual, behind the scenes, bts, nic, italian, comedy, satire

Id: saxcJi4Y02Y

Length: 16min 56sec (1016 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 25 2022