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Home , Abel Ferrara, James Fox, James Russo

Who Fucked ?

Abel Ferrara is a director with attitude. He makes hard films, films you love to hate. His films are dirty. You often feel soiled by them. Not because they are bad films, but because they touch raw nerves. And because they are films made with passion. You know this man has got something, that he explores from one film to the next what’s bugging him. Ferrara is an independent film-maker, but he also plays with the Hollywood system. His mission is to make films, his films. Films that explore the razor edge of the seamiest sides of life, the dark sides of intimacy. Most of his films revolve around . Ferrara himself comes from . He might be termed a rock-&-roll director, reflect- ed in the occasional promos he has shot, particularly Not Guilty for Keith Richards (one suspects ‘Keef’ is a pin- up in his office), and the co-writing of songs and playing guitar on some of his own soundtracks, besides his off-set enjoyment with fellow film celebs in their own rock band. Most people think that Ferrara’s debut was Driller Killer in 1979, an explosive start as it became one of the first “video nasties”, with all the attendant censorship and publicity, though three years earlier there was another, Nine Lives of a Wet Pussy, a hard-core porno that is some- where between Emmanuelle and Debbie Does Dallas, but with that distinctive Ferrara style of dark filming. Those two films set the ball rolling through genres often asso- ciated with sleaze and exploitation, whether the female serial killer of Angel of Vengeance, or the pilot film for Crime Story (the best in the series), finding something of a niche in the crime/gangster/drugs world of New York lowlife, with films like , The Funeral, , … with and as two regular travelling companions and supporters of his vision.

 Not that they are the only bankable stars. In Dangerous ed: “unique”. But do we really know this woman? We Game he worked with Madonna to produce a film that have seen various media and documentary roles of her brought a memorable performance from her, even if she as she climbed and clawed her way up the ladder of suc- despised the end result and complained bitterly. As with cess. One of her chosen ways was to portray different James Fox in the Roeg/Cammell filmPerformance , though women in her songs and the accompanying videos. It the finished work was not pretty, it gave Fox the status he was only natural that in time she would become a part needed to show he could go further than mainstream of the Hollywood system. Her pastiche as Monroe made films seemed to allow. Madonna’s role inDangerous Game her intentions clear. She also wanted to venture fur- is steadily making the film acquire cult status as people ther, to be more involved. She wanted her own empire. begin to perceive the mindfuck that was taking place. She was already heading a music label. Why not run a Madonna seems to have been manipulated as actress and film production company too? She liked ’s for her real self throughout Dangerous Game, in a parallel films. She wanted to be part of the action. Her company, fashion to Fox with Performance. Maverick, became involved in Dangerous Game (initially In a bedroom scene in Dangerous Game where called Snake Eyes) as producers. Then the idea of a lead Madonna is filming in the film-within-the-film (called acting role was presented, not from Ferrara, but from Mother of Mirrors), she recoils on-set at the apparent pen- Harvey Keitel, who said he had worked with her before etration from behind by her fellow actor, followed by and wanted her for the role. That is how the press reads, her outbreak and clear hurt and upset. Just prior to the but perhaps it was not as clear cut as that. scene we hear the director nudge the actor to push the Afterwards, Madonna said she was proud of her role, scene hard, indicating real sexual activity is the goal to be she felt she gave a good performance. But she also felt had at this point – to gain some form of revenge, power, betrayed by Ferrara, who changed the film’s ending. “In humiliation over the woman. All very well and good. This the original film, I turn it around,” she said in one inter- is only a film. This is only illusion. But the strange thing view, meaning her character manipulates the director and about this film is whether it is or not. Because there is actor of the film-within-the-film to emerge triumphant. more at stake than meets the eye. We need to unravel “It was going to be this great thing for me. And even the scene, the film-within-the-film, the characters, the though it’s a shit movie and I hate it, I am good in it.” She actors… We need to trace the story of the film, the posi- trusted Ferrara. She felt they were both troubled by the tions of Ferrara and Madonna in this saga. Let alone same issues of their Catholicism, both working out their others, if we can. The complete picture cannot be told, senses of guilt and sin in their art. Ultimately she felt of course, not unless the participants themselves dare to Ferrara acted in bad faith and betrayed her. Her previ- reveal truthfully what really took place. ous experiences on film sets had been “soul destroying”, To pencil in a few facts. Who is Madonna? Madonna but Dangerous Game had proved an exception. “That is a singer who has risen to the top and maintained her destroyed my soul in a different way because it was such position there. She is a superstar. She has also become a violent emotional experience. But at least I felt I was a film star. And in the process she has become avery going somewhere, exploring new territory. I feel every- wealthy woman who commands excessive power and thing else I’ve done has been rather trivial.” influence. Today she is an icon. Or as one presenter stat- Future courses would be to take even more control,

  to become involved in projects where the director’s view admit to it later, or deny it, despite the body of evidence agreed with her ideas. The course taken by many other on film, is another matter. Whether it was conscious or music stars who want to control their film career in the not is also another matter. By which I mean it wasn’t same way they do their music ones. Often with disastrous pre-planned as a strategy. It evolved and after the fact results. “I don’t have the power in the film industry that helped to shape the direction of the final film in the edit- I have in the music industry.” If one cannot take the final ing room. Nothing unusual in that approach. The confu- cut away from the director, then perhaps one has to be sion is set within a system of mirrors, as well as within the director or get close enough to be able to control the a system of films, with echoes of Orson Welles in that editing: “The director is the one in control, and every- famous mirror maze scene in The Lady from Shanghai, one else is a pawn for them. You have control over your when Rita Hayworth, Welles’ real wife, is caught in a performance when the camera is going, but you can take phallic shoot-out as her film husband, Everett Sloane, that performance in the editing room and completely fires away at the mirrors and his wife, (receiving the change the character. That’s what happened to me with same in return in this case), with the ever-present Welles Abel. Because it was an entirely different movie when I stepping aside as actor and director and abandoning her made it – it was such a great feminist statement and she in reflections and crashing glass, destroying the glamour was so victorious at the end. I loved this character.” of the film star in an unsavoury death rather than dying While Madonna was blasting Ferrara and calling him in the arms of her lover. From damsel in distress to a “scumbag” before the film was properly released, he femme fatale to the inevitable corpse on the floor while was to offer his viewpoint later in “a tough guy act” to Welles himself walks away, through the turnstile of the another critic: “She’s a fuckin’ jerk… Like we sit around crazy house and into real life once more. The intimate taking out the best scenes in the movie to spite her. You nature of film-making has occasioned a string of such know how paranoid you gotta be to fuckin say something games that people play on- and off-sets as relationships like that?” spiral in and out of control, particularly beneath the That is why it seems that the pivotal point or “water- glare of Hollywood arc lights. The biography shelves are shed moment” (to use Madonna terminology) in that filled with these exposés. film (and in fact in her subsequent film career direc- So what should make this pivotal assault anything tion, if not more) rested on that moment of penetra- worth contemplating with Madonna, give or take one or tion, that act of transgression when her co-star, James two of the niceties and crudities involved in the process Russo, forces himself on Madonna, the implication in of its execution? And, surely, shouldn’t Madonna expect the film-within-the-film being that Russo fucks her for such a course? real instead of acting out a fuck, though the suggestion She has mainly created this world in which we see her. goes further, as if Russo fucked her for real on-set, before She has manipulated us as spectators of her videos, films, everyone, reducing Madonna to little more than a porno stage shows and photographic images, as well as buy- artist – as well as a rape victim. A rape that was an act to ers of her records. She has played with the sex image, humiliate Madonna, to put her in her place, perhaps by toyed with us, baited us. It seemed that with each video Ferrara, with the aid of his accomplices, a use and abuse or stage performance she was upping the stakes, con- of power, as in all rape cases. That anyone should want to tinually pushing the boundaries of acceptability in the

  mainstream sexual arenas, all the way through to mas- them and stuff, and then I realise that they’re not really turbating on stage on a bed, or the sexual games of her my friends. It’s like a lover, it’s just something that takes video Justify My Love, shot by Jean-Baptiste Mondino. time. I can’t even describe anything specific, although a She has presented us with documentaries, one in partic- certain amount of honesty and respect are probably the ular, Truth or Dare (a.k.a. In Bed with Madonna), in which basis of it.” she confused us as to what is documentary and what is But you dice with your private life if you have handy fiction, purposely confused the boundaries. A work in responses to cover any ambiguity or every eventuality. which she demonstrates with her giggling team of male For example, on the documentary, Truth or Dare: “Truth dancers and others the art of giving a blow job with the or Dare is a documentary, but there is so much in it help of a bottle. And she publishes a book, Sex, launched that was staged, or scenes that we improvised, like an with one of the most spectacular hypes of all time. She Andy Warhol movie, or something. It’s what I said before: might like to think she can nudge us into a particular line some of it’s real and some is pretend and it’s not neces- of thinking about her with regards to the sexual ways she sary for the audience to know what’s real and what isn’t. wishes us to view her. Her psychological approach is fair- I am basically offering myself up to play these parts and if ly straightforward and sound. But it doesn’t necessarily people want to say that’s me then that’s fine, they can say apply to everyone. You cannot apply a global approach in it. I don’t care, if it makes them feel better. It’s not me in such matters. And the bigger Madonna has become the its entirety, though some of it is.” more it has become a world marketing rather than par- Of course it can be amusing to play with people like ticular markets with different nuances. Some cultures, that. Kathy Acker said much the same in relation to some countries will respond differently. Each has differ- her use of I, Kathy, in her writings, and the confusion ent taboos and sexual foibles. We are not one homoge- that everyone directed at her as if she was the I, Kathy, nous world as she might like to think. We can’t be bagged of her written pages. She was annoyed, but at the same that easily. Nuances have to be applied at each step. She time amused and would use it to effect if she wanted. might have bitten off more than she can chew. She raised Madonna notes in her book Sex, emphasizing it in inter- the stakes but has not been able to control our reactions. views, that the character is Dita, not Madonna, though Whether with the public, or some of her would-be work- she might well draw on aspects of her own life, along ers and future associates I have to add. For Dangerous with her fantasies and stories she read or heard from Game was made after some of the ploys I have just out- others. The real private Madonna might be elsewhere. lined. It was the climate in which she embarked upon And why not? Anyone who sees Mick Jagger, as we know the film. She dices with her workers at her own risk. Isn’t him from his image either on screen, or on stage, or in someone going to take advantage, or want to stem the interviews, is not necessarily seeing the Jagger at home flow, to buck the system, her system? with his wife or women. It’s a public mask. And why not? She knows that as much as anyone her every word, her Perhaps with Madonna there’s also an added gender every quip, can be taken and distorted. Is there ever a pri- bias to this notion. vate life for someone in a position of fame and success? It’s not that Madonna misjudged the situation entire- “It’s something that happens over time. I meet lots of ly, but that she wasn’t able to control it. It ran away from people and we have a lot in common and I have fun with her. She had taken the sexual angle in public as far as

  she seemed to want to. She had to step back. She has make instant celebrities in the process. The Warhol dic- stepped back since, taken on the role of mother, a seem- tum of 15 minutes is our fix. ingly quieter married life, a role to restock, lock stock Thus the situation in which we watch Madonna, one and double barrel. of the great icons, being played with. Where we are con- Which is not to say that ultimately she hasn’t been stantly pushed around, trying to assess whether she is clever. As another Madonna role appears, still sexual, being violated, mentally and physically, for real or within but more subdued, in any case not at the sexual battle the film or within the film-within-the-film. front, the columnist Polly Toynbee who has steadfast- Abel Ferrara’s first film, whether acknowledged or not, ly avoided the challenges Madonna has set her public was Nine Lives of a Wet Pussy. It is made by many who and critics, finally conceded: “Some American univer- were to become his team, his co-workers. Whether using sities run degree courses in Madonna studies, so she their real names or pseudonyms. He too as Jimmy Laine. scatters paradoxes designed for women’s studies students But it is a disappointing film. It is hardcore, but one – the whore, the virgin, the bride, the motherless waif, that attempts to be arty, that attempts to have European the good mother, the gay icon, the lost star, the bitch, the pretentions on the one hand, as if a French erotic novel hopeless-with-men loser, all of it lived in ironic inverted taken to the screen (Emmanuelle, The Story of O, The commas. There is no real Madonna. The image of today Image, The Butcher and all the names that trip through is today’s only reality.” the mind) in which he wanted to insert the explicitness. But with her maturing it is not so easy to flirt with all Only the sexual sequences are not handled in a porn the sexual roles, some of the job is done, she is tired of manner. It’s as if he doesn’t understand the art of making it. And where would she want to go sexually on film? porn. Too much leans towards art pretentions, not that When today’s mainstream films coming from Europe like awful tackiness that makes real porn so acceptable. Intimacy, Romance, Baise-Moi and others are blatantly Ferrara works with regulars, it’s a cosy team. Nicholas requesting their credited actors to perform real sex before St John is a friend from his teens, he writes many of the the camera, perhaps she is better off out of that avenue. scripts. He is a Catholic too, but different from Ferrara – In Hollywood terms, Sharon Stone caused enough “hard-core Catholic, goes to church, teaches catechism”. furore over her interview scene in Basic Instinct, though He had been working with Ferrara for twenty-eight years frame by frame video freezing takes it into the world of at the Dangerous Game point. And though it might be a feasible hype. Who’s to know? It served its promotional big family, and each contributes, it is the director’s job purpose. to hold it together, the style for the film coming from What enhances the growth of interest in this film, him and those he chooses to be part of his crew/family. Dangerous Game, are the two current interests in celeb- “These are home movies in a way – it’s not a bunch of ritiness and voyeurism. Television has shown us voyeur- strangers out there doing this.” And while names like ism of late, with its Big Brother and related programmes, Polanski, Godard, Bresson and Pasolini are names that locking people in a cage and watching their activities, are banded about to suit various aspects of his films, at the Human Zoo. The state of the celebrity has become least the family notion of crew and regular team is part an occupation in the media for some years, encouraged of that European world. Otherwise some of the refer- further by these new voyeurism programmes that seek to enced are slighter and more superficial than imagined.

  Certainly few seem to have extracted what has really trig- or enter into dialogue about the film? But what went on gered him about these film-makers. It might be closer to between these two men on-set – and off-set. Jagger and trawl through Scorsese and Paul Schrader as compan- Fox knew each other privately before the film was ever ions, though Cassavettes is perhaps the closest in a good conceived. There was an interlocking social game with many other respects. their respective partners of the time, one that seems to Madonna, that icon, that woman who has clawed her have been taken further forward during filming, so much way to the top, making many enemies and causing much so that the off-set atmosphere led to various bad feelings. jealousy on the way, is perhaps a target for manipula- Of course Jagger can claim that as a non-actor the only tion, for putting in her place. Her mistake perhaps was way he could get himself into the role each day was to to think she could become part of the team. To think set the tensions going off-set and thus create that charge her interests were theirs. To think that common ground on-set. Even if all the crew were professionals, almost all equated with trust. Ferrara quipped in an interview when the other main actors were amateurs. This was a glori- it was suggested that they were an ideal collaboration: fied home movie as Cammell said. Fox, as a professional “Yes, a marriage made in hell… or bad news for all good actor, would know how to separate the two. No wonder it Christians.” contributed to his breakdown after the film was finished, Some years earlier, in the film Performance, Mick and a change in direction in his life for some consider- Jagger played Mick Jagger on screen. Or was he? Was the able time. Almost thirty years later, confronted on stage Mick Jagger we saw as Mick Jagger, the frontman for the at ’s ica about his role in Performance, James Fox Stones, the real Mick Jagger? Was that man offstage the acknowledged that it was his best, or one of his best, as one as portrayed onstage, or in countless interviews? Or he said before. But he wished to say no more, to clarify, was that all a mask? Many feel that the real Mick Jagger or upset any of the myths that had grown up around the in the privacy of his own home is a different man. The film. He quoted the line from John Ford’s The Man Who rest is a mask for those around him, to varying degrees… Shot Liberty Valence, by saying “When the legend becomes right through to the world arena and his persona as a rock fact, print the legend.” star. (No sooner written than after a formidable number What seems to be the question in Dangerous Game is of years of retaining that public mask, Jagger releases who was fucking who? Was the actor fucking Madonna, a documentary, Being Mick, that shows him in private for himself, or under instructions from the film direc- life as the well-spoken and intelligent man behind that tor (Keitel), or was Ferrara fucking Madonna under the public peacock pose of the man with the Dartford Delta guise of Keitel and in his resolution of the final film? accent.) Was it not that regular rock star Jagger image we Or was Madonna fucking herself in trying to exert her saw in Performance? Or was he making another persona, power once too often, pushing too far, beyond the role as some think, as Marianne Faithful suggested to him, she thought she had? Or were we fucking her, as voyeurs, one that drew on Brian Jones and Keith Richards, taking as interpreters? And did she want us to fuck her? Was she from both to create another role that became Turner (an ahead of the game again, in a period when voyeurism interesting name in itself), his best role in films? And what is the national game, when our television screens, our of James Fox, who has conceded that his role as Chas is newspapers have taken on a greater role than ever before his finest hour, and who steadfastly refuses to demean in watching not only the mighty, but the ordinary battle

  to become the mighty? One bubble burst with Princess Keitel as his screen wife. “I kept my eyes closed; all for Diana. But already Madonna was ahead of it, and in con- the sake of art! The show must go on. I don’t trust this trol again. She gets married in a very controlled manner guy even when he’s right in front of me, you know what I in a far away Highland castle, and lives in London, hav- mean? He goes for everything he could fucking get, then ing gone so far forward that she can be seen washing the he gets paid on top of it. Imagine that – having to watch car (or standing as an observer anyway) in the street out- your wife near him. She didn’t look like she was having side the family house in London. She is in control again, too bad a time either. I said:You didn’t have to look like but is more careful with how she uses her sexuality. She you were that happy.” makes controlled and scripted films like Evita with the The idea that Ferrara was playing out a personal situ- Hollywood system. Dangerous Game has perhaps taught ation in the film, a relationship between a director and her a lesson. his wife, that results in separation (as it did later for Abel With Ferrara there is no pussyfooting, then or now. It and Nancy in real terms) is regularly noted. Interestingly is always a dangerous game being played. “I’m expect- in this film, Nancy Ferrara’s character is called Madlyn ing you to fuckin’ die: you’re still alive, therefore you’re Israel, or Maddy for short. Maddy, that’s a strange choice, not workin’ hard enough,” is how Keitel as mouthpiece given that Madonna is referred to as Maddy. Though for Ferrara says it in Dangerous Game. (He even includes now, as a British resident, she has become Madge to in the film a clip of an interview with – the media crowd who seem to believe that use of a more who famously held Klaus Kinski at gunpoint while film- personal and intimate name ingratiates them with her, ing – talking about the madness of film-making.) In an even though it’s not necessarily one that Madonna her- interview Ferrara makes his attitude to film-making quite self likes or uses in her private and family life. However, clear: “The point is, you gotta make something happen Maddy was the preferred name earlier. up there: something’s gotta go down or there’s no sense (For those who might like to pursue further entangle- turning on the camera… How can I put this? There’s ments, in The Blackout, made a few years after, it seems gotta be an event, that you’re gonna turn the camera on as if Dangerous Game is still bugging Ferrara in numerous for, and if that event isn’t there, then what’s the point? ways, including structure, story, approach and charac- What’re you shooting?” ters, as well as in conversation reference to Madonna, One of the reasons he can work with Keitel is that he let alone the lead character being called Matty (whether too is willing to make an event, to be allowed to impro- it be a direct shortening of the name of the lead actor, vise, to feel his way (“how we work is organic”), to go , or reference to Matt Dillon, the initial beyond where others might stop. “Harvey Keitel doesn’t choice for the part), that repeatedly sounds like Maddy like all of a sudden go through some kind of transforma- when spoken throughout. Matthew Mondine has subse- tion because he thinks he’s going to play a detective this quently noted that he was surprised at the ferocity and week and next week he’s playing a film director. You know injuries he sustained during the beatings and violence what I’m saying? I mean, what you see is Harvey. That’s displayed by Béatrice Dalle towards him in the course what the camera is on. And whatever that reveals is, you of her improvised departures from the script. In fact he know, the truth about Harvey.” A game that Ferrara is acknowledged that doing the film shook up his attitude to willing to play with his own wife, whom he cast alongside acting for the future, not necessarily in a negative way.)

  What do we read into Keitel, as director, in bed with the film), Ferrara passes through to the other side where Madonna in one scene (though only a post-coital scene) he confuses the real and fictional worlds. Ferrara was and in a bed sex scene with Madlyn – though later when not the pleasant director like Truffaut in Day for Night, he tries to have sex again in the back of the car perched but a nitty gritty director, one who claims to have even on a hilltop overlooking Hollywood, he feigns ejaculation abdicated responsibility by allowing Keitel to direct the to end the embrace? The idea of Maddy as a person who film-within-the-film, the Mother of Mirrors, while he sat is almost graspable, in relation to just being a fantasy in the corner drinking wine. The confusion that occurs, image for the rest of the populace, is spinning away in and which I will show with some examples below, makes more than one head in this film. it difficult to unscramble, resulting in some accusing Within the Mother of Mirrors film there is a home video Ferrara of sloppiness on the set or in editing, rather than that Russo plays back to his wife, an earlier video of an express intention to drive for something further. theirs that reveals her as the woman he married – a wild Thus, during the documentary footage, Keitel, as swinger engaged in an orgy. He wants to regain that director, looks off camera and addresses a comment on woman, not the woman before him now who is veering his speech to Nick that is retained. The Nick in question towards religion and a more respectable life style, striv- is Nicholas St. John, the writer of the film. Likewise the ing to be a real Madonna. He wants the whore to re- Director of Photography for Ferrara’s film is Ken Kelsch, appear. Ferrara noted that the video insert was an enjoy- and Keitel refers to him by name in an exchange over able scene to shoot in itself: “We shot the whole thing positioning, whereas the Director of Photography in the on the set – Coppola’s set. One night everybody went film Keitel is supposed to be directing is called Victor home and brought out a little tequila and whatever else Argo. And while the confusion might be conscious in and everybody got out of the way and let the boys rock some respects, as Ferrara plays with different styles of and roll. That was the film editor, by the way (Anthony film and video-making, even differing ways to stage and Redman); the other guy, the couple next door, and that direct the various threads, as indicated, at one point we girl is a fucking great actor. … Those scenes are wild”. read the clapperboards for Mother of Mirrors as Snake Yet, despite what Ferrara says, that orgy episode looks Eyes, the original title for Dangerous Game. staged, fake. It seems odd he should term it “wild” when This confusion or ambiguity has more pertinence the real wildness is in the rape and other related scenes in other ways. When Madonna, as the actress Sarah where Keitel and Russo are seen besieging Madonna. Jennings, is rehearsing a crucial scene as Claire, Keitel When one starts to list out the sex scenes that Madonna as the director takes on the role and reads Frank Burns’ was being taken through in this film, it seems like a series lines as Russell and begins to bait her, becoming abusive. of hoops in a circus – flaming hoops. Not that she was The look on the face of Madonna/Sarah shows bemuse- probably perturbed. Whether photos for her Sex book, or ment and shock as if thrown by the developments. on most usual film sets, the scenes are staged. They are Keitel’s improvised taunts plunge deeper, push into the illusions. There is a cut-off point. You learn to play with terrain of telling her she can’t act, that she’s only there a dice. Perhaps they are a little loaded with Ferrara. But for the money they need to make the film, repeating that that’s the thrill – akin to Russian Roulette. she’s “a commercial piece of shit”. Everyone is left won- As in Alice Through the Looking Glass (referenced in dering whether Keitel has stepped out of the film and is

  abusing the real Madonna in her role as a pop superstar, Why show this reaction shot? To add to the humiliation? and indeed production company maverick, or whether To underline it was a rape? One gets the impression that he is attacking the supposed actress of the movie, Sarah this scene coming on top of the verbal abuse has left a Jennings, a character whom we’ve gathered is little more lasting impression on Madonna’s subsequent direction than a B-grade television actress. Likewise, we wonder in her film career. whether Madonna should have been so verbally abused And though Keitel is sympathetic to Madonna at that in any case, whether in this scene or an equally ferocious point, once the rape is concluded, playing the role of berating by Keitel in a subsequent scene. Later, in an comforting director (though his insincerity is shown at interview, Madonna said that she hadn’t placed herself virtually every step in the film on personal, familial and in that role to be treated in that way. She could have professional levels), he has still been party to her rape, he added: even if the desired result was achieved, why did has instigated it, or, if not, reassured Russo in his aim. So the means need to be kept in the final film? where does that leave Ferrara, who swears allegiance to And thus the scene which provides the key moment. actors in an interview? “You gotta be there for the actor as Frank Burns playing Russell in the – that’s the point of directing,” he says. “You gotta know Mother of Mirrors tears at her clothes, manhandles her to where he’s gonna be and you gotta be there to give it to the floor and rapes her. Though Madonna cries out and him. ‘Cause when the bottom line comes, he’s the movie. tells him to stop, she seems caught in the spotlight and The camera’s not on the director.” Or does he mean succumbs. Madonna was obviously surprised and hurt in you’ve got to be there to use them, not actually to be the way the scene evolved. Prior to the scene we had seen there to support all the actors? Keitel pushing Russo, telling him to keep going, to have To quote him again. “We’re just trying to do what’s sex with her, to rape her as she will not consent. Russo really happening, and what everybody is trying to excuse tells him not to worry, he’s as determined already to away. You know what I mean. The thing about the camera pursue that goal. Keitel has then stood on the sidelines, is, it doesn’t lie. It reveals – that’s a good word. The cam- his face solid, jaw jutting, visibly urging Russo onwards era reveals whatever you point it at.” Precisely. to violate Madonna/Sarah/Claire. As with Madonna, the To say that others on the set were not aware of various roles of the other main protagonists are rolling Madonna’s history would be disingenuous. She has into each other it would seem. The irritation is coming to conquered the music world too well. In an earlier scene a head. It’s as if not only each characters’s roles are one Russell’s girlfriend, who has been stationed in the next with each, but that the three men, Ferrara, Keitel and bedroom while he made love to Madonna as Sarah Russo, the Holy Trinity so to speak, are having a gang Jennings (though as with Keitel only the post-coital bang, but as one, as three in one, as God. Madonna has part is seen, if indeed any more was filmed), asks him been trapped. In full view of the crew, both the real one if she had fellated him. She then demonstrates how she as well as the fictional crew – as we are made fully aware thinks Sarah would have given head using his fingers. of. The rape concluded, she remains collapsed on the This alludes particularly to Madonna’s Truth or Dare film floor, her head buried in the carpet. She is not sure how in which she simulates fellatio on a bottle. (Elsewhere, to respond. The crew are all around, watching. A quick Ferrara too has noted his love of Truth or Dare.) These shot of some of them suggests they are uncomfortable. cruel, though sometimes humorous references, often rear

  their heads in films. Compare the reference to the famed They might well have dispensed with Madonna in the myth of Marianne Faithful and her Mars bar episode, film, for whatever justifications were made, but they have jokingly referenced, at her expense needless to say, in the not reduced Madonna outside of the film. She has gone film of her ex,Performance – where a couple of Mars bars on to further strengths. And yet Madonna has not been are left on the doorstep along with the delivery of milk able to completely walk away from it. It was undoubtedly and a box of mushrooms. a big moment for her. Witness the recent TV documen- One wonders if Madonna was overly sidestepping sex- tary that covered her career year by year. It included the ual scenes (or perhaps even if contractual stipulations major events and also her other films. Only Dangerous limited her sexual performances) with her other main Game was omitted. Madonna did an interview for the characters given the dangerous aspect of the improvised programme that was inserted in stages throughout. Were method of working with these particular film people. any conditions set for that interview? Whose decision was Hence we only see post-coital scenes with Keitel and it to leave out Dangerous Game? And why? Russo, which would give more pertinence to their gang- That the film was initially called Snake Eyes, even if ing up on her and forcing her into the rape scene. the title was conceived without rhyme or reason, and Though Madonna does react in rather a circumspect only took on meaning, or meanings, as the film evolved way on-set towards Russo after the rape, it seems that through its various stages, has a couple of interesting later she is able to put into words her position, albeit consequences. Ferrara stated, after the film was shown in cloaked in a stoned conversation, that if you want to love France, that the most important thing for him with the her, or fuck her, “you have to deserve the privilege”. A film were the eyes. The eyes of the actors. And indeed it sentiment she immediately tries to belittle by taking into is the eyes of Madonna in that aggressive berating scene joke territory. by Keitel that seems to reveal all, that seems to say she is For Russo all is lost. After the rape he paces back and being fucked over. Ferrara also revealed that Madonna forth around the set like a victorious beast, or like one preferred to refer to the film as “Snake harden”. At what who would like to be victorious, because at the same point did she adopt this title? When did she suss that the time one can see he is deflated, that he does not feel so film was about phallic considerations, the gun that blasts glorious, that he doesn’t seem to have achieved anything and the row of erect penes out to get her. Any idea that positive. He knows he has failed, he knows he has lost. it was to be a female film was a bit naive from her in the His end is nigh. No matter what happens in the story- world in which she was venturing with Ferrara, Keitel and line, the film is over for him with Madonna. The version Russo… One gets the idea that she buried the rape scene, as released that we see, that upset Madonna, has her role the beratings and verbal abuse, the cut across the throat, blasted away at the point of a gun. They have killed her. because the film took her forward and made her the vic- More than one of the film critics in France, where it was tor. And then to see herself as the loser, the end cut away, distributed widely, felt it was a “snuff” movie, so taken deflated her, made her feel exposed. Made her rape and were they with the idea of the way that Madonna was all that abuse too real, a bad taste in her mouth. To con- removed physically from the film. When questioned on clude, as she said: “But the way he (Ferrara) edited it, he this point in Cahiers du Cinema, Ferrara deflected the completely changed the editing. He had me killed, which question and edged the subject into a joke. was never supposed to be, and he edited out all the bril-

  liant things that I said telling Harvey and James’s charac- What is interesting to note though, just to pick up a cou- ters to fuck off. He took my words off me and turned me ple of points, is the more direct referencing to Madonna into a deaf mute, basically. When I saw the cut film, I was as Madonna. Not only do Keitel and Russo address weeping. It was like someone punched me in the stom- Madonna as Maddy rather than Sarah in different scenes ach. He turned it into The Bad Director. He’s so far up (something which could be dubbed over later, of course), Harvey Keitel’s ass, it had become a different movie. If but in an early scene when Keitel is watching two tele- I’d have known that was the movie I was making, I would vision screens of Sarah’s previous work, the video of never have done it, and I was very honest with him about Madonna’s Justify My Love is playing on one screen, even that. He really fucked me over. So c’est la vie.” though it could be argued that the other screen is the pre- vious work being talked about and the music video just a * coincidental showing beside it. But nothing can justify a later exchange in an improvised scene when Keitel jokes The chance to view a workprint version of Snake Eyes with his wife (Nancy Ferrara) about Madonna playing occurred as I completed the above. This version is not her in a film he saw once, before grounding it with a sex- far short of four hours in length and contains scenes not ual innuendo. It’s remarkable in itself that this section of included in the release print (titled Dangerous Game) dis- film still made it to the workprint version. cussed above (that is one hour forty nine minutes long), The other point, the contentious matter of the film, as well as various other takes of included scenes. Also to the rape scene, takes on a different perspective here. In note that scenes in the release print are not in the work- a scene included only in the workprint, Madonna com- print, and that some of the scenes common to both start plains after the rape about Russo having removed her sooner or run longer. In the final edit the emphasis of underwear, as it was not agreed upon beforehand. As the film changed, which is not surprising given that two Keitel disintegrates both as director of the film-within- hours worth of material was removed. As a consequence, the-film,Mother of Mirrors, and in his marriage to Nancy the opening scenes are cut altogether, along with a great Ferrara, we watch him reviewing the rape scene, playing deal of the closing forty minutes. it back and forth again and again, one time with the air In the workprint version Madonna emerges from the hostess he has picked up for sex entering from the bed- film in better stead than the others. At least she doesn’t room and pointedly asking: “Are they really fucking?” die, nor does her professional integrity lie in ruins. Keitel is obsessed with the scene, continually rewind- Unlike Keitel, whom we watch falling into the abyss, ing and replaying, rewinding and replaying, the camera and Russo who is dispensed with by Madonna’s on-set focused for much of the time on his face as we endure dismissal. However, it seems appropriate that Ferrara Madonna’s screams of pain, and a voice-over of his wife should have removed chunks of the end material because Madlyn/Maddy’s haunting words: “You can’t hide from it lacked strength or was too reminiscent of aspects of the consequences of what you’ve done.” These words are Bad Lieutenant in its parallel with Keitel’s disintegration an echo of an earlier comment that Maddy (Madonna) there. That is not to say that a further version could not made as Sarah/Claire when Keitel shot a scene without have included some of the strong scenes omitted, par- Russo on-set, Keitel depping for Russo and delivering his ticularly the one in which Madonna dismisses Russo. lines, indeed taking it further for it is the time he turns

  on Madonna and refers to her personally as “a commer- in the final print too when he rants about his right to do cial piece of shit” in his efforts to extract from her the what he wants, listing various debaucheries, including response he seeks. That scene, that was to visibly shake “to find a cunt and fuck her up her arse.” All this is given Madonna (it’s in her eyes), let alone Sarah/Claire, was more credence when, following the rape scene, Keitel directed by Keitel as Russo, with Ferrara lurking at the and Madonna withdraw to her trailer and she tells him of back of it. That scene ends with Madonna, Sarah &/or a rape incident in her life, though whether it is real (for Claire saying: “You can’t hide from the consequences of the characters) it doesn’t sound too convincing to the what you do.” viewer, nor the sincerity of Keitel’s soothing responses – Whilst the workprint with all its additions did not perhaps the reason for its drastic reduction in the release definitively confirm my original line of argument, it version. didn’t negate it either. It could be said to have given more The rape scene in the workprint also takes on a dif- substance to my thoughts. Not so much by the added ferent meaning as Keitel’s incessant reviewing of it to footage of the rape scene, where Madonna is seen say- understand himself begs a variety of questions, such as ing the take was okay, no need to repeat. This could just whether he is condoning Russo’s behaviour, or agreeing be a front she is holding up for a few moments because, Madonna as much as Sarah/Claire deserved it (for, on though she complains of the removal of her underwear, his early unannounced return from New York, after his she says nothing else. (But then again she talks to Russo confrontation with his wife, he finds Sarah in bed with later in the dismissal scene about his need to have a sense her hairdresser, and reacts as if she is his property on- of self-respect, triggered at that point by his girlfriend and off-set), or knowing he should have stopped it. It is standing provocatively at the edge of the action on-set.) obvious it was a rape scene that went too far, that in itself Nevertheless, returning to the rape episode, a few sec- is part of the intended narrative. Whether it was for real is onds after her apparent acceptance of the situation, she not confirmed. The eyes do not tell so easily on the much erupts as a result of Russo’s smirking attitude and lets reduced picture quality workprint version that I saw. it be known that she was not happy with Russo’s behav- I ask the question again: why is he viewing and review- iour, “he can’t fucking act, he has to do everything for ing the rape scene? Did he know something went on and fucking real”, her eruption suggesting that something did he blames himself for letting it happen? Or is he indulg- indeed go on, that he went beyond the mark and she’s ing in revenge? He knows something went on, and he not content to accept it. It is not a game any longer for feels guilty about that, as well as for his own family prob- her. She’s trying to work, not be their plaything. At the lem, the disintegration of his life. His lack of faithfulness very end when Keitel is berating her in a scene shown in is supported by reference to the motto of the marines he different takes from different angles in each version, one served in, which translates as “always faithful” – Keitel take showing Keitel only, the other including Madonna himself having also been a marine. Keitel allowed this star against a far wall looking physically and mentally dis- to lure him. He’s not watching for revenge, but because traught, forbidden to respond, Keitel adds about Russo he feels guilty for that rape. He is crucifying himself with having “fucked her in the arse” as one of his bad behav- his guilt, knowing he was wrong. And hence he has fall- iour lines. Whilst this might be seen as a figure of speech, en apart on the film, walked away from it. Madonna’s it is the expression and sentiment twice used by Russo apparent lack of sexual morality, her casual sexual activ-

  ity, seems to be more about career moves and method to build her role. That position is compounded soon after acting techniques than a search for deeper meaningful when Madonna visits Russo’s house in the company of relationships. She’s not involved. Keitel resents that. She Keitel, stopping by for a late night drink. The workprint also sidesteps him when she knows he is lieing behind his version highlights the brevity of the stay, a matter of min- wife’s back, cheating on her before her face, particularly utes, with its extended comments by the other bewil- once she joins them in Hollywood. Madonna doesn’t like dered and stoned guests after their departure:“like a hit that. She is making a movie, and despite the theme being and run” as one comments. a parallel in the characters of the film and the film-with- In the end Ferrara gets what he needs from Madonna in-the-film, she seems to have more control over the dan- too and she is killed off in the release version while gerous game being played. Unlike the two men, Keitel Ferrara, Keitel and Russo live on – in what way we do and Russo, who lose the plot and end up as losers in both not really know. Only in the workprint do we see Keitel’s professional and personal ways. The torture of review- fall, his abandonment of the film, his incessant reviewing ing the rape scene, its incessant back and forthness, is a of the rape scene, his failure to commit suicide, as well as telling moment. Does it suggest it was real or not? Real Russo being dismissed by Madonna after his girlfriend for the illusion that is film? Or real in reality? One is not is indelicately positioned on-set during a sensitive scene, really sure. It is hard to narrow its ambiguity. A danger- completing the portrayal of unprofessional behaviour he ous game. Thus it’s cut for the release print. has maintained throughout. Why are dark glasses worn by everyone? Of course this From Ferrara’s perspective, once the rape scene and is a Hollywood pose. But it is noticeable in the workprint all the accompanying scenes had happened, a new film version that shades are worn, the fact even commented had evolved. The end sequences were not in the original upon more than once, though in the release print most script. The end sequences appear to have been impro- of those references have been cut. Perhaps they helped vised, and have not worked out or gelled enough to find Ferrara to realize that it’s all in the eyes as he has said a suitable ending. The power of the scene where Keitel in interviews. All in the eyes. That is where we see the rains down upon Madonna in the release version is one turning points, in the eyes of the actors. Plus the eyes of of the most terrifying scenes on film, but has less power Keitel watching his actors, whether on-set or on play- in the workprint take used, mainly because of the juxta- back equipment. Plus the camera eyes in their differ- position of the surrounding scenes and narrative. As so ent forms, video and film recorders, documentary and much else was excised, and the emphasis changed, so worktool filmings as well as official film takes of scenes. this dynamite rampage by Keital verbally on Madonna, Plus our eyes, the spectators, who view the assemblage with her trying to respond, though not allowed to get of all the various eyes that we are given enabling us to a word in edgeways, has taken on a different perspec- determine for ourselves what we can make of it – because tive. For that tirade alone I can imagine how deflated there is no other way to understand than to sift and shift Madonna must have been to find herself in the final this material. version. She was sacrificed. But as I said earlier, what “I got what I need,” says Madonna as she leaves Russo’s did she expect? At the very top of the workprint version, room after their off-set sex scene. Anyone would be upset in the scene when Keitel is discussing the film with his by such a pointed remark to show they were being used agent, they keep emphasizing that if he takes on this star

  for the main lead (Madonna) – the question of her act- that makes it through into either workprint or release ver- ing ability is the sticking point – they receive the money sion, except that Keitel and Russo have a connection and to make it, and he will get “final cut”. The confusion of earlier bond that means they are together on this film, no the real and the filmed real does indeed result in Ferrara matter what, and that neither Madonna nor anyone else having the final cut – and whilst all seem today to have is about to separate them. rejected the film, there is a new taste for the film rising When you adopt and adapt a method of improvisation again that cannot be disposed of. Cult movies tend to to evolve and shoot a film, you have to have a firm hold live a longer life. And what makes a cult movie cannot be on morality. Ferrara is interested in moral problems. This determined or easily controlled. This movie seems des- film is playing with the question of morality as its central tined to become a bigger cult ironically because of the theme – the faithfulness of the director to his wife despite conviction of Madonna’s acting ability as well as for the confrontations of sexual offerings at life’s daily altar. But abuse of her as a person, whether for real or imagined. that doesn’t mean he can abuse a sense of morality within More than any posed use and abusage of sexuality in her the film-making process itself. There should be no excuse other work, this film hurts. Its pain is felt. Too well. That for Ferrara to use abuse as a means to an end, as a way Madonna should try to sidestep it only makes us believe to justify himself, ultimately to save himself, Keitel and it was painful for her too. Russo, leaving Madonna either damaged on the bedroom In a scene in the restaurant Madonna asks Keitel floor or decorating the kitchen wall with her brains. whether the film he is making is semi-autobiographical. Nov 2001 – Jan 2002 The scene proceeds with her also seemingly mixing in her own biographical details. This element seems to work to varying degrees throughout the film, for all concerned. And yet Ferrara in interview is keen to rubbish such ideas Besides viewings of the two versions of the film, my resources drew on the one hand, and, on the other, in one interview, the across a wide reading of information, reviews, articles, comments, inter- same one, to acknowledge his love for Madonna’s Truth views published either in American, British or French journals, mainly or Dare film in which the double game of illusion and film oriented. Thanks are also due to Brad Stevens who has subse- reality is joyfully played with. We might not know too quently published his own detailed study of Ferrara’s films entitled,Abel Ferrara: The Moral Vision (fab Press). much about Ferrara’s life, less than about Keitel’s or other film stars, but we certainly know a lot about pop stars, particularly Madonna, as part of the making of a pop star is to let us, the public, know their life stories. This film, particularly in the workprint version, makes that abundantly clear. Emphasis is to be found in the original script, for example, where its writer Nicky St John is revealed as the basis of the James Russo character. The closeness of Abel and Nicky is detailed through their friendship as kids, growing up together, before Ferrara made films…and of the pair of them as a team. None of

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