I’m into Nicolas Cage. Maybe a little too into him. Not long ago, I’d have been laughed out of the room for admitting that but in recent years, Cage has enjoyed a career resurgence and an ironic wave of appreciation despite the lopsided career choices he’s made in the name of tax debt.
Yes, the meme-ification of Nicolas Cage is a thing, and I can’t entirely explain it; there are certain things I don’t want to explain. I’ve even helped perpetuate it in my excitement for tonight’s screening of Vampire’s Kiss at the Union South Marquee:
Your preparation for @WUD_Film's late night schedule will last approximately nine hours and begins now: https://t.co/SiQxGG6izM
— LakeFrontRow (@LakeFrontRow) October 16, 2014
Yet as fun and weird and hypnotic as it is to listen to the artist formerly known as Nicolas Coppola run through the streets of New York shouting “I’m a vampire!” at the top of his lungs, privileging that moment’s bug-eyed zaniness on demand via YouTube — and entirely out of context — undervalues what Cage brings to the table.
And Vampire’s Kiss is a great example. Rob Bierman’s 1988 dark comedy casts Nicolas Cage as a bourgeois publishing agent who believes he’s slowly becoming a vampire after he takes home a woman with a fondness for biting. As Peter Loew, Cage affects a dodgy English accent that makes him sound both regal and completely insincere when barking commands to Alva (Maria Conchita Alonso), a demure assistant whom he’s tasked with locating a misplaced and utterly superfluous contract.
Peter’s obsession with that contract is swallowed up in his vampiric “transformation,” and hilarity ensues when his frustrations and delusions mutate him into a deranged man with a fondness for outbursts and plastic Halloween fangs. When Peter talks through his worktime frustrations with his immensely patient therapist, he rattles off every letter of the alphabet with increasing intensity. Beyond its likening male sexual aggressors to deadly night prowlers, Vampire’s Kiss is a forum for Cage’s physical comedy with every perturbed utterance like a miniature exorcism from his body. YouTube commenters might ridicule the actor for his spastic line deliveries but he’s plenty in on the joke.
As for The Wicker Man, whether Cage gets the joke is up for debate. Neil LaBute’s widely lambasted remake — which plays this Saturday night at 11:00p — often strays into comedic territory but LaBute directs everything with such straightfaced flatness it’s tough to decide if the parties involved were kidding or not. In re-arranging elements from Robin Hardy’s 1973 film, LaBute sought to update his version with a commentary on gender divides and power dynamics. The matriarchal island of Summersisle, where Cage’s police officer Edward Woodward goes to investigate the disappearance of his ex-fiancee’s daughter, straddles a cultish colonial vibe that might have been creepy with a little forward momentum and a capable cast.
As it turns out, Cage is the lone standout. Whether his claims that he and Labute were intentionally crafting a 100 minute meta-joke are true, his stutters and melodramatic line readings enliven moments with a cast that seems to be in an entirely different movie. The back half of LaBute’s script finds Edward Woodward (a nod to the original’s lead actor) racing about Summersisle and badgering its inhabitants with machine gun rapidity. “How’d it get burned? How’d it get burned?” is the obvious reference point, but a confrontation between Edward and the colony’s headmistress (a wasted Ellen Burstyn) finds Cage twitching and squinting through their entire conversation. Edward’s claims that he’s allergic to honeybees, Summersisle’s primary source of revenue, might be true, but swatting the buzzing bugs around his face feels like a knee-jerk improvisation on the part of the actor.
Acting for Cage sometimes seems more like an exorcism or the conjuring of an unseen spiritual power, and in their late night features this weekend, WUD Film has programmed a twin-commentary on sexual dynamics. LaBute’s remake is the far clunkier of the pair, but as Cage’s performances show, there’s good to be had in even the baddest of the bad.
- Vampire’s Kiss (Friday at 11:30p) and The Wicker Man (Saturday at 11:00p) play FREE this weekend in the Union South Marquee.