Abel Ferrara: “It’s a constant battle against mediocrity”

With a half-century long career directing independent film, Abel Ferrara eternalised the gritty intensity of pre-2000s New York. Irish-Italian, he grew up in the Bronx and moved to Rome over 20 years ago. When it comes to art and architecture, Ferrara thinks the Europeans get “it”. Crucifixes, churches and rosary beads decorate the world of former drug lord, Christopher Walken in King of New York (1990) and the corrupt detective, Harvey Keitel in Bad Lieutenant (1993). Ms .45’s (1981) Thana, played by Zoë Lund, seeks revenge after being violently raped on the streets of NYC. Dressed like a nun with iconic red lips, Lund brandishes a semi-automatic. Her target? All men.

Recently, Ethan Hawke plays a soldier in Rome in Ferrara’s Zeroes and Ones (2021), and Willem Dafoe, a barman, embarks on a psychologically trippy, but crucially beautiful, Jungian quest to a remote cave in Siberia (2020).

Formerly Catholic, now a Buddhist, spirituality remains integral to the visual language of Ferrara’s filmmaking. As Catholic-core seems to be on trend (aesthetically rather than religiously? Think: Lana Del Rey, Ethel Cain, etc), I was eager to speak to someone who has always been sympathetic to a crucifix. But most of all, I wanted to understand: what art means to the guy whose films have never made religion look boring. The guy, who today, recites poetry next to Michaelangelo’s iconic pietàs; but once upon a time told the stories of New York’s most troubled souls. The only guy who can make da Vinci and Michaelangelo sound genuinely cool. On a Monday morning, I find Abel Ferrara at home in Rome via Facetime. He’s wearing lilac headphones. We talk about art, Roman architecture and the necessity for total darkness in the theatre. It’s all about colour. You dig?

Livia Magyar: You were raised Catholic and religion, especially Catholicism, features in the costumes, themes and locations in your films. Was religious art the first you were exposed to?

Abel Ferrara: Yeah. When I was five years old man, you know… every day you go to church, right? So the girls sat on the left, the boys on the right. The crucifix was on the right, and the crucifix was a life-size, awesome crucifix, dripping blood right in your fucking face. You get it? You couldn’t believe this…. And it came directly from Rome. This is in the Bronx. You dig? They didn’t make this in the Bronx.

This is all Roman Catholic shit… Vatican stuff. This is all the political side. This isn’t the word of Christ. Jesus said don’t worship false idols. So, this is like you’re worshipping a false idol, you’re worshipping a statue, a piece of wood. The church in Bad Lieutenant (Saint Clare of Assisi Church, Bronx, NY) is where I went to school. I hadn’t been there in 25 years … and we went back and shot all those scenes there, okay, all those scenes in the Bronx, exactly where I come from.

When we went back to shoot the movie, I said “Where’s the fucking crucifix?”…. “Where’s the fucking statue bro?”… they said “well, maybe we have it in the cellar somewhere”… Because, yeah, I wanted this in the movie.

LM: And today, religious art?

AF: I recite poetry. A friend of mine, he does poetry around famous works of art. We go to where those are: Michelangelo’s Pietà in the Vatican. It’s a cool gig. The other one (Pietà Rondanini) is in Milano. It wasn’t finished… it’s fucking mind blowing.

If you’re da Vinci… you’re not like Picasso. [Picasso] could paint whoever he wants. He could paint himself… I mean, yeah, okay, they painted the chicks and Mona Lisas, but most of these guys, if they were going to get money to do their art…. They had to paint the conception, the crucifixion, the passion…

LM: What’s your take on da Vinci?

AF: You know, da Vinci was painting the Mona Lisa the day he died. It doesn’t matter if you’ve seen it, we’ve all seen it a billion times. The deal with that is, [she’s] the best looking chick in town. Her husband is a rich, young, gorgeous dude, business guy. He gets the painting, gives the guy the money… Da Vinci’s M.O. was he takes people’s money and never delivers the painting. He’s like a rip off artist, okay, but his father is a big lawyer, accountant, and he constantly is getting him out of trouble… Okay? So the guy commissions the Mona Lisa expecting it for Easter. Well, 14 years later, he was still painting it… You dig what I’m saying? So his father got him out of trouble because he took a lot of money and he never gave the guy the painting. So his father paid him back. The day he died he’s painting that painting… they found that painting rolled up next to his bed… You dig? He was still painting it.

LM: Do you have a favourite building in Rome?

AF: They’re all my favourites. Man, I like em’ all, [even] the fucking fascist architecture. I think that’s cool, as cool as the Colosseum, because they built it forever. America’s 400 years old and they don’t get it. That’s why I live in Europe… there’s an understanding of it.

That’s Nero’s tomb out there [Ferrara gestures out of his apartment window]. You don’t build anything [in Italy] unless it fits in with the fucking neighbourhood. Is anything out of whack? And I’m in the middle of Rome, bro, you tell me one other city you’re in the middle of where you can see Nero’s tomb, like that… They ain’t gonna put any bullshit anywhere. So what does that tell you? It’s not about one building, it’s about a fucking love of life. I’m not just saying that because I’m Italian.

You’re either in it forever… In my business you’re fighting against people who just have a mindset of, it’s the job. Crank it the fuck out…. It’s a constant battle against mediocrity. Just being lame, you know, of not being alive.

LM: Have you ever used a specific piece of art for inspiration?

AF: When I worked with Bojan (Bazelli) on King of New York (1990) and China Girl (1987) we definitely looked at paintings to get colours. And it’s not easy, you’ve got to know what you want…

But in any movie theatre I go to these days, especially in New York, the lights are on. The key of a movie theatre is you start in the dark, but because of whatever safety reasons and safety hazards and exit lights, some of these places have the bathroom right next to the screen.

Most movies today just light it up like it’s the inside of your refrigerator…. There’s no aesthetic in the lighting. Even in black-and-white there’s no such thing as black-and-white. You’re seeing an infinite amount of shades of grey. You can see 100 black-and-white films and they all look different. There are like 50 shades of black. That black, I mean Armani had it in the 90s. It’s deep, velvety… You dig? Very rare. When I see a movie I look for the black. You ain’t gonna see it on Amazon. Like the black-and-white in The Addiction (1995): You don’t just get that. You got to know how to get that, and you got to reach for it, and you got to believe it’s important.

LM: 80s & 90s NYC: What was the aesthetic? What artists were people talking about in the film world?

AF: The aesthetic was ‘everybody knew each other’. [Keith] Haring, Jean-Michel [Basquiat] – they were on the street, they were painting graffiti. Basquiat was living in a park, bro, but you can’t live like that. These guys were squatting. It all came from poverty, it also came from violence. The city was wide open. It wasn’t this kind of little Wall Street. It’s hard to talk about New York. It’s constantly changing. 1979 wasn’t 1981.

LM: Any thoughts on the movie poster designs from that time?

AF: Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989) had a poster by Art Sims. He’s an artist.