MTV is running a few choice quotes from Werner Herzog about his film Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. The declaratory headline is that he hasn’t seen Abel Ferrara’s original film of the same name. I thought this had been covered months ago when Herzog said he’d never even heard of Ferrara. (Which rightly raised a few eyebrows, but really, that’s not our problem.) And how can this be an issue, when Herzog is so plainly doing things the same way he always does: with one foot in his own private universe and the other in a collective fantasyland we all take part in?
The more interesting news about the new Bad Lieutenant is that it still has no distribution deal. By all accounts the film is done, and we still have no idea when we’ll get to see it.
And while he’s still making good films on occasion, this movie (and his comments on it, here and here) represents the most press Abel Ferrara has received in a while. For good or ill, I hope that counts for something.