Line #15 Creator/AbelFerrara


1	[[quoteright:285:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/abel_ferrara.jpg]]
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3	Abel Ferrara (born July 19, 1951) is an American filmmaker from [[BigApplesauce The Bronx]], known for making films in a variety of genres and styles, combining both low-brow and high-brow culture, and directing works with intense visceral performances and extreme situations, burdened with strong moral and intellectual concerns.
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5	His career has been quite erratic. Ferrara started out working in American [[ExploitationFilm exploitation cinema]]; his earliest films were either [[PornWithoutPlot porn]] or [[PornWithPlot borderline porn]]. His breakthrough film ''Film/TheDrillerKiller'' saw Ferrara entering the post-''Film/TaxiDriver'' world of vigilantism. His early BreakthroughHit was ''Film/Ms45'', an action thriller exploitation film that marked his first collaboration with Creator/ZoeLund. For most of TheEighties, Ferrara worked on a variety of projects, never quite making it into the mainstream. TheNineties, however, would prove to be his decade: he made nine films in ten years alongside shorts and music videos, which is remarkably productive for an independent film-maker who has never had a bona fide box-office breakout hit, and in this decade Ferrara made crime dramas, science fiction (his remake of ''Film/BodySnatchers'' and ''New Rose Hotel'', an adaptation of a Creator/WilliamGibson story), horror (''Film/TheAddiction'' which is shot in black-and-white) and also a film-about-filmmaking like ''Snake Eyes'' (also known as ''Dangerous Game'' and stars Music/{{Madonna}} in a dramatic role). The 21st Century had him becoming quasi-arthouse, with his films ''Welcome to New York'' and ''Pasolini'' having him taking on real-figures -- Dominique Strauss-Kahn ([[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed renamed as Monsieur Devereux]]) and Creator/PierPaoloPasolini (one of Ferrara's biggest influences).
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7	His most famous films are ''Film/KingOfNewYork'' (with Creator/ChristopherWalken) and ''Film/BadLieutenant'' (with Creator/HarveyKeitel). These films are shocking for their transgressive mix of violence, sexuality, and Catholic values with an outlaw empathy for crooked criminals as well as the downtrodden and rejected. Ferrara's films glorified TheBigRottenApple era, unsparing about the violence and brutality of the city streets at night in its worst areas but also celebrating the tough, breezy melting pot that brought immigrants together and made the city and themselves great. Many of his films are almost ethnographic, such as ''China Girl'' (a BMovie-style take on ''Theatre/WestSideStory'' featuring an Italian-American boy and a Chinese-American girl as StarCrossedLovers), as well as a focus on ethnic succession, such as Little Italy, becoming an adjunct to New York's Chinatown, while his later films like '''R Xmas'' and ''Go Go Tales'' focus on gentrification and how the Giuliani era has muscled out the poor and struggling out of the city (in the case of ''Go Go Tales'', this is given additional heft by the fact that the film was in fact made in UsefulNotes/{{Italy}} with New York made on sets).
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9	Ferrara is one of the key figures of the American independent film industry who has remained esoteric, obscure and marginal. His most recent films haven't even found distributors for a US release, and most of his films are nowadays funded in Europe [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff where he is considered one of America's greats]]. [[NeverAcceptedInHisHometown Within America]], Ferrara used to be called "the [[PoorMansSubstitute poor man's]] Creator/MartinScorsese" which Ferrara [[IllTakeThatAsACompliment even embraced a few times]]. Scorsese is one of Ferrara's influences, and Scorsese has also praised him as one of America's great talents.
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11	He made four films with Creator/ChristopherWalken, four with Creator/WillemDafoe. Both Walken and Dafoe starred in ''Film/NewRoseHotel'' (a Creator/WilliamGibson adaptation) alongside another Ferrara regular, Creator/AsiaArgento.
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13	He also made a video for Music/MyleneFarmer's song "California". It is as sleazy as one would predict.
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15	!!Ferrara films with their own TV Tropes pages
16	[[index]]
17	* ''Film/TheDrillerKiller'' (1979)
18	* ''Film/Ms45'' (1981)
19	* ''Film/FearCity'' (1984)
20	* ''Film/CatChaser'' (1989)
21	* ''Film/KingOfNewYork'' (1990)
22	* ''Film/BadLieutenant'' (1992)
23	* ''Film/BodySnatchers'' (1993)
24	* ''Film/TheAddiction'' (1995)
25	* ''[[{{Film/FourFortyFourLastDayOnEarth}} 4:44 Last Day on Earth]]'' (2011)
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27	[[/index]]
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29	!!Tropes associated with Ferrara's filmography
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31	* AntiVillain: He often focuses on people who do awful things for sympathetic reasons or who are tortured by their flaws.
32	* BeingEvilSucks: Bad guys in his films don't have it much easier than the heroes and gain little, if any, pleasure from their bad deeds in addition to usually facing horrific consequences for them. Many seem to engage in evil less out of pleasure and more out of a sense of resignation or because it's preferable to a deeper pain.
33	* BigApplesauce: Ferrara is one of the major New York filmmakers (alongside Scorsese, Creator/WoodyAllen, Creator/SpikeLee). His movies generally focused on the lower and seedier side of the city, and emphasize the urban decay and corruption.
34	* TheBigRottenApple: He's fond of portraying New York City as a decaying hellhole that no sane person would ever want to reside in.
35	* BlackAndGrayMorality: Many times it is about the fight between evil and slightly lesser evil. His most famous film ''Bad Lieutenant'' is about a corrupt cop learning redemption [[spoiler:by pardoning and helping the rapists of a nun escape justice in accordance with the wishes of the nun herself, who forgave her rapists for their crimes]].
36	* CrapsackWorld: The world of his films is most definitely not one you'd want to inhabit permanently.
37	* DeliberatelyMonochrome: His vampire movie ''Film/TheAddiction'' is shot in black-and-white.
38	* DownerEnding: Unsurprisingly, he's fond of this.
39	* EvenEvilHasStandards: His films often focus on people who do awful things but try to maintain some kind of moral code.
40	* ExploitationFilm: Ferrara is keen on all things morbid and sleazy.
41	* FanDisservice: Expect plenty of sex and nudity in his work, just none that will be even remotely enticing.
42	* TheHeroDies: Frequently and they pretty much never die heroically or with much dignity.
43	* ProductionPosse: Ferrara usually casts Creator/ChristopherWalken, Creator/WillemDafoe, Creator/HarveyKeitel, Creator/AsiaArgento and James Caruso for his films.
44	* RealityHasNoSoundtrack: He uses this trope quite often.
45	* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: His films are pretty firmly on the cynical end as far as portraying the world goes, though his portrayal of human nature is somewhat more optimistic as he is fond of portraying people whose good intentions are at odds with the world they inhabit. ''Film/BadLieutenant'', despite being soul-crushingly bleak, does portray its title character as being a fundamentally lost person who isn't beyond redemption.
46	* VigilanteMan: Several of his films explore the concept of vigilantism and question how far is too far when it comes to delivering justice outside the legal system.

Context Creator / AbelFerrara