Review by Roger Carpenter
Abel Ferrara has always existed on the fringe of filmmaking. The themes he tackles, the controversial content of his films, and his New York City attitude all help in keeping him on those fringes. Even when he attempted to cross over in the early 90’s to bigger-budgeted Hollywood films–with limited success– it wasn’t long until he again embraced the outsider attitude and moved right back into making no-budget films. The Addiction is a case in point. Shot for around $500,000, most of the cast and crew were employed for delayed compensation, a big gamble considering the typical earning potential of an Abel Ferrara film. But one doesn’t work with Ferrara for a big payday. One works with Ferrara because one appreciates pure cinema, the authenticity of Ferrara, and his guerrilla-style filmmaking. After dabbling with the Hollywood elite, The Addiction was a breath of fresh air for Ferrara, who was only more than happy to return to his gritty, NYC roots.
Lili Taylor stars as Kathleen, a doctoral student in philosophy. She spends her days in class and her nights studying with good friend Jean (Edie Falco of The Sopranos). One night as she is walking the streets of the Big Apple, she has an encounter with Casanova (Annabella Sciorra, Jungle Fever, The Hand that Rocks the Cradle), who bites her on the neck and turns her into a vampire. As Kathleen struggles with turning into the undead, she must also struggle with her new role of predator and the violence she is required to perpetrate on the human race—which happens to be the topic of her doctoral thesis.
Increasingly depressed and withdrawn, Kathleen tries to ignore the craving for blood until she can’t. It is then that she attacks human innocents: her professor; an anthropology student she meets at the library; her best friend, Jean; a street rapper she picks up for casual sex; and an unlucky taxi driver who stops to help her out. She finally locates a mysterious vampire named Peina (Christopher Walken), who helps to show her the light…both metaphorically and physically. But as Kathleen starts to find her way down her new path and completes her dissertation, she is planning one last act of violence.
Shot in gorgeous black-and-white with a cast of genuine stars (Walken), up-and-comers (Sciorra, Falco, Kathryn Erbe), and established character actors (Paul Calderon, Lili Taylor), The Addiction is a vampire film that contemplates death, religion, and drugs. While the standard explanation for vampires is as a metaphor for sex, in this case vampirism is a metaphor for drug addiction, specifically heroin addiction. This is clearly spelled out as we see Kathleen’s first attempts to use blood when she draws blood from a homeless person and injects it into her arm. Later, we see the effects of the addiction wearing on Kathleen as she becomes withdrawn, stops attending class, goes unwashed, and ends up curled in the fetal position on the sidewalk. It isn’t until she finally embraces the addiction that she is able to overcome those physical needs she feels so strongly.
Ferrara and his longtime writing collaborator Nicholas St. John fill the film with typical vampiric tropes such as biting victims on the neck and the inability to resist sunlight. But the pair also shake things up in an interesting way with Walken’s character, Peina. Peina is well into his second century of vampirism—a relative blink of an eye compared to Dracula—and has taught himself, by sheer force of will, to fast for decades before needing to give in to the all-powerful addiction. He has even taught himself to walk in the sunlight, eat actual food, and to use the bathroom, all human traits that allow him to fit into society’s labels. Interestingly, though there is plenty of religious symbolism, crosses are never really mentioned in relation to vampires, though they are certainly present.
The film tackles not just religious themes, including damnation, redemption, and resurrection, but also addresses Twentieth Century violence. Ferrara fills the film with images and soundbites of the Jewish Holocaust as well as more contemporary images of religious cleansing, most likely from the Bosnian war of 1992-1995. These images are intercut with Kathleen’s and Jean’s ruminations on what it all means and how it applies to them. There is a strong message about denying violence and the moral/ethical imperative society has in not allowing these types of atrocities to continue. We see this almost immediately as Casanova gives Kathleen a chance at survival by telling her to demand she be left alone. But Kathleen, shocked at the sudden attack, is unable to stand up for herself—and by default, anyone else. This theme is continued as Kathleen gives the same chance to her would-be victims, all of whom fail the test themselves.
Ferrara also continues his collaboration with his beloved cinematographer, Ken Kelsch, who compliments Ferrara’s guerilla filmmaking with gritty, unstaged scenes of the real New York, just before Giuliani began his campaign to clean the city up. The black-and-white photography hearkens back to a 1950’s Hollywood of noir films, with hatch-marked shadows across faces, bright light, and deep blacks. Ferrara’s composer of choice, Joe Delia, once again contributes the musical score, intercut with early 90’s hip-hop classics like Cypress Hill’s “I Want to Get High.” One can almost smell the stench of the city through the steam rising through the grates in the streets. New York becomes a character in itself in these filmmaker’s capable hands.
Ferrara brings the climax to an explosive ending with Kathleen and a cadre of bloodsuckers hosting a “dinner party” for the college elite before attacking them all. But the final denouement has been much-discussed and analyzed, with many critics seeing the final scene as open-ended while Ferrara himself adamantly defending the ending as crystal clear. Viewers will have to make up their own minds.
Ferrara is a polarizing figure in American cinema. It seems viewers either hate him or love him, not that he cares one way or the other. For Ferrara fans, The Addiction—finally available in pristine condition in a lovingly restored 4K scan from the original camera negative on Blu-Ray and in the correct aspect ratio—this is an absolute must-own disc. Yet even those viewers who are offended by Ferrara’s rougher works such as Driller Killer, Ms. 45, and Bad Lieutenant, may find this less violent and graphic rumination on religion, drugs, and death a more palatable work in Ferrara’s oeuvre.
Arrow Video includes numerous special features on this single-disc package, including a commentary with film critic and biographer Brad Stevens and Ferrara himself, a short interview with Stevens about the film, a new Ferrara interview, an archival piece with Ferrara editing The Addiction, and “Talking with Vampires,” a new documentary made by Ferrara with interviews featuring Lili Taylor, Christopher Walken, Joe Delia, and Ken Kelsch. There is also a collector’s booklet included in the first pressing.
You can purchase the film directly from Arrow Video at http://www.arrowfilms.co.uk/category/usa/ or from Amazon.
