Mike Figgis directed beautifully 'Leaving Las Vegas'... His film resulted audacious, fiercely realistic...
Hollywood had great success with movies about alcoholism: "The Lost Weekend" which won four Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Ray Milland and "Days of Wine and Roses," depicting Jack Lemmon as a charming drunk who loses his job because of this, and brings his wife (Lee Remick) down with him...
In 'Leaving Las Vegas,' Figgis captures the chaos inside an alcoholic divorcée... He shows the complexity of life and human relationships... He invites us to use our imaginations about a suicidal alcoholic... He never really explained how his character is bent on killing himself, nevertheless his powerful message remains a very sad one, extremely difficult to embrace... The final scene in a dark, filthy motel room rank as some of the most heartbreaking moments I have ever seen in film, and surely it will leave you terribly moved...
Figgis treats his two leading characters tenderly... He never makes moral pronouncements, and to his credit, the film remains honest to the end, never sinking into sentimentality...
His style as his story remembers me Marco Ferreri's greatest international success, 'La Grande Bouffe' (Blow-Out), a black and highly flatulent comedy (that won the Grand Jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1973) about four middle-aged men who gather in a well-appointed villa to eat themselves to death...
'Leaving Las Vegas' is the depressing love story of a failed drunken writer and a self-assured $500-a-night young hooker with whom he crosses paths... It is an appeasing tale of a dedicated drunk who downs entire bottles of hard liquor in several gulps... He is on the way down and he recognizes it... He is an ecumenical drinker who wants to destroy everything that remains of his old life... He fills his supermarket jumbo cart with as much booze as possible, and moves for Vegas to literally drink himself to death...
Nicolas Cage is remarkable as Ben Sanderson, the alcoholic who is resolute and actually thoughtful about his self-destruction..
Ben admits he has nothing to live for and he wants to die... He swills vodka from the bottle in the shower... He drinks greedily at the bottom of a swimming pool... He drinks, and drinks, 'til there's no more... And when he discovers that the Casino does not offer the Bloody Mary's that he asks, he explodes, overturning the table of Blackjack where he was gambling... He wakes up at night shaking so much he can merely crawl to the refrigerator and intensely swallows Vodka mixed with a little orange juice...
Elisabeth Shue proves to be a revelation as Sera.. A polite, beautiful, and sensitive blonde woman who prides herself on being just a high-class call girl... Nevertheless her vulnerable character is very puzzling for her terrible lifestyle, and her strange desperate attachment to a sadistic pimp Yuri Butso...
Sera meets Ben and inexplicably finds herself attracted to him... She soon develop a rich closeness that can nearly be described as love... Ben continues to tell her that true love between them could never happen...
After Yuri is soon out of the way by Russian thugs, she takes Ben under her wing, and attempts to fill a need in her life much like Ben fills his needs with liquor... Both share a common bond of misery and loneliness... Sera cares for Ben enough to handle his drunken bouts of coldness... She complies to Ben's own terms and vows to never dissuade him from his suicidal goal... Out of sheer love, she even buys him a silver flask for a present, while, inside, she is desperate to find some way to change his course as well as her own...
In one of the most revealing scenes at a desert resort, she drowns herself in sunlight and liquor to seduce Ben... She tries to love him, and in his infrequent getaways of semi-sobriety, he attempts to love her back...
The opportunity is shattered as Ben, without an ability or desire to change, becomes for her a tragic portrait of life without hope... How foolish of her to push him to select...
Shue keeps, all the way, an intriguing character extremely human... She is good and tender... Never tough or cynical... Her observations, without dialog, suggest just a sliver of expectation... In the final outcome, this dream hooker is the heart of the story... The Academy showed their appreciation by giving her a best actress nomination...
"Leaving Las Vegas" is pain, isolation and honesty... An unusual picture of human desperation and impotency... A study of acceptance, resignation and despair of an amazing two characters... An examination of what happens when two lovers are caught in cycles of self-destruction...
The film is extremely well written, directed and acted... The chemistry between Cage and Shue is sizzling... They are able to solve their existential frustrations by connecting in perfect harmony, and yet they are still completely alone...
'Leaving Las Vegas' has some film noir feel by moments, specially during the dark alleyways and hookers, where its neon signs are seedy, its nights perpetual, and the glitter absent... Figgis' camera moves as fluidly as the alcohol guzzles bottle after bottle down Cage's throat... The music adds plenty to the motion picture with ballads playing a large role in the odd romance... Like Chaplin and Woody Allen, Figgis molds his movie by using his own music...
In an ironic twist of events, the book's author John O'Brien actually committed suicide in 1994, two weeks after selling the movie rights... He never got to see his vision realized on the screen... Director, Mike Figgis finished the film as a tribute...
Hollywood had great success with movies about alcoholism: "The Lost Weekend" which won four Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Ray Milland and "Days of Wine and Roses," depicting Jack Lemmon as a charming drunk who loses his job because of this, and brings his wife (Lee Remick) down with him...
In 'Leaving Las Vegas,' Figgis captures the chaos inside an alcoholic divorcée... He shows the complexity of life and human relationships... He invites us to use our imaginations about a suicidal alcoholic... He never really explained how his character is bent on killing himself, nevertheless his powerful message remains a very sad one, extremely difficult to embrace... The final scene in a dark, filthy motel room rank as some of the most heartbreaking moments I have ever seen in film, and surely it will leave you terribly moved...
Figgis treats his two leading characters tenderly... He never makes moral pronouncements, and to his credit, the film remains honest to the end, never sinking into sentimentality...
His style as his story remembers me Marco Ferreri's greatest international success, 'La Grande Bouffe' (Blow-Out), a black and highly flatulent comedy (that won the Grand Jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1973) about four middle-aged men who gather in a well-appointed villa to eat themselves to death...
'Leaving Las Vegas' is the depressing love story of a failed drunken writer and a self-assured $500-a-night young hooker with whom he crosses paths... It is an appeasing tale of a dedicated drunk who downs entire bottles of hard liquor in several gulps... He is on the way down and he recognizes it... He is an ecumenical drinker who wants to destroy everything that remains of his old life... He fills his supermarket jumbo cart with as much booze as possible, and moves for Vegas to literally drink himself to death...
Nicolas Cage is remarkable as Ben Sanderson, the alcoholic who is resolute and actually thoughtful about his self-destruction..
Ben admits he has nothing to live for and he wants to die... He swills vodka from the bottle in the shower... He drinks greedily at the bottom of a swimming pool... He drinks, and drinks, 'til there's no more... And when he discovers that the Casino does not offer the Bloody Mary's that he asks, he explodes, overturning the table of Blackjack where he was gambling... He wakes up at night shaking so much he can merely crawl to the refrigerator and intensely swallows Vodka mixed with a little orange juice...
Elisabeth Shue proves to be a revelation as Sera.. A polite, beautiful, and sensitive blonde woman who prides herself on being just a high-class call girl... Nevertheless her vulnerable character is very puzzling for her terrible lifestyle, and her strange desperate attachment to a sadistic pimp Yuri Butso...
Sera meets Ben and inexplicably finds herself attracted to him... She soon develop a rich closeness that can nearly be described as love... Ben continues to tell her that true love between them could never happen...
After Yuri is soon out of the way by Russian thugs, she takes Ben under her wing, and attempts to fill a need in her life much like Ben fills his needs with liquor... Both share a common bond of misery and loneliness... Sera cares for Ben enough to handle his drunken bouts of coldness... She complies to Ben's own terms and vows to never dissuade him from his suicidal goal... Out of sheer love, she even buys him a silver flask for a present, while, inside, she is desperate to find some way to change his course as well as her own...
In one of the most revealing scenes at a desert resort, she drowns herself in sunlight and liquor to seduce Ben... She tries to love him, and in his infrequent getaways of semi-sobriety, he attempts to love her back...
The opportunity is shattered as Ben, without an ability or desire to change, becomes for her a tragic portrait of life without hope... How foolish of her to push him to select...
Shue keeps, all the way, an intriguing character extremely human... She is good and tender... Never tough or cynical... Her observations, without dialog, suggest just a sliver of expectation... In the final outcome, this dream hooker is the heart of the story... The Academy showed their appreciation by giving her a best actress nomination...
"Leaving Las Vegas" is pain, isolation and honesty... An unusual picture of human desperation and impotency... A study of acceptance, resignation and despair of an amazing two characters... An examination of what happens when two lovers are caught in cycles of self-destruction...
The film is extremely well written, directed and acted... The chemistry between Cage and Shue is sizzling... They are able to solve their existential frustrations by connecting in perfect harmony, and yet they are still completely alone...
'Leaving Las Vegas' has some film noir feel by moments, specially during the dark alleyways and hookers, where its neon signs are seedy, its nights perpetual, and the glitter absent... Figgis' camera moves as fluidly as the alcohol guzzles bottle after bottle down Cage's throat... The music adds plenty to the motion picture with ballads playing a large role in the odd romance... Like Chaplin and Woody Allen, Figgis molds his movie by using his own music...
In an ironic twist of events, the book's author John O'Brien actually committed suicide in 1994, two weeks after selling the movie rights... He never got to see his vision realized on the screen... Director, Mike Figgis finished the film as a tribute...