| Since we're discussing BAD LIEUTENANT here, I'd like to run the
following text as my opinion/analysis of the film.
I chose BAD LIEUTENANT for an explication in an English class
I took last semester. After viewing both the NC-17 and R rated
versions (totaling 4 times), and having discussions with several
people about the movie, I came up with some interesting parallels
between the life of the Lieutenant and the life of Jesus. For those
who might be offended, I apologize and recommend that you hit NEXT
UNSEEN.
My personal feelings about this movie probably differ from
just about everyone else in this notesfile; there may be very
few people to agree with me. I found BAD LIEUTENANT to be an
outstanding movie, one of the best I've seen in many years.
Keitel's performance was absolutely believable to me (having
grown up as a Catholic); many of the feelings the Lieutenant
experiences are similar to what many of my childhood/early
adulthood memories of what "bad" people say, think, do, and are.
For me, BAD LIEUTENANT has a highly moralistic, almost
Christian-like message woven within the storyline. The scene in
the church actually had me crying, not only for Keitel's
character but also because of my own religious experiences and
feelings.
*****/*****
Catherine
(P.S. I wouldn't mind some feedback on my writing, either; if someone
wants to comment, please SEND/AUTHOR.)
Fair warning - major spoiler interpretation ahead:
ONE MAN'S HELL
Gambler. Thief. Junkie. Killer. Cop. These are words used by
Lt. Productions, Inc. to describe its 1992 movie, Bad Lieutenant.
And Bad Lieutenant is bad indeed. It has excessive usage in all
censorship considerations: violence, nudity, sex, language, and
drugs. The movie garnered an NC-17 rating, and justifiably so.
Although the occurrences are extreme in one direction ("bad"),
the analogy that is present throughout the film is one which
parallels the life of the Lieutenant (whose name is never
mentioned) and the life of Jesus Christ. When the viewer watches
the movie for the first time, there are so many simultaneous
activities that the allegory may not seem apparent. However, a
turning point late in the movie allows the viewer to recognize
the similarities between the two lives and the fact that the
Lieutenant is a Messiah figure. Harvey Keitel gives an
outstanding, career-making performance as the Lieutenant, and
with his portrayal the character becomes real.
The beginning of the film shows the Lieutenant as a family
man, the dutiful father, taking his two sons to school. As soon
as the children are dropped off and out of sight, the cocaine is
brought out, and the Lieutenant snorts a bit of it while driving
out of the school zone and follows his act with a couple of swigs
from his whiskey flask. It is while the Lieutenant is driving
that the viewer realizes there is a secondary story within the
movie: the baseball playoff games between the New York Mets and
the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Lieutenant has bet fifteen thousand
dollars on the third game of the series, and the outcome of each
playoff game is his primary motivation to get things done.
The Lieutenant meets with his policeman buddies at a crime
scene and, rather than discuss the crime, asks them to pool their
money with him and bet on the Mets. The friends do not know that
the Lieutenant is placing the bet on the Dodgers to win. It is
with this incident that the Lieutenant appears to be like Judas,
betraying his friends who place their faith in him. The
Lieutenant leaves the crime scene, only to begin his fall into the
self-destructive path that winds throughout the movie.
His first stop is at a drug dealer's apartment building,
where he "sells" cocaine to a dealer, cocaine that has been
stolen from the police department's evidence lab. The sale is
made, and the Lieutenant goes on to the next episode in his
despicable cycle, but not before the baseball game is finished.
His beloved Dodgers have lost the game, and he turns to two
women, along with drugs and alcohol, for consolation. The scenes
with the women show the Lieutenant in a drunken stupor. He
continues to drink to drown his pain, then uses cocaine to
further the numbness. The effects of the drugs and alcohol begin
to wear off as the Lieutenant is summoned to duty: a Catholic
church has been desecrated, with a nun raped on the altar during
the process.
The Lieutenant arrives at the church and snorts coke before
he leaves his car. He dilutes his dirty deed by taking a sip from
his flask again as he walks up the church steps. Inside the
church, the Lieutenant becomes the dutiful man again, calling
upon his Catholic background to help him realize the severity of
the crime. He lies down beside a broken statue of Mary, closes
his eyes, and tries to block out the pain he feels, both for
himself and, uncharacteristically, for the victim of the crime.
This time, the Lieutenant does not discuss the ballgame with his
friends, for he has no friends here and can only listen to the
interrogation of the nun. He can barely contain his rage when
leaving the church and seeks out a junkie friend for further help
in handling his dilemma.
The Lieutenant is clearly in denial. His glazed look and
babbling noises show that he is out of control and does not know
what he must do. His despair is momentarily relieved when the
junkie, who also happens to be a nurse, administers a cocaine
injection to him. Again the pain subsides and feelings of
invincibility return to the Lieutenant. He believes that nothing,
no one, can hurt him or stop him.
The Lieutenant once again returns to his dutiful father role
with his attendance at his daughter's first communion. There, he
is approached by the bookie's middle man, trying to collect on
the Lieutenant's bet. The Lieutenant wants his wager to continue
to "ride," even though he is losing. Reluctantly, the middleman
allows the request. By this time, the size of the Lieutenant's
bet has reached sixty thousand dollars.
The movie continues in this manner, with the Lieutenant
trapped in an ongoing descent into hell: investigate the crime,
get high, get low, bet on the games, lose the bet, bet again,
lose again, losing, losing losing, losing. He must descend to the
lowest point possible before he can rise above his problems. The
pattern he is following closely parallels Jesus' last few days on
earth as man. Jesus, too, had to reach the lowest point in His
life -- when He was tempted at Gethsemane -- before He could be
offered as a sacrifice to His heavenly Father. The difference
here is that although Jesus was tempted, He did not give in to
the temptations. The Lieutenant succumbs to everything; his
primary focus in life is to seize pleasure anywhere and
everywhere that he can, and he thinks nothing of bringing people
down to his level in order to enhance his own enjoyment. Whenever
he is tempted, he gives in. To him, there are no consequences;
anything bad can always be blocked or numbed. When the Lieutenant
is on a cocaine high, or an alcohol high, or a sexual high, he
can close his eyes and enter his own little world, not to be
disturbed by anyone or anything. The Lieutenant shows his
invincible feeling when he states, "No one can kill me. I'm
blessed. I'm a f****** Catholic." But the Lieutenant's
responsibilities in the real world always snap him out of his
self-inflicted daze.
The nun's rape continues to be on the Lieutenant's mind.
Toward the end of the movie, he returns to the church, where he
finds the nun praying the rosary at the altar. He approaches her
from behind, then decides to kneel next to her at the altar. The
Lieutenant begs the nun to tell him who raped her. She knows who
did it -- two boys in the church school whom she has forgiven:
"But I have already forgiven them. . . . I forgive them." The
Lieutenant pushes the sister to the limit, questioning her right
to forgive the boys for their crime. Her reasoning was that she
could "turn bitter semen into fertile sperm. . . . to turn hate
into love . . . to save their souls." Then, almost seeming to be
a planned exit, the nun poses a scenario to the Lieutenant: "Talk
to Jesus. Pray. You do believe in God, don't you? That Jesus
Christ died for your sins?" With that remark, the nun places her
rosary in the Lieutenant's hands and walks out of the church, not
uttering another word, nor staying to observe the Lieutenant's
reaction.
It is at this low point in the Lieutenant's life that he
realizes how bad a person he is. He now wants to do some good for
someone, somewhere, if only to vindicate the nun's rape. He gazes
at the crime location, in front of him on the altar. Then he
falls to his knees, crying and wailing, eyes closed. When they
open, a still, statuelike image of Jesus Christ stands several
feet in front of the Lieutenant. The image is so real to the
Lieutenant that he cries out, "What am I going to do? You stand
there and want me to say every f****** thing? You stand there --
where were You? Where were You?" Then he realizes that his chance
for salvation, total redemption from all of his sins, is standing
before him. The Lieutenant is now face-to-face with Jesus and is
asking for help. He cries out loud, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so
sorry. I did so many bad things." The Lieutenant weeps more
loudly as he crawls to the Christ figure, begging for
forgiveness. Once again, there is a correlation between these
circumstances and those in Jesus' life. Jesus cried out, "Father,
why have you forsaken me?" just before He died on the cross. When
the Lieutenant reaches the image, he falls forward to kiss the
nail-wounded feet of his Father. When the Lieutenant looks up, an
old Negro woman is standing in front of him with a chalice that
was stolen from the church at the time of the rape. She knows
where the chalice came from and wants to lead the officer to the
boys who stole it.
As the Lieutenant leaves the church, the final game of the
playoffs is playing in the background. He locates the boys,
handcuffs them, then sits down on their couch to watch the rest
of the game. He even shares a drug pipe with them. As the game
ends, the sportscaster announces that the Mets have won the
series, and with their victory, all of the Lieutenant's hope is
lost. The only way he can redeem himself is to give up his life
for someone else. Jesus went to the cross and gave up His life
for everyone's sins. Now the Lieutenant has to make the same kind
of decision. He drives to the local bus station, escorts the two
boys toward a bus, and hands them thirty thousand dollars, money
he had borrowed from one of his dealers in order to place his
baseball bets. With much agony, the Lieutenant turns away from
the bus, wailing loudly. His cries diminish to barely audible
sobs as he returns to his car and begins the drive back to his
Gethsemane, where his killers await his arrival.
In the end, the Lieutenant looks at his life and realizes
that he cannot undo anything that has occurred. The only way to
his salvation is by giving someone a new life, much as Christ
sacrificed His life for mankind. The Lieutenant's life is so
despicable, so incapable of being made worthy, that he gives up
his life in order to become a new person. As evil as he is, the
Lieutenant finds it in his heart, upon the forgiveness of Jesus,
to leave this world by enabling the two boys to get new starts in
life.
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