With Leaving Las Vegas, director Mike Figgis created an emotionally shocking American classic that remains as shocking now as it was when it first shocked audiences.
At its tortured heart are two unique and unforgettable performances by Nicholas Cage and Elisabeth Shue that deserve a place among the best in contemporary cinema.
Cage gives free rein to his rawness and his wounds in the portrait of Sera, a man who descends irremediably into the abyss of addiction.
It's the most brutal and unflinching character study ever seen: it lays bare his soul completely.
Similarly, Shue imbues the caring but complicit prostitute who witnesses Sera's disintegration with a quiet grace and empathy that penetrates to the bone. Their bittersweet love story is the purest tragedy in cinema.
Refusing to offer catharsis or orderly redemption, Leaving Las Vegas becomes a visceral emotional experience, a heartbreaking wake-up call, and a tragic celebration of human connection against all adversity. It just gets under your skin and stays there.
The impressive hand of its director and the brilliance of its two performers make it a seminal American drama that deserves to be reevaluated endlessly.
As powerful and brutally moving now as it was at the moment of impact.
At the 68th Academy Awards, Leaving Las Vegas scored 4 major nominations including Best Picture, with Nicholas Cage winning a thoroughly deserved Best Actor Oscar.
Elisabeth Shue also scored Best Actress nominations at the Golden Globes and BAFTAs for her heartrendingly honest portrayal.
Domestically, Leaving Las Vegas found sleeper success at the box office on the back of critical acclaim, taking $17 million against a budget under $5 million.
Internationally the film's returns were even stronger, nearly doubling its domestic gross with a $30 million worldwide total.
Nicolas Cage is one of the greatest actors of our times, very much because of his filmography including extremely diverse set of roles. This happened because of Cage’s legendary unwillingness to be particularly choosy about projects he would take part in, ranging from mainstream Hollywood blockbusters, unambitious low budget exploitation films to pretentious art dramas. Many such experiments, despite Cage’s, sometimes overenthusiastic, immersion into each of such roles, ended badly, but sometimes risks were well-rewarded. The greatest triumph of Cage’s career happened in Leaving Las Vegas, 1995 film written and directed by Mike Figgis, today known as one of the finest dramas of its time.
The film is based on autobiographical novel by John O’Brien. Plot begins in Los Angeles where the protagonist, once successful Hollywood screenwriter Ben Sanderson (played by Cage) learns that he got fired from the studio. But this is nothing compared with much more chronic and devastating adversity – his alcoholism which entered in near terminal phase. Ben, who had also lost his wife and son to drinking, decides that he doesn’t have anything to live for any more, so he discards or sells all of his possessions and drives to Las Vegas with somewhat vague idea that she he could spend all of his money and time drinking himself to death. There he meets prostitute named Sera (played by Elisabeth Shue), whose abusive Russian pimp Yuri (played by Julian Sands) became target of his gangland associates. She desperately needs some kind of protection, while Ben, despite all of his self-destructive behaviour, needs company. That accidental encounter between two losers turns into romance, which is doomed with realisation that both lovers won’t change – Ben can’t stop drinking, while Sera can’t stop selling her body.
To say that Leaving Las Vegas is dark and depressive story is an understatement. It is easy to imagine it as such even without knowing that the author of the original novel shot himself to death two weeks after start of film’s production. The film was directed by Mike Figgis, British film maker whose career, especially in its early phase, epitomises Author Theory; apart from directing, Figgis also wrote the script and composed the jazzy soundtrack (together with Anthony Marinelli), accompanied by songs performed by his old friend Sting (who starred in his feature debut Stormy Monday). Figgis, known for being one of the more “artsy” directors that preferred style and experimentation over conventional narratives, had relatively low budget, which had forced him to shoot on Super 16 mm film, instead of 35 mm format characteristic of most Hollywood production. Figgis managed to evade his film looking rough around the edges, and the actually helped with establishing dark and realistic atmosphere. Las Vegas, despite being one of entertainment capitals of America, looks rather unglamorous in this film, being portrayed mostly through cheap motels and pawn shops that cater to the most desperate of the clientele like the protagonists of the film.
And those protagonists are played by two great actors. For Cage, known for his enthusiasm, role of Ben was one of riskiest in the career, and not only in terms of critical response. In order to be as believable in the role of self-destructive alcoholic as possible, he actually practised binge drinking and videotaped himself in order to later study and copy his mannerisms under influence. This resulted in one of the greatest roles of his career. Ben is realistic but interesting character; despite at times being obnoxious drunk or pathetic wrecks during withdrawals, short lucid moments allow audience to imagine times when he was nice husband and father, talented screenwriter and, most importantly, a good man. That goodness might be found in scenes when he warns Sera about his “dark” moments and that their relationship might not be such a good idea. Cage and Figgis don’t tell us what made this character enter such self-destructive spiral, but the audience might get the idea that it was loss of love and emptiness that is permanently filled by bottle and, too little and too late, by characters by Sera. Cage quite deservingly won Oscar for this performance.
Unlike Cage, Elisabeth Shue only got nominated and didn’t win Oscar, but she should have. An actress who rose to stardom by playing squeaky clean protagonists of 1980s teen films, also took great risks, and not only because of few nude scenes that often, and quite predictably in the context of this film, look rather un-erotic. She plays prostitute who, like Cage’s characters, once along the way, took wrong decision and ended on streets where she can’t escape vicious cycle of exploitation and abuse just like Ben can’t escape alcohol. But there is also a goodness in her character, desire to do the right thing, even if that right thing is to make a self-destructive and sometimes unpleasant man spend his last weeks of life in slightly more pleasant circumstances. Shue is also, despite her circumstances, an anchor that link audience to the world of “normalcy”, and this is achieved thanks to scenes in which she comments and narrates the plot to unseen person that might or might not be her therapist. Those scenes were originally made as Shue’s screen test for the film but Figgis decided to keep them in the film and they serve perfectly, closing Leaving Las Vegas into coherent narrative whole. Somewhat ironically, Shue would decades later return to Las Vegas as Julie Finlay, one of the protagonists of CSI: Crime Scene Investagation. Even audience who care little about that show or aren’t fans of the actors would probably appreciate Leaving Las Vegas as an example of film making at its best.
›Leaving Las Vegas (film): one of the Cage movies that is worth seeing@gooddream2749d
I'm not trying to knock Nick Cage too much. He was offered andopportunity to make millions every year making often-times rubbish movies and he took it. If someone offered me (and most people) the same deal they would take it. That being said, this film shows that Cage actually can act... sometimes.
The story behind this is that Nick doesn't have super-human abilities, which must have been strange for him to ponder when looking at the script. As a matter of fact, Ben Sanderson (Cage) has a horribly tragic flaw - he is a massive alcoholic. While managing to be quite successful despite his extreme abuse of booze, things are starting to fall apart when he loses his job as a well-paid screenwriter (oh, the irony) but manages to get a hefty severance pay package.
Rather than try to turn his life around (as we would expect from a movie of this sort) Ben makes the choice that he is going to sell everything he owns and then go to Las Vegas and drink himself to death. While in Vegas he nearly runs over a prostitute and later finds her and offers her $500 to come to his room for an hour. Rather than use prozzies for what you would think, he talks to her and they develop a relationship.
Sera, the prostitute is played by Elisabeth Shue, who I had forgotten was still an actress until this came out. She does a fantastic job in it and of course, it quite hot. They have an interesting relationship that gets them both in trouble but Ben has so much money that he buys his way out of it for the most part. Things are going well for them but Ben has just one request of her
you can never ask me to stop drinking
I'm not going to reveal much else about the film but just know this: It is touching and it is a phenomenal performance by Shue and Cage, the latter of which is a normally extremely critical of for his backlog of horrible pictures. This one isn't action packed but it holds your interest in other ways.
This movie made back its budget and like $50 million more and one critic actually said "this movie shows that Nicholas Cage can be a great actor" so it appears that I am not alone in my assessment. I honestly believe this is one of his best films and it just so happens to be one that a lot of people haven't even heard of.
[Image](https://www.filmaffinity.com/ve/filmimages.php?movie_id=200074)
[Image](https://www.filmaffinity.com/ve/filmimages.php?movie_id=200074)
[Image](https://www.filmaffinity.com/ve/filmimages.php?movie_id=200074)
