Analysis: as the actor receives plaudits for Longlegs, here are 5 under-appreciated Cage screen performances to savour
Have you seen Longlegs yet? The excellent, twisted, new serial killer film is a word-of-mouth sensation, doing unusually strong business for a summertime horror. The reason why? The incomparable Nicolas Cage.
Cage is a notoriously divisive actor. When I'm asked my favorite actor, I always respond Nicolas Cage. The answer elicits either a knowing nod or a barely stifled laugh. Cage nowadays is mostly known as a highly meme-able actor: just look to his performance as a helpless detective in 2006's The Wicker Man remake.
Longlegs trailer
But Cage is also a deeply versatile actor. Recent years have showcased his ease moving between horror, comedy, drama and thrillers. Cage's acting style is best summed up by the man himself. His performances swing between what he calls Western Kabuki (Kabuki is an exaggerated and highly expressionistic form of Japanese theatre) and Western Haiku (Haiku is a gentle, meditative and allusive form of Japanese poetry).
Longlegs finds Cage deep in the Kabuki zone yet again, while some recent films have seen him move between the two with ease (Dream Scenario and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, for example). Here are five more underappreciated, underrated, or underdiscussed Cage performances to watch after Longlegs
Dark
The story of Paul Schrader's 2017 Dark is a messy one. Schrader and Cage worked together throughout 2014 on a film about a CIA agent (Cage) suffering from early-onset dementia. In October of that year, Schrader announced that the film’s distributors had taken the film from him, re-edited, scored, and mixed the film without his input. The film was released on video-on-demand services as Dying of the Light (2014) and was critically panned. It’s a shame, because Cage is wonderful in the film, excelling in a difficult role.
From I'm Making A Movie, a closer look at Paul Schrader's Dark/Dying of the Light
The flawed film was eventually re-edited by Schrader, who bought the DVD and resurrected his compromised film. The re-edit, now entitled Dark, was released through Pirate Bay and is available to watch through certain libraries. Even if you cannot track down a copy of Dark, The Dying of the Light is still worth watching for the performance at the heart of it. Cage portrays a man struggling against fate and his ailing mind with a real pathos, bringing gravity to what is (in its original release form, at least) an often-frustrating and jingoistic watch.
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
Werner Herzog's bizarre 2009 corrupt cop drama gives audiences Cage at his most unhinged. At one point, after a shootout set to the sound of discordant harmonicas, Cage’s character points to a corpse and says; "Shoot him again. His soul is still dancing." Cut to the dead man’s soul breakdancing around his own corpse.
Despite hallucinatory sequences like this, Cage keeps the film grounded with his performance as an incompetent and drug-addicted cop. It's amongst the most anxiety-inducing films of all time, alongside Uncut Gems and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. His wheedling, two-faced, and completely Kabuki-esque character is unforgettable.
Trailer for Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
Mandy
Panos Cosmatos' 2018 Mandy has Cage’s Red fighting demonic bikers, bad drug trips and the hippy folk cult leader from hell after the murder of his wife (the titular Mandy, played by Andrea Riseborough). Despite this summary, Cage is quite subtle in his performance here; beginning the film in domestic bliss with his wife. The film’s momentum picks up slowly, before transforming into a careening, howling descent to hallucinatory hell.
Highlights include Cage as a loving husband and a late-film chainsaw duel. The extreme contrast between the two is somehow bridged by Cage’s cohesive and powerful turn in Cosmatos’ masterpiece.
Pig
The 2021 debut from Michael Sarnoski (director of the current A Quiet Place: Day One), Pig is the story of the bond between a retired master chef (Cage) and his truffle-sniffing pig. When his porcine companion is abducted, the chef (named Robin) embarks on a desperate odyssey across Portland in search of the titular pig.
Trailer for Pig
Cage is at his most subdued (and Haiku-esque) in this film, bringing an unexpected gravitas to what could otherwise be a ridiculous film. The film seems, in its early stages, to promise a sort of John Wick-style violent catharsis. Instead, the film is a melancholic affair that makes the most of Cage's silence: this is a performance of glances, of silent grimaces, and small gestures.
The film is one of many to pair Cage with a younger actor (Alex Wolff here in Pig; the late Anton Yelchin in Dark, Robert Sheehan in Season of the Witch and Tye Sheridan in Joe). Cage makes for a convincing and commanding mentor, dragged down by the weight of his years. The best scene in the film is a tense confrontation between Robin and his old apprentice, played by David Knell. Cage's quiet command of the scene marks this as among the most impressive performances of the 2020s so far.
Bringing Out the Dead
This little-discussed Martin Scorsese film from 1999 is both the director and Cage's most underrated film. Here, Cage portrays a workaholic ambulance driver with a messiah complex. Written by Paul Schrader again, Cage’s paramedic is haunted by the ghosts of those he could not save, alongside the ruined bodies of those he could.
Trailer for Bringing Out the Dead
With a strong supporting cast including Patricia Arquette, John Goodman and the late Tom Sizemore (and a superb soundtrack), the New York of Bringing Out the Dead is filthier, angrier, and more dangerous than that of the same director’s Taxi Driver. Scorsese marries Cage’s nervous energy to a tight script (among Schrader’s most compelling character studies), creating a hazy and horrific portrait of the medical profession. Cage hallucinates, sleepwalks, and sprints sweatily through the film. Not only Cage’s most underrated performance, it is also comfortably Cage’s best (and probably Scorsese’s too).
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