Abel Ferrara

At 73 years old, Abel Ferrara has this physical status:

Abel Ferrara (born July 19, 1951) is an American filmmaker known for his provocative and often controversial content in his films, his use of neo-noir imagery, and gritty urban settings.

Ms.45 (1981), King of New York (1990), Bad Lieutenant (1992) and The Funeral (1996), among his best known films as a long-time independent filmmaker.

Early life

Ferrara was born in the Bronx of Italian and Irish descent. He was raised Catholic, which later influenced a large portion of his work. He moved to Peekskill, New York, where he began producing films at Rockland Community College when he was 8 years old. Later, he attended the film conservatory at SUNY Purchase, where he produced several short films.

Personal life

Ferrara is married to Cristina Chiriac, and they have a daughter, Anna. He was previously married to Nancy Ferrara. Endira and Lucy are two adopted children in Ferrara. Shanyn Leigh was also in a relationship.

Ferrara lives in Rome, Italy. Following the 9/11 attacks, he moved to Europe because it was much easier for him to find financing for his films.

Ferrara, a raised Catholic, began describing himself as a Buddhist in 2007. Ferrara replied when asked if he had converted.

Ferrara said in 2020 that Buddhism "is a hobby for me, not a faith."

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Career

Ferrara studied at the San Francisco Art Institute, and one of his instructors was Rosa von Praunheim, the country's most influential avant-garde director. Ferrara produced a number of short films in the early 1970s, including The Hold Up and Could This Be Love, when still in art school. Ferrara directed his first feature film, 9 Lives of a Wet Pussy, after being out of work after leaving film school in 1976. He used a pseudonym. "It's bad enough paying a guy $200 to fuck your girlfriend, then he can't get it up," he recalled when he was fucking his girlfriend on one scene to perform in a tense sex scene.

Ferrara's second feature film, The Driller Killer (1979), an urban slasher film about an artist (played by the director himself), who goes on a killing spree with a power drill, earned a cult following. The movie made it onto a list of "video nasties" created by moral crusaders that culminated in arrests under the Obscene Publications Act 1959 and the enactment of new legislation that required all video releases to appear before the British Board of Film Classification for rating.

Ms.45 (1981), a "rape revenge" film about a mute garment worker turned murderer, was the director's next film (Zot Tamerlis). It's been described by reviewers as "a provocative, disreputable film that is well worth seeing."

Ferrara was hired to direct Fear City in 1984, starring Melanie Griffith, Billy Dee Williams, Rae Dawn Chong, and Mara Conchita Alonso. When a young woman who work in a seedy Times Square strip joint murderer stalks and murders young people, a disgraced boxer portrayed by Tom Berenger uses his fighting skills to defeat the killer.

Ferrara appeared on two Michael Mann-produced television series, directing the two-hour pilot for Crime Story (aired September 18, 1986), starring Dennis Farina and two episodes of the television series Miami Vice.

Christopher Walken, the King of New York (1990), portrays Frank White, Laurence Fishburne, Wesley Snipes, David Caruso, and Giancarlo Esposito. Ferrara received mixed reviews, but the film was lauded for his strong sense of mood and style. "What Ferrara needs for his next film is a sound screenplay," critic Roger Ebert said.

Bad Lieutenant (1992) credits Ferrara and actress Zoz Garlis, who plays Lieutenant Freebase as the woman in the film's Lieutenant freebase heroine, as co-writers, but Tamerlis claimed she wrote it alone. Despite the movie's controversial content, critics lauded it. Bad Lieutenant received Spirit Awards for Best Director and Best Actor, and despite its controversial content, critics applauded it. It was one of Martin Scorsese's top ten films of the 1990s.

Ferrara was hired for two Hollywood studio films, Body Snatchers (1993), starring Keitel and Madonna for MGM; and Dangerous Game (1993), starring Keitel and Madonna.

Ferrara produced two well-received independent films in the mid-1990s: The Addiction (1995), photographed in black-and-white, portrays Lili Taylor as a philosophy student who succumbs to a vampire while researching the issue of evil and philosophical pedagogy, which was represented by the twentieth century's most violent events. Christopher Walken, Annabella Sciorra, Edie Falco, Kathryn Erbe, and Michael Imperioli appear in the film as well. Russell Simmons co-produced it.

The Funeral (1996), starring Walken, Sciorra, Chris Penn, Isabella Rossellini, Benicio del Toro, Vincent Gallo, and Gretchen Mol, was nominated for five Independent Spirit Awards, including Best Director.

Ferrara had an unforgettable interview with Conan O'Brien on October 23, 1996, shortly after the success of The Funeral. Ferrara was believed to be inebriated and struggling during the interview, often slurring and covering his face as well as waving around a cigarette. Ferrara was his "worst visitor ever," O'Brien would later say. Ferrara "ran away" and O'Brien told Ferrara's regular collaborator Willem Dafoe that he eventually did and drag him back to the set. "You did your best...and so did he," Dafoe told O'Brien.

He appeared in the omnibus television film Subway Stories after making The Blackout (1997) with Matthew Modine and Dennis Hopper. Ferrara began working on New Rose Hotel (1998), which brought him and Christopher Walken together.

Ferrara revived three years later with 'R Xmas (2001), which starred Drea de Matteo and Ice-T. He made commentaries for Driller Killer and King of New York and made Mary (2005), a religious-themed multi-plot film starring Juliette Binoche, Matthew Modine, Forest Whitaker, Heather Graham, Marion Cotillard, and Stefania Rocca. In 2005, Mary premiered at the Venice Film Festival for the first time. It dominated the awards ceremony, winning the Grand Jury Prize, SIGNIS Award, and two others. It was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Ferrara produced Go Go Tales, a comedy starring Modine, Bob Hoskins, and Willem Dafoe that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007, but it wasn't available in the United States until a special screening at the Anthology Film Archives in 2011.

Forest Whitaker and 50 Cents were supposed to appear in 2009, Jekyll and Hyde. In 2010, the film was shelved due to differences with Warner Bros.

At the 66th Venice International Film Festival in 2009, Napoli, Napoli, Napoli, Napoli, Napoli, Napoli premiered out of competition. The docudrama received little notice and poor reviews, but Werner Herzog's reboot Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans was selected for competition at the prestigious festival. Ferrara was quoted often on the Herzog film, "I wish these people die in hell."

Willem Dafoe and Shanyn Leigh appeared in September 2011 at the Venice International Film Festival for the 68th time.

Welcome to New York by Ferrara, a fictionalized version of the Dominique Strauss-Kahn sexual assault lawsuit starring Gérard Depardieu and Jacqueline Bisset, was released on demand in 2014. Willem Dafoe, the titular Italian director, appears in Ferrara's Pasolini (2014).

For the sixth time in a film, Siberia, Ferrara, and Dafoe collaborated. Ferrara and Chris Zois wrote the script, influenced by Carl Jung's The Red Book.

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