In 1992, Abel Ferrara was at the peak of his artistic career: a privileged position where he basically suffered like he was in hell. With a jagged machete between his rotten teeth, the director of Bad Lieutenant fought his demons and addictions alike, while continuing to create the most violent images that 1990s cinema could muster. If in King of New York (1990) he had come to say that Scorsese and Coppola were softies, in Bad Lieutenant his exploration of the abyss would exceed any established moral limits. But none of this would have been possible without the complicity of a totemic, mythical, sacred Harvey Keitel, whom we see delirious and stark naked while the abyss continues to fuck him.
