Nicolas Cage Received His Only Oscar for This Striking Drama With 91% on RT
If you have never seen a movie starring Сage before, then you should start your acquaintance with his filmography with this masterpiece.
The debut of the young Nicolas Cage was a cameo role in the comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Most of Cage's financially successful films have been in the action genre, but critics and viewers often pay attention to Nicolas' brilliant dramatic abilities.
Four years ago, for example, the touching drama Pig was released, which received a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and was recognized as one of the actors' most striking performances.
But Cage's best role happened back 30 years ago – Cage won his only Oscar for the drama Leaving Las Vegas, released in 1995.
What Is Leaving Las Vegas About?
Unsuccessful screenwriter Ben Sanderson is fired and goes on a rampage in noisy Las Vegas. He meets sex worker Sera and falls in love with her after a night together.
But the relationship between the two is constantly threatened: Ben descends into alcohol and self-destruction, and his new lover saves him. Although he has long since chosen a vicious path and resigned himself to the all-consuming darkness of life.
Leaving Las Vegas Is Based on a Heartbreaking Semi-Autobiographical Story
The film is based on the book of the same name by John O'Brien, an alcoholic who shot himself in his Beverly Hills home on April 10, 1994, just two weeks after filming began.
His novel, published in 1990, is a semi-autobiographical confession of a man who pours out all his mental pain on paper.
Nicolas Cage Went to Extreme Lengths to Play an Alcoholic in a Realistic Way
Leaving Las Vegas is a cult film by Mike Figgis, for which Nicolas Cage won an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a SAG Award. And rightly so: this is a true act of mental exhibitionism.
Cage gives the most genuine fear and loathing in Las Vegas, playing to the limit. How do you play a binge drinker believably? It seems easy. Even a non-professional can do it if he knows at least one such person.
However, Nicolas Cage wanted to play his role not well, but perfectly. So he used himself as a prototype. For two weeks, the actor drank non-stop, and one of his friends filmed him. Later, Nicolas used this footage as a template for the image of a binge drinker. He also visited specialized clinics and asked about the lives of those being treated for alcoholism.
The result is one of the most graphic and heart-wrenching performances about the impossibility of stopping the process of self-destruction.