Abel Ferrara

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

In the United Kingdom, the movie made it on a list of "video nasties" created by moral crusaders that led to prosecutions under the Obscene Publications Act 1959 and to the passing of new legislation which forced all video releases to appear before the British Board of Film Classification for rating.

In the early 1970s, while still in art school, Ferrara directed a number of independently produced short films which included The Hold Up and Could This Be Love.

Finding himself out of work after leaving film school in 1976, Ferrara directed his first feature film which was a pornographic film titled, 9 Lives of a Wet Pussy, using a pseudonym.

Starring with his then-girlfriend, he recalled having to step in front of the camera for one scene to perform in a hardcore sex scene: "It's bad enough paying a guy $200 to fuck your girlfriend, then he can't get it up."

A long-time independent filmmaker, some of his best known movies include the New York-set, gritty crime thrillers The Driller Killer (1979), Ms .45 (1981), King of New York (1990), Bad Lieutenant (1992) and The Funeral (1996), chronicling violent crime in urban settings with spiritual overtones.

Ferrara first drew a cult following with his second feature film, an exploitation movie titled 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.

The director's next feature was Ms .45 (1981), a "rape revenge" movie about a mute garment worker turned murderer (Zoë Tamerlis).

Reviewers called it "a provocative, disreputable movie, well worth seeing."

In 1984, Ferrara was hired to direct Fear City, starring Melanie Griffith, Billy Dee Williams, Rae Dawn Chong and María Conchita Alonso.

When a "kung fu slasher" stalks and murders young women who work in a seedy Times Square strip club, a disgraced boxer portrayed by Tom Berenger uses his fighting skills to defeat the killer.

Ferrara worked 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 series Miami Vice.

King of New York (1990) stars Christopher Walken as gangster Frank White, Laurence Fishburne, Wesley Snipes, David Caruso and Giancarlo Esposito.

The movie received overall mixed reviews, but Ferrara was praised for his strong command of mood and style.

Critic Roger Ebert wrote, "What Ferrara needs for his next film is a sound screenplay."

Director Martin Scorsese named it one of his top 10 films of the 1990s.

In the mid-1990s Ferrara directed two well-received independent movies:

Bad Lieutenant (1992) credits Ferrara and actress Zoë Tamerlis, who plays the woman who helps the Lieutenant freebase heroin in the movie, as co-writers of the script, but Tamerlis claimed that she wrote it alone.

Bad Lieutenant received Spirit Awards nominations for Best Director and Best Actor, and despite its controversial content, the movie was lauded by critics.

Ferrara also worked in a wide array of genres, including the sci-fi remake Body Snatchers (1993), cyberpunk thriller New Rose Hotel (1998), the religious drama Mary (2005), the black comedy Go Go Tales (2007), and the biopic Pasolini (2014), as well as in several documentary filmmaking projects.

Ferrara was born in the Bronx of Italian and Irish descent.

He was raised Catholic, which subsequently influenced much of his work.

At 8 years old, he moved to Peekskill in Westchester County, New York and he started making movies at Rockland Community College.

Later, he attended the film conservatory at SUNY Purchase, where he directed several short films.

Ferrara studied at the San Francisco Art Institute; one of his teachers and influences there was the famous avant-garde director Rosa von Praunheim.

In 1993, Ferrara was hired for two Hollywood studio movies: another remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, titled Body Snatchers (1993), for Warner Bros.; and Dangerous Game (1993), starring Keitel and Madonna, for MGM.

The Addiction (1995), photographed in black-and-white, stars Lili Taylor as a philosophy student who succumbs to a vampire as she studies the problem of evil and philosophical pedagogy, represented by the most violent events of the 20th century.

The movie also features Christopher Walken, Annabella Sciorra, Edie Falco, Kathryn Erbe and Michael Imperioli.

It was co-produced by Russell Simmons.

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.

Following the success of The Funeral, Ferrara had an infamous interview with Conan O'Brien on October 23, 1996.

Ferrara was believed to be intoxicated and struggled through the interview, often slurring and covering his face as well as waving around a cigarette.

O'Brien would later state that Ferrara was his "worst guest ever".

Eventually, O'Brien revealed to Ferrara's frequent collaborator Willem Dafoe that Ferrara "ran away" and that the segment producer had to "run down the street" to catch him and bring him back to the set.

Dafoe said to O'Brien, "You did your best...and so did he!"

After making The Blackout (1997) with Matthew Modine and Dennis Hopper, he contributed to the omnibus television movie Subway Stories.

Ferrara then made New Rose Hotel (1998), which reunited him with Christopher Walken.

Ferrara returned three years later with 'R Xmas (2001), which starred Drea de Matteo and Ice-T.

He recorded commentaries for Driller Killer and King of New York and made Mary (2005), a religious-themed multi-plot movie starring Juliette Binoche, Matthew Modine, Forest Whitaker, Heather Graham, Marion Cotillard, and Stefania Rocca.

Mary premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2005.