Last Updated on March 16, 2024 by Michael Gingold
Editor's Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on March 23, 2012, and we're proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
In his 35-year career, director Abel Ferrara has explored everything from a driller killer and a female vigilante to body snatchers and an addiction to blood. In his latest film, 4:44 The Last Day on Earth, he tackles no less than the apocalypse itself—but in an intimate, rather than bombastic, manner. Fango spoke to this unique filmmaker about 4:44, what became of his take on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, etc.
4:44 posits that Al Gore was right: Global warming has doomed our planet, which will see its demise at 4:44 in the morning EST. The film’s focus is on New York City dwellers Cisco (Willem Dafoe) and his artist girlfriend Skye (Shanyn Leigh) as they spend their final night together, while the reactions of others to the impending catastrophe—from calm to suicidal—are seen in the margins.
You’ve engaged any number of genre subjects and dark themes in the past, but this is the first time you’ve taken on the end of the world. What inspired you to tackle that subject now?
I don’t know; maybe I’m getting old [laughs]. Maybe it’s 2012, and all the shit that’s happening—volcanoes that strand people all over f**kin’ Europe, an earthquake in Chile that almost actually puts the Earth off its axis…I guess there’s something in the air, you know what I mean?
What led you to tell the story through these particular characters?
Well, you know, Shanyn and I have been living together for seven years. So it’s like a love poem to her in one sense. But then, on the other hand, it’s basically a film about a relationship, and the trials and tribulations of two people making a commitment to each other, and really being in love, once they get past the veneer of it.
So is this autobiographical in any way?
Well, I’m a filmmaker—everything’s autobiographical, whether it’s consciously or subconsciously. Certain things are obviously more biographical, more real. It’s set in New York, with an older man and a younger woman. But, you know, every film we make is autobiographical, in terms of the soul.
Is Willem Dafoe playing you in any way, or is he a completely separate character?
Well, I mean, Willem’s Willem. [In this movie] Willem is him, Willem is me, Willem is Cisco, who is someplace between him and I, someplace beyond him and I.
Was any of 4:44 improvised, or was it all totally scripted?
It’s all scripted, and then we take the script… The screenplay is a starting point, it’s not an ending point. When you say improvisation—I mean, you can’t just make a film up as you go along. But which specific scenes were you talking about?
I was thinking in terms of the many intimate scenes, like the love scene early in the movie. How much of these were scripted, and how much was the actors responding to the emotion of the moment?
We were trying to get a certain kind of love scene. We’ve done love scenes, Willem has done love scenes in films—he and I have done ’em together, you know [laughs]? So this was about working toward the characters’ specific approach to it, so they could be as free as they could, they could get as emotional as they could. Because in the end, you have to physically film it; it has to be focused, it has to be lit, it has to work within the context of the location.
Did the actors contribute their own dialogue?
It starts off scripted; we begin there and rehearse. And when we get on set, we start going at it. I’m not just standing there making sure—I mean, directing’s not just making sure they say the words on the page. But directing’s also making sure you don’t leave something on the page, you know what I mean? You aim to get beyond the page.
There’s a certain amount of political subtext in the movie, in terms of what we see on the TV screens—the clips of Al Gore talking about global warming, etc. According to the movie, his theories are correct—were you attempting to make a political statement there?
Well, I made it, right? You got it [laughs]. It’s not so much that he’s right, though. [It has more to do with] the statement of the Dalai Lama, that as human beings we are not above nature, we’re not controlling nature; we’re part of nature. And we have to find our harmony, our place in nature, or we’re not gonna have any nature or any humanity left. And if anybody is egotistical enough… You know, they say if you don’t understand the past, if you don’t understand history, you’re doomed to relive it, right? People don’t realize or don’t want to realize or are too egotistical to realize that there were civilizations far more advanced than ours that disappeared off the face of the Earth because of that exact reason.
I’m also wondering if there’s a message in certain shots where, in the background, we see people in a gym working out, walking on the street and driving on the highway, not looking at all panicked even though the end of the world is coming.
Well, the thing about the film is, it’s not about the moment when everybody finds out the world is gonna end. That has happened already. So this is about what they call the stages of grief—you know, denial, anger, acceptance…
So those people in the background have accepted it, and are living out their lives as usual until the end comes?
Well, some do it that way, others do it another way; some people jump off the roof [laughs]. Other people are trying to get high, other people don’t want to get high, some people go to the gym to meet friends, or maybe that’s how they work out their anxiety, you know?
It is a slightly more optimistic view of New York City than in your early films, like Driller Killer and Ms. 45.
Well, we kill everybody on Earth. Is that optimistic [laughs]?
That’s true, but Driller Killer and Ms. 45 make New York look like a very dangerous place to live in terms of its inhabitants, whereas 4:44 is a little more optimistic about their behavior when there’s a greater force threatening everybody.
That’s the way New York is. In 1977, it was like Taxi Driver—I mean, New York was basically bankrupt. They couldn’t even pay the police. Now it’s the financial center of the world. Back then, New York was a much more dangerous place.
What’s happening with your new version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?
It’s not [laughs].
That’s a shame.
Yeah. They’ve never really told that story right [in a movie], because when one actor plays both those roles, you’re basically making a werewolf movie. The real story Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, which I was going to do in the modern day, is a father/son metaphor. It’s the story of an older, elegant doctor, very distinguished, and then he takes the potion and becomes this young, maniacal, murderous guy—kind of like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, almost. So Forest Whitaker was gonna play the doctor, and 50 Cent was gonna play Mr. Hyde.
Which is great casting.
Yeah, it would’ve been awesome. But I’m not really giving these things up. There’s a prequel to King of New York we just wrote the script for, possibly to do with Willem Dafoe. And we’re working on the Dominique Strauss-Kahn story, with Gerard Depardieu playing Strauss-Kahn and Isabelle Adjani playing his wife.
