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The Addiction
[Blu-ray 4K]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Arrow Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (7th December 2024). |
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The Film
 Golden Berlin Bear: (nominee) - Berlin International Film Festival, 1995 Independent Spirit Award (Best Feature): Denis Hann and Fernando Sulichin (nominee) and Best Female Lead: Lily Taylor (nominee) - Film Independent Spirit Awards, 1996 Critics Award: Abel Ferrara (winner) and Best Film: Abel Ferrara (nominee) - Mystfest, 1995 Best Film: Abel Ferrara (winner), Best Actress: Lily Taylor (winner), and Special Mention: Christopher Walken (winner) - Málaga International Week of Fantastic Cinema, 1997 Sant Jordi (Best Foreign Actress): Lily Taylor (winner) - Sant Jordi Awards, 1998 On her way home from class one night, philosophy student Kathleen Conklin (I Shot Andy Warhol's Lily Taylor) is assaulted by a woman in an evening dress (The Hand That Rocks The Cradle's Annabella Sciorra) who orders her to tell her to go away and she will not harm her. Too terror-stricken to do anything but beg for her life, Kathleen is bitten on the throat by the woman who calls her "collaborator" before disappearing into the darkness. Kathleen seeks medical attention for her wound but spends the next several days reopening it and her preoccupation has an effect on her studies, concerning both her advisor (Pulp Fiction's Paul Calderon) and best friend Jean (The Sopranos' Edie Falco). Kathleen develops a hunger that leads first to a heroin addiction and then to physically biting innocent strangers to whom she also gives the choice to resist, among them an anthropology student (Law & Order: Criminal Intent' Kathryn Erbe), a black hood (rapper Fredro Starr) who propositions her, and various junkies and passed-out derelicts on the street. Kathleen makes a mistake when she tries to prey on Peina (The Comfort of Strangers' Christopher Walken) who is actually an older vampire who has managed to adjust to his lifestyle and "blend in." Offended by Kathleen's take on his existence, Peina drains her to the point where she cannot even feed from herself, leaving her in a state of withdrawal with some books of philosophy on which to enrich herself. Kathleen, however, sees in them only a justification to continue with her lifestyle, finishing her nihilistic thesis and earning doctorate, after which she invites a select group of friends and faculty to her apartment for an after party bloodbath.  A black-and-white nineties indie vampire film, Nadja this is not; indeed, The Addiction is Abel Ferrara's more overtly-superntural take on the search for Christian redemption through suffering. Opening with a slideshow lecture on the American atrocities at My Lai during the Vietnam War, and referencing the Holocaust, Hiroshima, and other manmade massacres, the film questions the nature of evil and our whether our acquiescence out of weakness makes us collaborators in such acts (Erbe's traumatized reaction to her attack can be likened to the aftermath of a rape with Kathleen using her intellect to justify to herself first that her victims wanted it and then that it is there weakness that makes them deserving of being prey). Taylor's boyfriend at the time Michael Imperioli (Goodfellas) appears as a missionary able to resist her by principle and perhaps make he realize (or at least construe) that her existence is a defiance of the existence of a god who seems to cause or is absent from suffering on both personal and mass scale. Shot by longtime collaborator Ken Kelsch (Dangerous Game) with the scoring of Joe Delia (Bad Lieutenant) augmented by a rap/RnB soundtrack – the film was produced by record producer Russell Simmons – The Addiction's narrative offers up a gritty New York urban world of rap music, drug use, menace in the streets, and bloody attacks; however, the film's dialogue is not so much exposition as a series of dialogues exploring philosophical ideas as from the impenetrable to the relatable, sometimes deliberately making points reductive as characters' personal justifications for their actions. The finale is open-ended but, if taken on its surface value, how could it be indicative of redemption and recovery as Ferrara suggests rather than critical of religion-based recovery programs? One of the few overt horror films in Ferrara's oeuvre alongside The Driller Killer and his Body Snatchers remake, The Addiction was one of a number of nineties indie vampire art films alongside Jon Jacobs' shallow but stylish The Girl with the Hungry Eyes and Larry Fessenden's personal Habit that were overshadowed by the release of Michael Almereyda's aforementioned Nadja, a loose remake of Dracula's Daughter that had the cachet of being executive produced by David Lynch and starring Peter Fonda along with nineties Hal Hartley staples Elina Löwensohn and Martin Donavan and a hipper soundtrack (lightning did not strike twice with Almereyda's follow-up quirky adaptation of Bram Stoker's "The Jewel of the Seven Stars" The Eternal which also featured Walken). 
Video
Released theatrically by October Films – once an indie/world cinema mover and shaker who picked up such titles as Cherry Falls, The Celebration (Festen), and Cemetery Man (Dellamorte Dellamore) for US consumption – The Addiction was one of the few nineties Ferrara productions not to receive a DVD release stateside, possibly due to October being swallowed up by Polygram and then Universal and then merged with Gramercy Pictures into USA Films. With the exception of Germany's DVD edition, international DVD releases have all featured the same fullscreen master until Arrow's 2018 Blu-ray – also available in the U.K. – from a 2K restoration of a 4K scan. Arrow's 2160p24 HEVC 1.85:1 widescreen Dolby Vision/HDR10-compatible 4K UltraHD disc comes from a brand new 4K restoration, and it is a stunner. Whereas the SD DVD masters looked like black-and-white video, Arrow's Blu-ray looked more filmic with more evident grain and heightened detail that gave the locations back their grit along with making more evident Kathleen's sickly countenance. The Dolby Vision 4K presentation sports much deeper, truer blacks, making Sciorra's cocktail dress as inky as the shadows in the alley where she drags her victim. The whites which were compromised by the lesser colorspace of 1080p on the Blu-ray are much more authentic here whether it comes to interior or exterior practical light sources, deathly pale skin, or gauze bandages. Despite Ferrara's desire to remain gritty and improvisational, the photography evinces more apparent degrees of stylistic deliberation than the director seems comfortable about acknowledging in the extras.  Screen captures are from the 1080p Blu-ray for illustrative purposes.
Audio
The Dolby Stereo soundtrack is offered up in LPCM 2.0 as well as a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 remix that is in keeping with the intimate nature of the production, coming alive during the exterior scenes as well as the climactic party sequence. The music also lends the film a sense of warmth that at times seems tonally opposed to the mood, particularly the opening credits which suggest the film is going to be a more traditional Ferrara drama than a supernatural one. Optional English SDH subtitles are crucial in appreciating the philosophic dialogue.
Extras
Extras are identical to the Blu-ray edition starting with an audio commentary by director Abel Ferrara, moderated by critic and biographer Brad Stevens in which the director is quite contentious, downplaying any stylistic elaboration in the photography and production design in favor of "taking what's already there to the next level" noting only that his inspirations for shooting in black and white included Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire and Gordon Willis' work for Woody Allen, suggesting that Kelsch's cinematographic touches were more instinctual owing to his Vietnam War experience. He does speak highly of the onscreen performers (particularly Walken and Taylor). Stevens is at pains to draw out interpretation beyond what is on the surface for Ferrara who insists that the ending is not open to interpretation.  In "Talking with the Vampires" (30:55), Ferrara and cinematographer Kelsch interview and interact with Walken, Taylor, and composer Delia with their reflections on the shoot. Taylor looks back on her battles with alcoholism in comparison to Ferrara's with heroin (he claims he used but did not become addicted until later). Walken, who trained as a dancer, claims to just learn his lines rather than build character as he feels that a character is believable as scripted until someone or something in the script contradicts them. Most interesting is Kelsch's interjection when discussing the film's ideas about recovery and redemption, drawing from his own experience and suggesting that the addict themselves may be able to walk away on the other side of addiction but can hardly make amends for the victims they have turned onto the addiction (be it heroin or vampirism). An interview with director Abel Ferrara (16:19) covers some of the same ground as the commentary track but in a more freewheeling manner, going into more detail about his friendship since childhood with screenwriter Nicholas St. John – noting that many of their works were not collaborations, with the writer sending him scripts he was not even aware were in the works – as well as Kelsch who is behind the camera in the interview, before expounding on the notion of recovery, spiritual change, and the possibility of relapse when faced with the same challenge in the future. An appreciation by critic and biographer Brad Stevens (8:47) gives the critic the space to better discuss the manner in which Ferrara as a director seems to cast doubt and comment upon the Christian notions of St. John's script and the possibility that their differences of opinion on the ideas in the film may have been the reason that their collaboration would end after the next film The Funeral. "Abel edits The Addiction" (8:43) is an interesting archival piece from the time of production with Ferrara and editor Mayin Lo in the cutting room with the director half-distracted by events going on in the streets below but also watching edited sequences from the film on videotape, commenting upon the dialogue and the performances in an interactive manner that makes one yearn for a Driller Killer-esque follow-up with the director himself taking center stage. Also included is a gallery and the film's theatrical trailer (0:36). An easter egg provides an outtake from the Ferrara interview (6:16). 
Packaging
Not included for review were the reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Peter Strain, and the illustrated collector's booklet containing writing on the film by critic Michael Ewins included with the first pressing only.
Overall
Overshadowed by another black and white, quirky, indie vampire film - the David Lynch-presented Nadja - Abel Ferrara's The Addiction is more overtly superntural take on the search for Christian redemption through suffering.
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