The one movie that disturbed Nicolas Cage: “I didn’t sleep for a couple of weeks”
Nicolas Cage has built a unique reputation as an actor by collaborating with emerging filmmakers on weird and whacky stories, working with directors like Osgood Perkins, Kristoffer Borgli, Michael Sarnoski and David Lynch.
After making a name for himself as the oddball of Hollywood, Cage prioritised projects that would challenge audiences and go against the status quo, playing an unconventional love interest in Moonstruck and the desperate screenwriter in Adaptation.
However, it seems that Cage has only expanded on these qualities in recent years, especially after his work with one director who has a knack for disturbing stories.
Mandy, directed by Panos Cosmatos in 2018, follows a strange couple living in a secluded forest whose lives are shattered by a macabre hippie cult that disrupts their peaceful existence. The film creates a generally demonic and unsettling mood, with a strange blend of violence, comedy and mysticism that adds to its bewildering nature. Cage stars in the lead role, capturing the nuances of someone plagued by grief and the need for revenge, showing this through unsettling displays of extreme emotion that feel wildly unpredictable and surprising.
The role captures the full spectrum of Cage’s dramatic power and feels as though it was the spark for his resurgence within his preferred genre of unhinged cinema. However, the actor revealed his motivations behind the project, describing how he was drawn in by an earlier film from the director called Beyond the Black Rainbow.
Beyond the Black Rainbow is a sci-fi horror film about a woman who tries to escape from a futuristic commune called the Arboria Institute. It marked Cosmatos’ feature debut, with Cage describing this as why he wanted to work with him, saying, “Firstly, Panos had a fantastic freshman effort with Beyond the Black Rainbow which I thought was unlike any movie I’ve ever seen. It disturbed me. The imagery in it was compelling and it really got into my psyche and I didn’t sleep for a couple of weeks. I thought that any filmmaker who could do that to my physiology was someone I should try and work with”.
It’s a nightmarish and dystopian story that feels very much inspired by fever dreams and body horror, with clear references to the work of David Cronenberg in its impressionistic feeling and slowly unravelling narrative. Through his bold colour palette and primal energy, Cosmatos creates a hypnotic and evocative piece of work that divided audiences upon its release, but given Cage’s own taste in the film, it is unsurprising that he was drawn to its surrealistic qualities.
Since 2018, Cage has continued to surprise audiences with his shocking slate of projects that merges futuristic worlds with the present, blending the line between fiction and reality in his surrealistic stories. After working with Cosmatos, Cage went on to star in Dream Scenario, Pig and Long Legs, cementing him as one of the most fascinating actors working today through his conviction to voicing dark characters and finding meaning through uncertainty and absurdism.
