Breaking Down Barriers with Nicolas Cage and PIG (Patreon)

There are two things that are deeply and equally true.

1) Nicolas Cage is an incredible actor.

2) He also sometimes makes buckwild choices.

Some of them aren’t even *that* wild, they just feel more out of place. To wit, there’s this great story that Willem Dafoe told about working on Shadow of the Vampire, which is 1) a good meta film about the making of Nosferatu where the “real” story is that John Malkovich’s character hired an ACTUAL dangerous vampire and he has to keep this under wraps from the crew. And 2) one of the first films Nicolas Cage actually produced. Now, I’ve been trying to google the clip of him telling the story and I can’t find it (has google gotten unusable or is it just me), but I remember it going like this: They’re pretty deep into pre-production and they’re having a read through meeting. And all of sudden Cage had this idea of like “wait, what if the vampire character was a huge movie fan? That would be so funny!” And suddenly he’s off imagining that version of the character (which, granted, I’m sure could play as funny or something). But aside from the fact that this would have been a pretty late game change, the real problem is that it’s one of those fun short-sighted changes that would nullify the entire core conflict of the movie. Because EVERYTHING that works in Shadow of the Vampire, comes from comedic tension of the fact that this director is trying to wrangle this very real ancient vampire into doing all this movie stuff. But if that character is suddenly gung ho about the filming then it… gets rid of all that baseline tension? I mean, where does that leave the conflict that drives the entire film? The truth is that this kind of thing is really important not just to storytelling choices, but the profession of acting. It’s “knowing what the assignment is” and being able to line it up with everything else happening in order to work in service of the story around you.

This is what’s always been the fascinating thing about Cage. He’s genuinely a great and passionate actor. Heck, even in his late redbox era, he always seems engaged and brings energy and truth to what he’s emoting on screen. Sure, sometimes it might be “big,” but it’s always earnest. So the real question of whether or not it works is just “how it fits” into the film around him. If the film is more subdued and straight-forward and he’s playing bigger, he’ll get accused of “over-acting.” But sometimes that high energy is exactly what helps a film achieve its equally operatic goals. I genuinely think his Face / Off performance is one of the best of all time (I really mean that). Likewise, we often applaud when Cage goes more restrained for a good drama or finds unexpected sweetness in a character (like the dad in Kick Ass), but that doesn’t always translate to automatic success (see aforementioned redbox era). But when it all lines up? When Cage’s performance choices are aligned with the director’s vision and more importantly, how the story is being told? Well, that’s when you get something special.

And boy howdy is Pig something special.

I genuinely can’t remember the last time I loved a debut feature as much as this? Probably Ducournau’s Raw? Anyway, Michael Sarnoski has done it and Cage is absolutely tremendous. He’s quiet, but not withholding. Intense, but not over-exerting. He’s someone so clearly wounded, yet you understand how humane every motivation of his behavior is. He’s just completely locked in. Which is important because the story is also constantly, but subtly playing with your expectations of what the film “is.” But it can only achieve that because both Cage and the filmmakers make every crystal clear right choice through its evolution, all en route to the incredible final series of scenes. Seriously, If you haven’t seen the film, spend the four bucks to rent it. It’s 90 minutes and it’s great. And I want you to see it because I have to get into detail as to why.

[spoilers from here on]

It sounds trite to call Pig a mOvIe aBoUt lOsS because it goes far beyond the simple conceit of Nicolas Cage’s truffle pig being taken from him. Because there's a myriad of ways it is about loss and the way it echoes through time. But more importantly to the success of this story, is about the way these threads of loss all come together through the central conflict. There’s the way the loss of said pig brings Cage’s character Rob back in touch with his own loss of his wife. Just as it brings young Amir back in touch with the loss of his mom, just as it brings Amir’s father back to the loss of her in turn. If anything, the titular Pig just reawakens their own personal trauma in such a stark and profound way, as if digging in and opening up all the wounds that never really healed. But the reason they never really healed was because all these men put barriers up all around them. Whether it was miles of forest land, or grand houses, or the desire to seek violence as a first resort. Anything but dealing with their pain. But all that while, the grander emotion lies just below - and then it comes bubbling up in a way that is so important to the film’s modus operandi.

Take its three part title card structure, where each names the dishes that are being made on screen. At first it reads like a bit of playfulness with the “Rustic Mushroom Tart,” but by the film's end you understand that each item is so loaded with personal meaning. Take the second act’s “Moms French Toast and Deconstructed Scallops,” which represent the two ends of the food spectrum. The first evokes tradition, simplicity, and a connection to the most loving personal subject. But the second? The deconstructed scallops are a food purely built to impress, to show that the chef has all sorts of talent and (whether he is even realizing it) proving he is finally impressive enough after having been fired by Rob in the past. But then comes Rob’s incredible speech in response to the dish, which I hope you’ll allow me to have a little aside about the food trend being discussed.

So one of the funniest parts of the scene to me is that “deconstructed” dishes are already passé, but I want to make an important point as to why. Because there was nothing wrong with molecular gastronomy in and of itself. In fact, it was so important to the development of world cuisine, but it originally came from a personal place. It rose to prominence with Ferran Adrià in the 2000’s because it was reflective of so much of his passion and playful personality. It was also a more ready-made extension of the cuisine of Spain and the tapas approach along with so much more rejection of French culinary tradition within that country. And in turn, it actually blasted apart a lot of long held cooking beliefs and dragged the food scene into the world of better science. The problem? It was so bold and amazing and inventive and fun that it became “the thing to copy” across the world of food. For every diligent and curious chef that the approach really suited (like Grant Achatz to Wylie Dufresne), there were many more pale imitators (often on Top Chef) who sought to dress up their food in endless artifice - AKA hide - instead of using it to reveal something more passionate and personal.

This is what the scene is really about. Which I only say because part of me is afraid it could read as “making fun of fancy food” in and of itself, but clearly Rob brings similar culinary talents. Which is why Rob goes past all that and right to the root of the chef’s passion. He’s saying “they’re not real” regarding critics and customers because their faint praise can disappear so quickly - and it’s crucial to know because it’s all about getting to the heart of what this guy really wanted (AKA an english pub). It’s not about this chef proving to Rob he’s talented. It’s about him caring about what’s really in his heart of hearts. Because “we don’t get a lot of things to really care about,” a beautiful line that gets to the notion is at the center of everything in this film. And by the time we get to part three’s “A Bottle, A Bird, and A Salted Baguette” we know they are not just food items. They are memories that can strike at our so-called “antagonist” like daggers; a solemn and powerful reminder of our deepest connection to food and the people we shared it with.

It’s so easy to get caught up in big, powerful speeches like this, but there’s so many little moments in the film that reveal greater depths. Like that early when Nic Cage tries to talk and takes him a second, so we realize that this is probably the first time he’s really tried to talk out loud in years. Or there’s that amazing moment when he goes to the fellow farmers and after being told to keep quiet by Amir, he says “they took my pig” and they immediately respond with urgency and fervor, letting the movie go off to the races. There’s also the way that Cage spends the entire movie with blood on his face and we even we are like “is anyone gonna bring this up?” But it just serves as set up to that amazing moment in the aforementioned fine dining scene where it breaks the tension with “I’m sorry do you need medical attention?” (Before Cage presses right on anyway). And then there’s the simplicity of how every shot evokes the overcast beauty of the Portland area and really captures what makes it so distinct.

Now, since I’ve spent a lot of time eating in Portland and given that I have one foot in the high-end food scene at large I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about the relative “accuracy of the movie” regarding that world. The truth is that the specialty goods market is indeed filled with some less than savory characters. In a world where factory farms feed most of the population, you therefore often have small-time farmers who specialize in high-quality items and produce - and in order to hit high end restaurants you often find all these weird middle-manager types. What makes Portland unique is that it is one of the few places in the country where you can find truffles. The only real “difference” in the film is that rather than having them going to stock Portland restaurants, the truffles of that quality are often going to Napa / San Fran / LA / and even back to east coast cities. Don’t get me wrong, Portland’s got a great restaurant scene and is of course gonna keep some of that stock for itself, but it’s all about the crowds that are going to pay X prices. You need someone who isn’t going to blink at paying a 100 dollar supplement to a 1000 dollar dinner (and much higher if they’re into high priced wine). That exists in the places I mentioned above. But dramatically it’s the right choice to keep that high pressure / high end world right within Portland so that it all works like a microcosm. And believe it or not, also within that world is the film’s seemingly weirdest aside.

Because I too had the moment where I was like, “wait is this going to be an underground fighting movie?” It may seem like such a detour but I adore it for a few reasons. The first is that while there may not be a fight club, there is absolutely the underbelly of restaurant workers and “after hours” culture that takes place when all other businesses are closed and thus involves all sorts of drugs, debauchery, or whatever else (you have to also understand restaurants can make good fronts from money laundering). But this particular choice is all about the metaphor of how these workers have to plaster smiles on themselves and then go into dark underground rooms to take out the aggression - and in turn it becomes the way for Rob to volunteer for his own beating at the hands of the industry he left behind. But what it also does in a dramatic sense is allows a playful way for the film to set up a genuine sense of malice. We need to believe in the dangerous and unseemly world that Amir’s dad traffics in. Because we really need that tension if the film's final catharsis is to mean anything at all.

Luckily, it means so much.

Because it turns out this film isn’t a John Wick clone at all - but instead a film that works by assuming it is. Because once that first act desire is established, then the story can start peeling back its layers and we see the articulation of all those aforementioned barriers. But always beneath them is the instinct of the character to connect. Sure, the father and son are so estranged that they literally can’t go on each other’s “turf.” But Darius is also a father who is so wounded that he literally won’t let his vegetative wife die and pass on. And Amir is a son who tells people she’s “dead,” but still speaks to her through the cracks of a shut doorway. Deep down, they want to release something they can’t. There’s a similar moment of heart that comes out when Rob reveals that he doesn’t need his pig to continue making a living, but instead has the most simple emotion guiding him. It’s “because I loved her.” He loves his beautiful pet. It’s as simple and honest as that. So as tall as their barriers are, these are people who were motivated by some loving core within them.

Which is why I started bawling the second I realized where it was going. For it turns out that Rob’s final attempt and finding reconciliation with the man who stole his pig is not to come in guns blazing. Instead, he’s armed only with dinner; a recreation of a night oh so long ago where Amir’s dad remembered a little corner of happiness. It all comes spilling out in turn… All of Darius’ bravado, all the threats to kill his pig were instead just masking an accident. The terrible people he hired... accidentally Rob’s pig. You see the regret on Darius’s face - the shame and understanding that he so needlessly hurt something - to know that everything he’s been doing has been so angry and fruitless - and it’s what allows you to see Rob finally breakdown and mourn in turn. This whole time they were keeping it in. But the thing all three of them were blocking out was vulnerability and in finally tearing down their walls - in connecting through food and memory and pain and love - they can finally stop hurting each other... God, I’m crying just thinking about it now. Especially because it is in that needed release that they can come back into the world with sober eyes for seemingly the first time in so long. With that understanding of how to put one foot in front of the other. In the end, Rob's ability to turn to Amir and “see ya Thursday,” is a testament to how we must all learn how to go on in the ruins of our former lives. And it is tantamount to the ability to sit in an empty room, where the other person is now gone and seemingly be at peace with the echoes of the past.

Cage doesn’t have to say a word in that moment. It’s all there. With a single glance and sob he evokes something so directly in sync with the complete narrative of what you’ve just seen. It’s a reminder that for all the fun memes, operatic performances, and oddball choices of his career - he probably understood what he was doing - that he was giving us unbridled joy in those moments, often in a film world that doesn’t let many others play that loose - and here, he knew exactly what he was doing, too. In a way that strikes down deep and harrows your soul. For that, for all of it, the man is a gift. One of our most eclectic and talented performers who, every few years, will absolutely remind us of why that’s so damn true. Because there’s always going to be those films where he shows his greatness. And this may be the greatest thing he’s ever done.

I can think of no higher compliment.

<3HULK