'It all happens here:' Locating Salvation
in Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant

by Simon J. Taylor

NOTES
 

1. One report suggests that this scene was filmed surreptitiously, so that what we see on the screen is real people reacting to the death.  See http://mondofausto.com/interview-abelferrara.htm

2. Hebrews 6: 6.

3. Kent Jones describes Ferrara as a 'great realist of modern cinema' (Kent Jones, 'Abel Ferrara.  The Man - Who Cares', www.hardpress.com/newhp/lingo/authors/ferrara.html).

4. Cited in Nick Johnstone, Abel Ferrara: The King of New York  (London: Omnibus, 1999), p. 19.

5. Peter Hasenberg, "Pain and Redemption: Images of Christ in the Films of Abel Ferrara", in Gerhard Larcher, Franz Grabner and Christian Wessely (eds), Visible Violence: Sichtbare und verschleiert Gewalt im Film (Münster: Lit Verlag, 1998), pp. 59-76.  Quotation from p. 64.

6. Rowan Williams, Resurrection: Interpreting the Easter Gospel (London: DLT, 1982), p. 48.

8. Tim Robbins' film Dead Man Walking has a much richer account of salvation for both the dead and the living within the narrative of that film.  See Simon J. Taylor, " 'A Searching Experience': Salvation in the film Dead Man Walking and R. C. Moberly," Theology 101 (1998), pp. 104-111.  My thanks to Jacky Humphreys for her comments on earlier drafts of the present essay.