Nicolas Cage is my shitty boyfriend. My friends can’t stand him. He is rarely good to me and the times he is are few and far between. But, those glimmers of goodness cause me to hold on to the unlikely chance that he is just going through a rough time and will get back to his former self eventually.
Nic Cage is the best actor of his generation. Simply by holding this opinion has caused me to be accosted, challenged and shamed by friends, strangers, and message boards. My response to all the criticism I receive is that of an angst-filled teenager justifying their shitty relationship: ‘You don’t know him like I do!’ ‘You’ve never gave him a chance!’ ‘I love him and nothing you say will change my mind!’ I know how I sound, but I just feel compelled to stand up for him, or at least my own good judgement.
Just to be clear, I’ve never met Nicolas Cage. I just think he’s so great and it’s crazy to me how people hate him. Most people seem to operate under the assumption that “Nicolas Cage is a bad actor” is some kind of universal truth. And it is not. He is just misunderstood—in fact, he’s probably the most misunderstood actor of a generation. I know. Teen angst. Bear with me.
I will concede that Cage makes almost exclusively terrible movies and that he seems like a weird guy in most interviews. HOWEVER. I don’t think either of those are valid reasons to write him off as an actor. Go ahead and hate his bad movies. Assume you wouldn’t be friends with him. But don’t dismiss him entirely until you hear me out.
Michael Jackson.
I think we can all agree that Michael Jackson was an amazing singer and artist. We can all acknowledge that while still recognizing that The Lost Children, Cry, and almost anything off Blood on the Dance Floor are awful. We also can say, for any number of reasons, that he was a pretty odd guy. Still, who in their right mind is going to say that he was a bad performer? No one. We are able to separate his odd, even terrible behaviour and his sub-par songs from his talent as an artist. We can acknowledge that someone with a great voice—like Mariah Carey—can sing a shitty song. But for some reason, people seem unable to do this mental work with an actor.
An actor and a singer perform a similar function within their own medium. Both are usually the central focus of the piece of art they are a part of, neither are responsible for the quality of material, but both carry a lot of the responsibility as to how well that material is presented. If the production and composition of a song are excellent but the singer is not, the song is not going to be as good as it can be. Likewise, you can have a great singer but if the production and composition are terrible the song will still be garbage. The same is true about acting. Jeff Bridges still starred in R.I.P.D. and The Seventh Son.
The response I get to this line of reasoning is that it’s not the performer’s talent that matters but their ratio. Someone like Michael Jackson’s ratio of good to bad work is way better than Nic Cage’s. He valued quality over quantity and just got it wrong sometimes, whereas the quality of material doesn’t seem to be a factor for Cage when deciding whether or not he will be a part of something.
However, I would say the ratio argument is irrelevant because it doesn’t speak to his talent but rather his taste (and I’m not here to argue about Nic Cage’s taste). The ratio argument is so relative because where do you draw the line? Daniel Day-Lewis is in almost exclusively good movies. Philip Seymour Hoffman’s ratio isn’t close behind. Meryl Streep has had quite a few crap movies and Robert Deniro and Al Pacino haven’t even batted .300 for the past two decades.
All that said, only the most unreasonable people would say any of those actors are anything but great, despite their ratios of good-to-bad being quite different. But for some reason, Nic Cage has crossed the line where his ratio actually calls his ability as an actor into question. We can all agree that Cage’s ratio is absolutely horrendous. However, when he is given a proper role in a good movie he does things that no other actor can do.
He’s like the Bob Dylan of acting. There are a lot of good actors that could give a good performance in the same role, but no one would think to do it the way Cage does it. It’s his unique style that makes him so great. Just as I think Robert Plant would make Blonde on Blonde worse if he replaced Dylan, I think Sean Penn would make any of Cage’s films worse. It’s not that Penn isn’t amazing; it’s just that Cage performs in such a way that you can’t envision any other actor in that part.
Who else has ever given two tour-de-force performances in one film the way Cage did in Adaptation? Being a drunk has never been more unappealing than when he played Ben, the depressed alcoholic in Leaving Las Vegas (which is one of the most brutal and amazing performances of the 90s). And, let’s be honest, Face/Off is awesome, and it’s awesome because of Nic Cage. Travolta is fine but it’s Cage’s film. So, who cares what he does with bad roles? When he has a good one, it’s as good as or better than what anyone else can do.
The reason I think Cage is so special is because he swings for the fences in every role he is given. He may take a ton of paycheque movies, but he never phones it in. There’s never a wink to the camera; he goes for it each and every time. That should be applauded, not criticized. Yes, he rarely connects, but he probably knows that—as does any batter who swings his hardest at every pitch. However, when he does connect we get stuff like Raising Arizona, Bad Lieutenant: Port of New Orleans, and Matchstick Men. I don’t think the guy should be hated for trying his hardest in a terrible movie. That just means he’s a good employee.
Cage is a hyper-actor; whatever role he is given he takes it to the most extreme place that role could go. You want crazy? Watch Bringing Out the Dead. You want obsessive? Throw Matchstick Men on. You want quirky? Raising Arizona will quirky your ass off. You want Travolta? Travolta has never been better than when Cage played him.[i]
There is a reason people keep hiring the guy. He has a talent not many have. He just chooses to use that talent in some seriously shitty films. All actors do; Cage just does it the most. I would probably star in the Left Behind remake too if I was offered a couple mil. Why he chooses what he chooses doesn’t affect how I view his performance ability. It just affects how often I see his movies.
Don’t get me wrong, I would love if Nic Cage stopped making so much crap and just went after good films. I just don’t think that will happen. But that doesn’t mean I am going write off every single thing the guy does. Because despite all of the crap he produces, that’s not what defines him. It’s those nuggets that aren’t shit but pure gold and the hope that he might have more gold in him that keeps me committed. That’s why I can’t break up with him. That’s why you just need to give him a chance.
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