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A Fresh Look At: Natural Born Killers (1994)

Face Off: Nicolas Cage’s 10 Best Performances

by Jakob Johnson on August 24, 2014

2. Leaving Las Vegas (1995) – Directed by Mike Figgis

Ben Sanderson, the down-on-his-luck, chubby, curly-headed alcoholic drifting around Las Vegas like a forgotten spirit, is the role that won Nicolas Cage his first and only Academy Award. As Sanderson, Cage embodies the ideas of dependency, obsession, and mournful lust. Elisabeth Shue, known best prior to “Leaving Las Vegas” as the female love interests from “The Karate Kid” and the “Back to the Future” films, plays a street-toughened prostitute named Sera who ends up in a poisonous, tragic relationship with Sanderson. Together, Cage and Shue shine on-screen as a couple who become as dependent on one another as they do with their own personal vices. However, between the two of them, it is still Cage who shines the brightest and his fearlessness in making Sanderson truly, unflinchingly pathetic is commendable. When one looks at Cage’s Sanderson, one sees a gray-skinned, cold-sweat-drenched, moments-from-collapsing, pathetic loser of an alcoholic wasting away in a desert city best known for debauchery. But Cage alone makes us care for Sanderson. Like Sera, we want to help Ben Sanderson; we want to cure him. But the inevitable truth is that neither Sera nor we can save Ben Sanderson from himself and Nicolas Cage drives that truth home time after time in “Leaving Las Vegas.” His displays of raw emotion come in passionate bursts, but they never feel artificial or disingenuous and Cage toes the line, lest he make a mockery of such serious subject matter. It is an Academy Award well earned and well deserved.

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(All Features), Features, Issue #17, Lists
AdaptationBringing Out the DeadFace/OffjoeLeaving Las VegasMatchstick MenNic Cagenicolas cageRaising ArizonaThe Bad LieutenantThe Weather ManWild At Heart
Adaptation, Bringing Out the Dead, Face/Off, joe, Leaving Las Vegas, Matchstick Men, Nic Cage, nicolas cage, Raising Arizona, The Bad Lieutenant, The Weather Man, Wild At Heart
About the Author
Jakob Johnson
Jakob Johnson
Jakob is a full-time student, full-time aspiring filmmaker, and part-time contributing member of society currently residing in the barren wasteland known as "Central Pennsylvania." On most days, you can find him hunched over a laptop—surrounded by a horde of cats—attempting to have a voice in the cinematic world.
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Becoming Self-Aware: 10 Meta Movies about Artistic Process

by Maximilien Luc Proctor on December 8, 2014
On the surface, movies general tend to focus all of their primary efforts on relating a narrative arc in a way that keeps viewers engaged – from academically-minded cinephiles to families that just want to be entertained in the dark for an hour or two. Surprisingly, films which make no direct reference to the act […]
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