Sphaera: Edition #1

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By Eric Kohn

For decades, Abel Ferrara has been known as the definitive chronicler of New York’s grimiest interiors – an impish, loudmouthed auteur whose movies hover in street smarts and apply them to disturbing ends. From Bad Lieutenant to The King of New York and The Funeral, Ferrara gives Martin Scorsese a run for his money as the foremost Irish-American auteur willing to turn Catholic guilt into a catalyst for violence and other suffering.

Life can be funny sometimes. These days, Ferrara might be closer to America’s consciousness abroad. After he cleaned up his act and fled the country around 20 years ago, Ferrara found new stability in Rome, where he has been churning out acerbic and profound movies on his own terms without the constraints of the system. With intimate character studies like the personal Tommaso and the abstract thriller Zeroes and Ones, Ferrara has entered a phase in recent years that foregrounds his artistry without even the slightest indication of external control. That’s certainly the case with 2025 release Turn in the Wound, a fascinating documentary essay stitched together from two disparate projects: an unfinished portrait of Patty Smith and a trip to Ukraine a few months after the start of the Russian invasion.

At the age of 73, Ferrara is more charged with cinematic ambition than ever, chasing projects with a freewheeling attitude not unlike his no-nonsense mode of address. He spoke to Sphaera from his house in Rome.

Turn in the Wound was the result of two separate projects. When did you realize that you were making a documentary about Patty Smith and Ukraine?

We were shooting the Patty thing. I’d met her. We kept it loose, said we’d shoot some stuff. Did some stuff at a recording studio, a rehearsal in Rome. Then she did a performance in Paris. We’d work on that in the morning and would be editing the stuff on the Ukraine in the afternoon. We were approaching them as two separate entities, but the images were playing in my mind and the ideas were crossing. Leo, my editor, said we should try putting them together. I thought it was ridiculous, but then when we started doing it, I realized it was as much a documentary on her as it was on Ukraine. They were both part of my life and what I was doing.

Your films have always been steeped in social commentary. When did you first realize that you wanted to inject a political consciousness into your work?

I’m a political animal. I studied political science. That was my major at university, not filmmaking. That was where my love for Pasolini, Godard, and The Battle of Algiers became the ultimate for me. You dig? Filmmaking was an extension of a political bent. I grew up in the 1960s so I was a radical at the age of 16, 17. It was Malcolm X, Bobby Kennedy, the whole deal. I was a war protestor. I went to university basically to stay out of the draft and then the draft became a lottery. One day, they just threw 365 dates in the basket and pulled them out one at a time. If you got 1-25, you were gone. I got some outrageous number, like 317. This was probably 1971 or so. But when Nixon won in 1972, he won by a real landslide – what Trump thinks he won by. And when I saw the whole fucking country voted for that motherfucker, for Nixon, I said, “Fuck politics.”

Ever wonder what might have happened if you had been drafted?

I’d have been dead before I even got there.

Not in Canada?

I was a kid. I didn’t have that kind of confidence. We were the poor guys who drafted. I was from a fucking blue collar town. My uncles fought in WWII. Going to Canada was like saying goodbye. Those guys that did that in ‘68, ‘69 were making a decision to leave their families and everything you know forever. That’s the way I thought about it. There were the guys that went down to the examinations and pulled off that they were insane. I didn’t have that kind of confidence, either. I was just a dopey kid. I would’ve gone down there, done whatever they told me to, and go wherever the fuck they wanted to go. If I was going to survive, it would’ve been a miracle. A certain percentage of my peers fought that war on the frontlines minute by minute. I wasn’t a draft dodger; I was a war protestor.

How does that square with where you find yourself these days on the political spectrum?

I’m a Bernie guy, basically. He’s the only one speaking with the position that I feel, which is that there’s a working class, and I’m in it. Whatever I achieve financially or how international my life becomes, I’m from a working class family. Living in the Bronx felt like a small town, not like living in fucking New York. Because New York is where rich people live.

A lot of the filmmakers who broke out alongside you in the 1970s – Spielberg, Lucas, De Palma – found huge commercial success. Your path into the studios was a bit more gradual, but what appeal did you see in that opportunity?

If Cassavetes or Battle of Algiers are the ultimate for you, you know…I wasn’t the kind of guy who was going to sit here and just do it. Yeah, I made studio films and busted the door down, but it ended up destroying me.

You’re still here!

Yeah, well, I wised up and got sober. I didn’t just have a bad addiction problem, either. I had a bad attitude towards life in general.

Hollywood did that to you?

I’m not blaming them. But guys like James Cameron could go from making exploitation films to Avatar, which is fantastic in certain ways, but that wasn’t me.

Were you conflicted by making studio movies?

I have to tell you, for an independent filmmaker like me, when you watch a movie like Dangerous Game and that lion comes on roaring – that MGM logo – that is cool as shit. The filmmakers I loved also worked there. Plus, there was money. The money aspect of it is monstrous. It can really turn you. You go for the money, you get a big crew, and how many mothers, wives, kids are being supported by your work? It’s all there for the asking. You try to keep your integrity within it, but the money really helps.

You mentioned Godard earlier. In his later years, Godard was getting even more radical, making experimental films that challenged every aspect of the commercial market. You seem to be working in that zone now. When did you start to give up on making a lot of money off your work?

But that’s how I started. It was almost like everything after Driller Killer was downhill. The world could’ve come to us. We could’ve stayed in that zone. Willem [Dafoe] and his guys started in that garage downtown with the Wooster Group and they’re famous. We didn’t have to go traipsing off to L.A. and Hollywood. But I don’t know. Something drove me. Being an American filmmaker, you’ve gotta taste it, you’ve gotta experience.

By the Nineties, you were finding your way back to the independent arena. I think a lot about The Addiction, which you made 30 years ago. That’s a profound movie that still feels fresh. What do you make of the way your work resonates years later?

Nicky wrote a brilliant script. We came back from Dangerous Game and I wanted to make The Addiction, but nobody else did, so we figured out how to make it for almost nothing – $500,000, which is low-end even now. Russell Simmons came through with the money for that single handedly, and got some money from Anthony Blinken, who later worked for Biden. Now, Dangerous Game was a Hollywood film with Madonna and all that. But it wasn’t in my DNA to sell out. It’s a bitch. It takes a lot out of you. The Addiction works because of Nicky’s script and Lili Taylor’s understanding of it for her performance. It’s the same way Zoe Lund was with Ms. 45 or Harvey Keitel was with Bad Lieutenant. 

You were quite upset when Werner Herzog directed Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. How do you feel about that now?

I got over it. Herzog gave it to me straight. He didn’t know about my film. With producer Ed Pressman, listen, he did a lot of good things for us. Number one, he helped my film get made. He did a lot of sketchy things, too. I’m no better, you know? I’m not going to call him out on it. It is what it is.

How about this new one in production, Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo?

Fine, they’re in Japan. Ed’s son, Sam Pressman, is helping me do something. It’s OK.

Do you feel more liberated as a filmmaker now?

My career goes from one crazy thing to another. One minute I’m directing Miami Vice, the next I’m directing King of New York with a lot of money. I felt totally free to shoot that movie. Berlusconi gave us money from Italy. It cost $5 million. I go from one extreme situation to another, working all kinds of crazy angles.

How does the chaos and unpredictability of filmmaking set you up for putting yourself in literal danger, as you did by going to Ukraine during the war?

A lot of ideas are flying around with a lot of moving parts. With Ukraine, I’m in Rome, so it felt close to me, and I also know the guys running the country. That’s the joke of it. Zelenskyy’s a film producer and an actor. I knew his guys 10 years before at crazy film festivals. When I approached them, they helped bring us out. They quote-unquote “guaranteed” our safety, not like you can do that during war. But I wasn’t going into the frontlines. It’s a lot more dangerous than shooting at the Piazza Vitorrio. Maybe not as dangerous as shooting in the Lower East Side in 1989. [laughs] I wanted to do it, you know?

This is a very different moment for activism in the form of creativity. Where do you see the opportunity to affect change through filmmaking?

Film can change the world. You know?

Tell me how!

In times like these, you don’t have an oppressive society, you’ve got a monster. Instead of Cookie Monster, you’ve got Chaos Monster, working overtime to create a totally insane environment that absolutely throws everything up for grabs. You’ve got a world where you can connect to anybody. From the Hawk Tuah girl to whomever, the capability of where an image can be seen around the whole fucking world makes everything up for grabs. It’s like everybody’s famous for 15 seconds now. You have to make that 15 seconds count. It’s the images, man. If you put the right images together then you’re speaking to the whole world. Music still has a nationalistic bent to it. But if you shoot movies right, you’re speaking the language of the entire planet.

Some of your most acclaimed movies would be much harder to make today.

Yeah, but that always happens. There was a great period where the Italians had a filmmaking renaissance. That went away. Then it was in Germany. Then the New Wave in France. In the early 90s, New York was it. The financing was there, the producers were there, the writing about it was there. It was a great period. Then it stopped. As a filmmaker, it doesn’t matter. You had this wonderful period where the American banks were cool, the theaters were cool, everything’s cool. But as a filmmaker you’ve got to be able to survive even when it’s not cool.

Where are movies heading in relation to other art forms?

Storytelling’s not going anywhere. It’s been there since the writings on the cave wall. Somebody kills the animal, somebody else cooks it, and at the end of it, somebody’s telling a story. When I fly in an airplane, I stand in the back of that cabin, and everybody who’s not sleeping is glued to the fucking screen. Nobody’s reading or talking. They’re watching something. How it’s transmitted – through your phones or your glasses or whatever the reality is – the medium is constantly changing. Movies used to be a few minutes long when they first started. Then these dudes took it to the coast. Then they became longer. They were silent, and they started talking, then they came on TV, then the Internet. But the essence of using images to convey emotions from one human being to another, that’s not going anywhere.

You have a young daughter. What kind of world do you think she will grow up in?

She’s got her own god, and I’m not it. That’s what I’ve got to cling to. She’s got to move forward. This is the home stretch for me, bro, and she’s only 10. Thankfully, I can provide her with a roof over her head, food, school, a math teacher, she plays the harp. I’m an optimist. You’re either living for life and family or you’re living for death. Are we on the verge of a nuclear meltdown? No shit, with the guys running our country and the guys running some of these other places. But I’m not thinking negatively like that.

Part of that must be the spiritual dimension to your life.

I’m a Buddhist, man. A spiritual life is the only way to go. I’m also living in Rome, I was raised Catholic, so I’ve got the whole Jesus Christ thing. I shot a movie in Jerusalem, which really gave me a perspective on Jesus and who he was. But we make our own reality. I don’t believe in faith. I believe in causes and conditions. We’ve got three things going for us: our minds, our words, and our actions. You’ve got to dig that you’re part of the fucking world and the people in it. That’s my philosophy.

Each edition of Sphaera alternates between a story or interview from a respected journalist drawn from the worlds of art, film, fashion, photography, publishing, music or design and a handpicked Artist curating his/her Artist Selects to spotlight peers, legends, and up and comers.