Bad Lieutenant - injection scene discourse

Bad Lt. Productions 1992

This is from a movie infamous even in the context of it's time, the Heroin Chic era (early-mid 90s).

In a grimy, pre-gentrified New York, Harvey Keitel is most convincing as a homicide detective careening through a spiritual crisis. Fuelled by hard drugs and alcohol, he's propelled towards annihilation by doubling-up losing bets with mob bookies.

Baseball pools, voyeurism, cocaine dealing and vodka blackouts absorb most of his time, but the rape of a nun in church gets his attention. A notion of redemption by revenge, plus a reward for solving the case lead him to give a shit for a minute.

As relief from torment, he visits a sympathetic space-cadet to do heroin. Initially they smoke off foil, chasing the dragon. But as the Lieut unravels from crack-paranoia and stress, he yields to the needle.

Zoe Lund is the smack-buddy. A real-life aficionado of opiates, she died subsequently from drug use. In the heroin-shooting sequence, the make-up covering her tracks is just visible. The official story is that they injected water for that scene, but come on. Draw your own conclusions...

The director Abel Ferrara is an artist who walked it as well as he talked it. Perhaps that's why he didn't do much interesting work after the awesome 3 or 4 movies of 1990 – 95. In my opinion anyway...and I can't say I got much done after then either. For much the same reasons, probably...

The man's genius is clear in the above still-pic. Firstly, the lighting is reminiscent of medieval painting, particularly Caravaggio. Gloom with salient highlights. For instance, the white triangle of Keitel's vest centres the shot. Complemented by the tourniquet and swabs. Lund's lustrous black-banded copper hair contrasts with his rich, satiny dark shirt.

The shirt is drapey and rumpled; by now this guy is almost done, unbuttoned, slope-shouldered and slumped. His hair says it all. When smoking with Zoe previously, he combed his hair back often, a kind of coke-tic. Now it hangs tousled, as he sits in abject surrender waiting for oblivion. Face contorted with anguish and anticipation, maybe also some horror and wonder.

Viewed again, it almost looks like he's about to climax. On this theme, she kneels near his lap as though doing fellatio. A few frames later, once the dope hits he wilts with face slack and sated, while she glances up to confirm his satisfied pleasure.

The background wallpaper has a vertical pattern, like bars. The Lieutenant is backed into the corner of a cage. Note the 'medical' theme on the right. A stainless steel table, the clear glass of water for the patient, the cotton and sterile swabs. Zoe is the noir-nurse, administering the dose gently but surely. Manicured nails glinting on the blood-filled syringe.

In the earlier smoking scene, she's a ditzy drug-bunny. Now the cop is truly damned, she's revealed as the knowing handmaiden of destruction. A priestess administering the rights and rituals of the Netherworld, talking of vampires feeding on themselves.

Here's the thing: Harvey Keitel, then a red-hot A-list actor, let a junkie shoot him up. Even if it was just water. He believed in the project and went all in.

Is there a more poignant, evocative and realistic shooting-up scene anywhere in major cinema? Fuck Pulp Fiction, Trainspotting and Requiem For A Dream. Pop-video consumer-fetish aesthetics. Don't get me wrong, the latter two were excellent books. But Mr Ferrara was the narrator-stylist whose heart was truly in the dark-side glamour of drugs, crime and the long walk up Calvary Hill.