nietzsche non sequitur: BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL and andrew niccol's LORD OF WAR

people forget that film is a collaborative media: inability to cooperate and rampant megalomania are the curse of many a filmmaker, from film school to the upper ranks of hollywood.

which brings us to FFT's monday thesis: the reason andrew niccol films are, shall we say, lacking is because he's a poor collaborator. OK, bear with me here—i know a lot of people already have disregarded niccol as a kubrick wannabe—can't have your cake (make dark films) and eat it too (make nic cage films!). for assistance, let's consult nietzsche's beyond good and evil:

• niccol, who's scripts are often retooled because of their dark endings, constantly has to compromise his original vision (the truman show, simone). one of my favourite beyond quotations, "The great epochs of our lives come when we gain the courage to rebaptize our evil as our best," is one that kubrick and herzog truly believe(d), but one that niccol does not embrace.
• niccol casts an actor in a leading role even though he's not correct for the part (lord of war). now, i doubt nietzsche went on-the-record in so far as cage, but FFT will chime in off-the-cuff and say that if you cast 'the cage,' you're an ass. cage has been killing otherwise proven directors since the early '90s; he's been in h.i. mcdonough mode since raising arizona—in lord of war, he's h.i. meets matchstick men meets the family man, and it doesn't work.
• niccol's ideas are co-opted by directors that don't understand his vision (spielberg, weir). can't blame him here, though he did produce spielberg's the terminal, and we all know nietzsche panned that one.
• niccol is so willing to appease hollywood that it leads to painstakingly bad moments in his films (e.g., so many scenes in simone that are uninteresting and trite—it's as if, to get his films made, he compromises his integrity and better judgment to appease the higher-ups). the nietzschean aphorism "who has not at some time or other sacrificed himself, in order to save his reputation?" is decidedly appropriate. simone's live-concert sequence stands out as one of the low points in the niccol canon, as does the jared leto character in his recent effort.

nic cage's yuri orlov in lord of war is not a likeable dude whatsoever—he's an international arms dealer, the worst of the worst. furthermore, he's superficial (trophy wife to boot), delusional and puts money above all (even family). the film is told via third-person omniscient voice-over narrative (cage serves as narrator) and documents orlov's rise and, well, flatline as an arms dealer. a lot of scenes in this film you've seen before in classics like goodfellas and even the recent syriana.

some of the funnier scenes in the film are unintentional and inadvertent: cage speaking spanish to a columbian arms dealer (wtf!), cage coked out in liberia banging a prostitute and yelling "sida" ('aids' in french)—these scenes are laughable because, in the context of an an assemblage of generic rise-and-fall story stereotypes, it isn't credible to have cage embody a cosmoplitan diaspora that wants to be perceived by the audience as likeable. the third-person narrative only exacerbates this problem.

the film has found its audience on dvd and currently is one of the top-five bestsellers. nietzsche wrote that "there are truths which are best recognized by mediocre intellects because they are most suited to them; there are truths which possess charm and seductive powers for mediocre spirits only ... it would be an error to consider highly developed superior and independent minds as especially capable for determining and collecting many small common facts, or prodding them into conclusions ... the chasm between knowing and being able to do is perhaps greater and more uncanny than one might think."

niccol may know about the corruption of the arms trade, but his film does not coalesce. hate to say it, bit skip it.

child soldiers in liberia, date unknown.