insanity works best when your starting point isn't Nic Cage.
Stephen King expressed a similar thought regarding Kubrick's The Shining. King always envisaged a 'normal guy' eventually unraveling to the point of being crazy and murderous, but that effect is sprung a bit early when Jack shows up on screen. Then, it's more a waiting game than a surprise.
Plot Hole - the most overused and least understood phrase at IMDb
Descent - or elevation? Perhaps the intention was to explore the outer reaches of human experience, in which case amplifying Nicolas Cage is a good idea. Standing on the shoulders of giants and all that.
shareDescent, as in, sinking down into a state of insanity, which seems a better fitting phrase than one involving a 'rising' into such a state.
As with the King reference, I still think it works best if you have someone that seems a lot more level and (I need a better word for this) non-twitchy to really accent the change taking place. Nic still tends to be seen as half-nuts to begin with. (Or at the very least, prone to being on the edge). When people see him, they often EXPECT some craziness.
Maybe? Maybe not?
IMDb: The Reason There Can Never Be Peace In The Middle East.
Why would anyone think Cage getting increasingly unhinged & looney was supposed to be some kind of surprise? And I´d probably rather call it ´ascent´ into madness.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
I don't really see the film as being a descent into insanity. (Unlike approximately half of Herzog's work.) To me, the ending implies that Cage goes through phases; if not bouts of insanity, than bouts of a complete loss of self control. We get the "one year later" thing, and see him return to normalcy, after his last bout almost kills him. But then, an unspecified amount of time later, we see him in a hotel room, and he's having a "bad day" - back to the drugs and corruption, it's assumed. I don't think he's actually insane in this movie. I think most of the stuff he does is the effect of the drugs.
For a true descent into insanity, see Signs of Life. It was Herzog's first feature film, and it's not the amateurish debut I was expecting. Very entertaining and very Herzog-ian.
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