Go Go Tales (2007)

Director:

Abel Ferrara

Writer:

Abel Ferrara (writer)

Release Date:

20 June 2008 (Italy)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Plot:

A screwball comedy centered on a Manhattan go-go dancing club, where a financial struggle between the owner, his accountant and his silent partner brother threatens the business's future. |

Plot Keywords:

Stripper | Breasts | Nightclub Owner | Tits | Topless

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Willem Dafoe	...	Ray Ruby
Bob Hoskins	...	The Baron
Matthew Modine	...	Johnie Ruby
Asia Argento	...	Monroe
Riccardo Scamarcio	...	Doctor Steven
Sylvia Miles	...	Lilian Murray
Roy Dotrice	...	Jay
Joseph Cortese	...	Danny Cash (as Joe Cortese)
Burt Young	...	Murray
Stefania Rocca	...	Debby
Bianca Balti	...	Adrian
Shanyn Leigh	...	Dolle
Lou Doillon	...	Lola
Frankie Cee	...	Luigi
Pras	...	Sandman (as Pras Michel)
Sammy Pasha	...	Sam
Nicky Dee	...	Bobby B. (as Nicholas De Cegli)
Johnny Skreli	...	Junior
Anita Pallenberg	...	Sin
Alberto Mangiante	...	Big Don
Romina Power	...	Yolanda Vega
Anton Rodgers	...	Barfly
Justine Mattera	...	Sugar
Manuela Zero	...	Sophie
Sabina Began	...	Elektra
Selena Khoo	...	Leila
Chiara Picchi	...	Ally
Julie McNiven	...	Madison
Xhilda Lapardhaja	...	Salome
María Jurado	...	Goldie
Yuliya Mayarchuk	...	Tania
Aurora Giuliani	...	Kelly
Mara Adriani	...	Mara
Leila Virzì	...	Bonnie
Ray Schnitzer	...	Upstairs Barman
Elena Vaganova	...	Murray's Girl
Irina Vaganova	...	Murray's Girl
Andy Luotto	...	Stanley
Danny Quinn	...	Clark
Lal Nirmal	...	Asim
Singh Gurcharnjit	...	Zoom
Dominot	...	Mrs. Mime
Frank DeCurtis	...	DJ
Chen Jin Hang	...	Ling
Un Cho Sung	...	Mr. Yamamoto
Shi Yang	...	Medical Student
Jacopo Lo Faro	...	The Crab
Francis Pardeilhan	...	Wall Street broker
Jay Natelle	...	Wall street broker (as Jay Edward Natelle)
Francesco Serina	...	Wall street broker
Donato Antonio Lemmo	...	Wall street broker
Emanuele Carucci Viterbi	...	Wall street broker
Daniele De Martino	...	Wall street broker
Leslie Csuth	...	Wall Street Broker
Adrian McCourt	...	Wall Street broker
Alessandro Demcenko	...	Wall street broker
Daniel Baldock	...	Wall street broker
Marcus J. Cotterell	...	Wall street broker
Joseph Murray	...	Wall Street Broker
Neri Fiuzzi	...	Wall street broker

Directed by
Abel Ferrara

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Abel Ferrara		writer

Produced by
Enrico Coletti	....	executive producer
Massimo Cortesi	....	executive producer
Francesco Di Silvio	....	co-producer
Francesco Di Silvio	....	executive producer
Oriane Gay	....	associate producer
Paolo Lucidi	....	line producer

Original Music by
Francis Kuipers

Cinematography by
Fabio Cianchetti

Film Editing by
Fabio Nunziata

Casting by
Gillian Hawser

Production Design by
Frank DeCurtis

Art Direction by
Alessandro Troso		(art direction)

Set Decoration by
Corinna Ughi

Costume Design by
Gemma Mascagni

Makeup Department
Giancarlo Del Brocco	....	makeup artist
Giammarco Gaeta	....	hair stylist
Marco Perna	....	hair stylist
Aldo Signoretti	....	hair designer

Production Management
John Cesaroni	....	post-production supervisor (original version)
Costanza Coldagelli	....	production executive
Alessandro Manni	....	unit manager
Enrico Pini	....	unit production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Alessandra Balestra	....	second second assistant director
Federico Ferrario	....	assistant director
Alberto Mangiante	....	first assistant director
Barbara Pastrovich	....	second assistant director
Gianluigi Tarditi	....	assistant director

Art Department
Gabriele Ridolfi	....	property master

Sound Department
Paolo Amici	....	sound effects editor
Maurizio Argentieri	....	sound mixer
Antonio Barba	....	boom operator
Roberto Cappannelli	....	assistant re-recording mixer
Chris David	....	sound re-recording mixer
Silvia Moraes	....	sound editor
Vincenzo Nardi	....	boom operator
David Quadroli	....	sound effects editor
Fabrizio Quadroli	....	sound effects editor

Special Effects by
Maurizio Corridori	....	special effects technician

Visual Effects by
Bruno Albi Marini	....	visual effects supervisor
Stefano Camberini	....	digital intermediate editor

Camera and Electrical Department
Luigi Andrei	....	Steadicam operator
Luigi Andrei	....	camera operator
Alessio Bastianelli	....	first assistant camera: "a" camera
Giancarlo Checchi	....	electrician
Paolo Frasson	....	dolly grip
Claudio Frollano	....	gaffer
Gian Claudio Giacomini	....	first assistant camera: "b" camera
David Hausen	....	director of photography: second unit
Simone Lucchetti	....	electrician
Marcostavros Maggi	....	assistant camera: "a" camera
Paolo Marchetti	....	second assistant camera: "b" camera
Flaviano Ricci	....	key grip
Marco Sticchi	....	electrician
Giacomo Zampieri	....	additional video assist operator

Editorial Department
Natalie Cristiani	....	first assistant editor
Simone Fontana	....	digital intermediate editor
Christian Gazzi	....	digital color grading
Emily Greene	....	assistant editor
Irma Misantoni	....	post-production coordinator

Music Department
Fabio Colucci	....	musician
Marco Saitta	....	music editor

Other crew
Eleonora Baldwin	....	script supervisor
Daniele Esposito	....	production secretary
Jacopo Lo Faro	....	assistant: Mr. Ferrara
Daniela Macrillo	....	payroll clerk
Fabrice Mansouri	....	actors director
Aurelio Marino	....	cashier
Pacetti Priscilla	....	production coordinator

Production Companies

• Bellatrix
• De Negris Productions
• Go Go Tales
• Surreel

Distributors

• Cinema Without Frontiers (2008) (Russia) (theatrical)
• IFC Films (2008) (USA) (theatrical)

Special Effects

• Wonderlab (visual effects)

Other Companies

• Wilshire Stages, The  ADR recording facility

Runtime:

USA:96 min

Country:

Italy | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Italy:VM14 | Portugal:M/16

Filming Locations:

Cinecittà Studios, Cinecittà, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Company:

Bellatrix

Trivia:

Gary Oldman and then Robert Carlyle were originally set to star in the project.

More fun to talk about?

Here is a movie that Ferrara calls his "first intentional comedy." Its protagonist, Ray Ruby (Willem Dafoe), runs a joint where girls with other ambitions strip and dance around on a stage and lap-dance for a sparse crowd of men. He has a couple manager-bouncers, including Bob Hoskins. The shrill, dirty-mouthed landlady (Sylvia Miles) comes and sits at the bar blaspheming and demanding four months back rent and threatening to bring the marshals. The girls are constantly demanding to be paid. One of them is Asia Argento. Another one comes and declares that she's pregnant and Ray tries to talk her into continuing to perform. There's an Irish bookkeeper who has a file showing where all Ray's lotto tickets are stashed. He and Ray watch the drawing for an $18 million prize and they've got the winner—only they can't locate it. Then Ray's brother Johnny (Matthew Modine), a highly successful hairdresser, who bankrolls the joint, appears and announces he's going to pull the plug. Some young doctors come in who saved one of the guys with the Heimlich Maneuver, and they enjoy the girls—till one of them discovers his wife on the stage dirty dancing, and there's quite a fracas.

That's about it, really. This sounds like a stage play. It nearly all takes place indoors either in the club or Ray's office. However, it's not a play because it was shot at Cinecitta in Rome, where they built the set. a club with its own lighting that, as Abel Ferrara tells it, never had to close. And the shooting, which in part is a homage to Cassavetes' Killing of a Chinese Bookie, was done with a couple of DV cameras—with their capacity to go on and on and on shooting a scene—as well as some surveillance cameras to add in the occasional Super 8 effect—and with a very clear-cut screenplay but a great deal of leeway for improvisation. The cameramen were not at all neglectful of the nearly naked girls, whose work is constantly in evidence whenever the cameras are rolling in the club. All of which is unlike any play you're likely to see. The movement, the level of improvisation, the complexity of the set, are movie stuff. And the cast too is a movie cast, even if these actors all have good stage experience, notably Dafoe, who was present every day of the shoot and managed that as his character manages the club.

These are chaotic and grim and desperate circumstances, but they're handled with a sense of the absurd throughout: hence the "intentional comedy." Modine comes in with a pod of swept-forward, bleached hair and carrying a little dog. There's also a cabaret sequence when some of the girls perform their "art": one plays classical on an electric piano, a guy does a totally garbled recitation of Antony's funeral oration from Julius Caesar; another does a peculiar "magic" show; and so on. And Sylvia Miles' over-the-top shrillness sets a tone of ridiculous excess. Some of Dafoe's improvisations have an amusing sense of grasping desperation about them—especially when he confronts the suddenly pregnant dancer and even when he defends his club as if it were as important as life itself. Melodrama is replaced by intentional bathos.

Still, as was plain at the New York Film Festival press screening when Ferrara, Dafoe, Miles, and several others talked to FSLC director Richard Pena and answered questions from the audience, this is a movie that's probably more fun to talk about than to watch. Not in a New York Film Festival since King of New York, which started a great row at the time, Ferrara is a character whose biography is best read in his films and his explanations together. For Go Go Tales, his parents are John Cassavetes and Robert Altman, but there's something uniquely disreputable and hilarious about his version of their styles.