Book to Film - LEAVING LAS VEGAS

Sunday 12 April, 2pm Leaving Las Vegas (Dir: Mike Figgis USA 1995 111 mins)

This deeply sad film based on the 1990 semi-autobiographical novel by John O'Brien stars Nicolas Cage and Elizabeth Shue. Their chemistry is profoundly moving.

The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, with Cage winning for Best Actor (also taking out the Golden Globe), while Shue earned a nomination for Best Actress, and Figgis, who was nominated for Best Director, went on to win for Best Adapted Screenplay.

The great Chicago reviewer Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars. The opening of his review states, ‘Oh, this movie is so sad! It is sad not because of the tragic lives of its characters, but because of their goodness and their charity.’ Ebert is correct. A brutal and at times violent movie about a drunk and a prostitute, Leaving Las Vegas transcends this to show how even damaged people can be kind and understanding to each other, and in this sense despite its darkness, the film says something positive about the human condition or as another reviewer stated: the film ‘… is not a love story, although it feels like one, but a story about two desperate people using love as a form of prayer and a last resort against their pain.’

O’Brien’s torment in his semi-autobiography is sadly underlined by his shooting suicide two weeks after selling to Mike Figgis the rights to the book.

Cage and Shue are transcendent in their performances. This is a classic film well worth revisiting.

The session will be presented by John Newman and Michael O’Rourke who will host a discussion after the screening. John O’Brien’s novel is available in paperback and Kindle.

Doors/Bar 1.00pm

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