Age of Cage
Four Decades of Hollywood Through One Singular Career
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4.3 • 4 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
An NPR "Books We Love" 2022
“Age of Cage might be the closest we will get to understanding the singular beauty of each of Nic Cage’s always electric performances. You are holding the Rosetta Stone for Cage. Enjoy it.”
—Paul Scheer, actor, writer and host of the How Did This Get Made? and Unspooled podcasts
Icon. Celebrity. Artist. Madman. Genius.
Nicolas Cage is many things, but love him, or laugh at him, there's no denying two things: you’ve seen one of his many films, and you certainly know his name. But who is he, really, and why has his career endured for over forty years, with more than a hundred films, and birthed a million memes?
Age of Cage is a smart, beguiling book about the films of Nicolas Cage and the actor himself, as well as a sharp-eyed examination of the changes that have taken place in Hollywood over the course of his career. Critic and journalist Keith Phipps draws a portrait of the enigmatic icon by looking at—what else?—Cage’s expansive filmography.
As Phipps delights in charting Cage’s films, Age of Cage also chronicles the transformation of film, as Cage’s journey takes him through the world of 1980s comedies (Valley Girl, Peggy Sue Got Married, Moonstruck), to the indie films and blockbuster juggernauts of the 1990s (Wild at Heart, Leaving Las Vegas, Face/Off, Con Air), through the wild and unpredictable video-on-demand world of today.
Sweeping in scope and intimate in its profile of a fiercely passionate artist, Age of Cage is, like the man himself, surprising, insightful, funny, and one of a kind. So, snap out of it, and enjoy this appreciation of Nicolas Cage, national treasure.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Film critic Phipps debuts with an entertaining odyssey through actor Nicolas Cage's rise to fame and his restless quest to create himself. Born Nicolas Coppola in 1964, Cage used television to escape life with a mother who was in and out of mental institutions. This led to an acting career that began in high school, and, later, the chance to flex his "dramatic chops" in the 1981 TV pilot The Best of Times. Eager to gain his own notoriety (outside that of his uncle, Francis Ford Coppola), he began going by "Nic Cage" in 1985. In exploring Cage's films from the 1980s to the 2010s, Phipps offers an entrancing look at the actor's transformation, starting with Cage's first hit, Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), which showcased the polarizing style of Method acting that became his trademark. Driven by "a need to reinvent himself," he oscillated from playing characters who "glow with virtue" (in films such as 1992's Honeymoon in Vegas), to playing bad guys (as in 1997's Face/Off), and flirted with hokier roles (notably in the National Treasure franchise). Even in underlining Cage's chameleonlike genius, Phipps doesn't gloss over the actor's missteps, including starring in 2011's Trespass, a box-office flop that marked the beginning of "some of his least creative performances." Cage's legions of devotees are in for a wild ride.
