‘Leaving Las Vegas’ provides no hope other than a fling with a beautiful woman before tragedy strikes. Not only that but in a poignant twist of fate the novelist John O’Brien committed suicide soon after production of the film started.

Ben does many of the things alcoholics do: pawns his Rolex watch, drives while drunk, sells his car. Sera soon asks Ben to move in with her. But he warns her, “You haven’t seen the worst of it. I knock things over, throw up all the time...”

Yet, on the whole, life for this alcoholic doesn’t seem too bad; diving into a pool and drinking beer underwater as the lovely Sera swims towards him intent on a long kiss. Then, as they dry off, Ben is invited to lick bourbon off her breasts. All this is accompanied by beams of sunlight and Don Henley singing ‘Come Rain or Come Shine’. Funny, but I don’t recall my final weeks of drinking being that stylish. The soundtrack is very seductive throughout, while the absence of sound in the scene where Ben suffers from tremors and has to pour alcohol down his throat in the middle of the night, dilutes the impact on this viewer. Perhaps it is supposed to provide some kind of ironic contrast but the glossy production, the bright lights and glamour of Las Vegas, masks the horror of the situation and makes it tough for the actors to produce convincing performances – albeit Cage won an Oscar for his role.

I’ve been astonished by some descriptions of the film. This one is quite typical: “Leaving Las Vegas is arguably one of few films that presents an unflinchingly realistic, no-holds-barred depiction of late-stage alcoholism, in which the character played by Nicolas Cage (arguably also suffering from severe depression) is severely intoxicated throughout the entire film, binge-drinking in nearly every scene and experiencing severe withdrawal symptoms (such as delirium tremens) in the few scenes where he isn't.”

I agree with the ‘arguably’ bit. And yes, the character does drink a lot. But either viewers have become soft due to the amount of romantic gush emanating from the Hollywood studios or they have no idea of how damaging an alcoholic lifestyle actually is – both to the individual and those around them.

The film is hopelessly romantic. Sera, as the name suggests (seraphic), must have descended from on high, lost her wings, and somehow got caught up in prostitution. And the title begs the question, where has Ben left Las Vegas for? An early grave? Somewhere more fanciful, I expect. Maybe a heaven where alcoholics can drink to their heart’s content, without hangovers or withdrawal symptoms, and be tended by angels like Sera.

Alcoholism plays second fiddle to the romance. When Ben gets his nose busted in a bar room brawl, Sera can’t wait to kiss the blood off his face and go to bed with him. When Ben falls over, breaking a table and getting covered in shards of glass into the bargain, this seems no big deal. Sera has to help clean up the aftermath but compared with the ordeals she has to undergo as a prostitute, living with an alcoholic seems like a diversion or a minor inconvenience at most. The sexual abuse (nothing to do with Ben) in which Sera is slashed with a knife and anally raped provide the film with its truly disturbing scenes.

In ‘Days of Wine and Roses’ (1962), Jack Lemmon plays Joe Clay, a public relations officer for whom whooping it up is part and parcel of the job. Joe persuades reluctant office secretary Kirsten Arnesen (Lee Remick), to drink alcohol on a date. She says she doesn’t like the taste but eventually succumbs to the charms of a Brandy Alexander.

It is evident from the outset that Joe is a heavy drinker who is likely to encounter problems but the irony is that he will drag his wife down with him. Alcoholics in the movies are often portrayed as lonely misunderstood individuals. But here are a couple who share the pleasures of alcohol before the misery sets in. By the time they start a family, Joe is turning up late and hung over for work while his wife is left at home to tend the baby. It is there, in a solitary environment, that her drinking habit spirals out of control. It may require some stretching of the imagination to recall that, with all probability, overt female binge-drinking was not commonplace at the time. Middle-class women may have had reservations about getting pissed in public. When Joe goes to work in Houston, his wife takes further solace in the bottle and she ends up setting the house on fire. She blames his trips to Houston for her drinking. However, it’s Joe who questions his lifestyle, when after being fired from his job, he fails to recognise his own reflection in a bar window.

Kirsten refuses outside help but Joe manages to convince her to stop drinking and a short-lived spell of idyllic living follows on her father’s farm. Once again, it’s Joe who is responsible for breaking their period of abstinence when he smuggles a half-bottle, strapped on each shin, into their bedroom. But Kirsten requires little encouragement. Inevitably they both get drunk and Joe wrecks his father-in-law’s nursery while searching desperately for another bottle of whisky he’d hidden in a plant pot. Joe soon finds himself in a cell suffering from delirium tremens. He’s visited by a man from Alcoholics Anonymous and begins to go to meetings. Joe tries to encourage Kirsten to join but she is in denial. Joe is faced with the extra challenge of trying to make a go of sobriety while living with a partner who is still drinking to excess. This could force him to choose between his wife and his health.

‘Days of Wine and Roses’ graduates from light to heavy. In one scene, Joe arrives home late with flowers for his wife and gets them trapped in the lift door. Lemmon might have something of the pantomime drunk about him but when he is seen rolling about in a straight-jacket it is far from comic. Yet, Jack Lemmon was aware of the need to inject humour into J.P. Miller’s script, and that’s why his suggestion for director was Blake Edwards, known for comedies such as ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ and the Pink Panther films. Lemmon may well have been playing out experiences that mirrored his own life in some respects. It’s probably no mere coincidence that both Lemmon and Edwards later gave up the booze. In a commentary made to accompany the film, Edwards said he asked Lemmon if the role had made him question his own drinking.

But one of the best films about an alcoholic is one in which very little drinking takes place. The alcoholic is also called Joe but he lives in a radically different setting: inner-city Glasgow. ‘My Name is Joe’ has a love story at its heart too.

Joe (Peter Mullan) falls for community health worker Sarah, played by Louise Goodhall. Joe offers to decorate Sarah’s flat. They have a meal afterwards and Sarah notices that Joe doesn’t touch the wine. He explains that he’s a recovering alcoholic on the verge of completing a year of sobriety. MNIJ is a film about life after alcohol and in that sense it offers hope, although Joe has to face many difficulties in a deprived area where drug abuse, prostitution and gangland retribution are rife. Even a year on from his last drink, Joe still has a short fuse. He is a self-defined ‘jumpy bastard’, and coping with all the problems life can throw at him is far from easy when he can’t turn to alcohol for solace.

Despite the seriousness of the situations the characters find themselves in, there is none of the doomed martyrdom that hovers over ‘Leaving Las Vegas’. In MNIJ the damage alcohol can cause to individuals and their families is not hidden away, nor is it converted into some sort of heroic entertainment. Yet, MNIJ is rich in humour, much of it provided by the antics of Joe’s amateur football team. This provides an avenue for comedy which does not rely upon drunken antics for a cheap laugh.

MNIJ has an alcoholic central character but deals with numerous social problems. Joe becomes involved in trying to help out Liam and Sabina, a young couple who are in substantial debt to McGowan, the local drug dealer. A typical Ken Loach/Paul Laverty dilemma ensues in which Joe can either continue with the clean living lifestyle he has struggled so hard to achieve or see people he cares for get done in by McGowan’s thugs. Joe feels compelled to take a walk on the wild side.

Events take a turn for the worse when clean-living Sarah finds out. As he attempts to get back in with Sarah, Joe cancels the deal, becomes jumpy and gives McGowan and his cronies what for. Fearing the worst for those around him, Joe resorts to desperate measures and tragedy befalls one of the characters as McGowan’s mob closes in.

Peter Mullan visited members of Alcoholics Anonymous. They told him: “You’re in constant terror of slipping back – the first glass is the fatal one. In the midst of the joy at having achieved sobriety, you fear a relapse.”

MNIJ shows that there can be life after alcoholism but no cure as the danger of a slip is forever present, and more so when life’s problems appear insurmountable.

Days of Wine and Roses was not the first film to feature an Alcoholics Anonymous-type scenario. According to Robin Room, writing in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol in 1989, at least thirty four Hollywood films were made between the ‘Lost Weekend’ (1945) and ‘Days of Wine and Roses’ (1962) with an alcoholic as a major character; six depicted an Alcoholics Anonymous-like self-help organisation. Full article.

Steven Porter was born in Inverness, Scotland, currently lives in Girona, Catalonia and writes for www.soccer-spain.com. He translates from Spanish & Catalan. For poetry translations from Catalan and for more on the language click here. His poetry has been published in various lit mags including Cutting Teeth, Northwords and Orbis. He is currently seeking publisher for his first collection of poetry. His ebook entitled 'The Iberian Horseshoe', a long intermittent journey through Galicia, Portugal, Andalusia, Valencia and Catalonia, is available from here. For more news on on Steve Porter visit here or to read a selection of Steve’s writing on the showcase section of this site, click here

© 2006 Laura Hird All rights reserved.