A SOLDIER'S STORY NICOLAS CAGE GOES TO WAR AS A CONFLICTED OFFICER IN 'WINDTALKERS'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

There are two schools of Nicolas Cage fans.

It would be a bit too convenient to describe them as warring camps. But those who appreciate the often eccentric actor, whose love-it-or-hate-it extremism peaked with his 1995, Oscar-winning ``Leaving Las Vegas'' performance, haven't necessarily counted themselves among the masses who've enjoyed the mainstream action and romantic movies (``The Rock,'' ``Con Air,'' ``City of Angels,'' ``Gone in Sixty Seconds'') he's been making since that time.

Both constituencies should find some pleasure, though, in ``Windtalkers,'' Cage's latest release (opening Friday). For one thing, the World War II drama reteams the 38-year-old actor with John Woo, the director of what many consider Cage's most interesting blockbuster, ``Face/Off.'' More to the point, the scenario provides Cage with both endless opportunities for heroic action and a character so traumatized and conflicted, he makes suicidal alcoholism look like, well, a honeymoon in Vegas.

``John Woo is not afraid to push it to extremes. As you probably know from over the years, I like to be extreme in my acting, so I feel comfortable in his world,'' says Cage. ``Also, I'm getting on to my 22nd year of doing this. I constantly want to keep trying to make it difficult on myself so I can make it interesting for myself and, hopefully, for the audience.

``In this case, I really wanted to paint the picture of a man who was not likable, who wasn't somebody you wanted to get close to. Then, take that and make it understandable, maybe even give it some sympathy.''

Marine Cpl. Joe Enders finds himself in charge of his unit during a bloody battle in the Solomon Islands. Determined to follow orders to hold, he loses every single one of his men. Shipped back to Hawaii with a busted eardrum and a mother lode of survivor's guilt, he's unexpectedly promoted and assigned a task Command feels he's displayed a special aptitude for: guarding Ben Yahzee (Adam Beach), one of the many Navajos used as radio code talkers in the Pacific theater.

Well, not exactly. The actual assignment is to protect the code at all costs. Translation: If the Japanese capture a Navajo, the bodyguard's mission is to kill the Indian before the enemy can torture the code out of him. Knowing this, of course, makes the already haunted Enders' experience of the brutal invasion of Saipan extra soul-shattering.

One suggests to Cage that this must have made ``Windtalkers'' feel like the best of both acting realms for him. But typically, Cage has a less glib take on the combination of sensibilities that the part didn't just require, but demanded.

``There is always that strange mixture when you're doing a battle picture: You feel partially like you're still a kid in the back yard goofing off with a cap gun, and then using the fear of your imagination to try to put yourself really there on some level, so you can imagine what these Marines really felt like,'' he says. ``Even though we are just actors, the job is to try to make it real for yourself.''

The fact that Cage never settles for the obvious answer to actorly questions is one of the reasons why Woo immediately thought of him for the Joe Enders role.

``Nic's a very humble, thoughtful and hard-working man, with no ego; he's very easy to work with,'' the Hong Kong-trained director of ``Hard-Boiled'' and ``Mission: Impossible 2'' says. ``The other great thing about Nic is that he's very creative. He always gives me a lot of good surprises; he likes to do more than what's in the script.''

Sometimes, though, just not blowing the take is the best that can be expected.

``It was a little bit of pressure because John's shots would sometimes go on for, like, five minutes,'' understates Cage of such shots as the massive Saipan landing, which was staged on the windward shore of Oahu. ``And in the middle of all that, you sometimes had 200 bombs going off and squib hits and machine-gun fire - with blanks, but still dangerous if you point them in somebody's face.

``So we would rehearse it all day. We didn't start photography until the last hour or two of daylight. If anybody messed up, we'd have to go back to the beginning again and reset all the bombs. That was a main concern there.''

Whose movie is it?

Another economically based concern involved the primacy of a character like Italian-American Joe Enders in a film that purports to be about the Indians whose complicated, Navajo-based radio codes - never broken by the Japanese - are credited with saving uncountable U.S. lives.

``It was important; I mean, we knew (it) when we thought of this idea,'' admits Alison Rosenzweig, one of ``Windtalkers' '' producers. ``It's a World War II action movie; it's going to be a certain price. Unfortunately, I'm sorry to say, that would warrant a big male star in order to get a studio to say OK. Luckily, I think we've found a perfect balance. It's really a movie about both of these men. It's Nic and Adam's movie.''

``I, personally, wanted to see more of the Navajo culture,'' Cage reveals. ``One of the reasons why I was excited by the script is that I like movies about people from different cultures co-existing. And the Indian culture, to me, is very rich. I've always been fascinated by it, especially their spirituality. I saw that as really the heart of the movie.''

Whether commercial or more sensitive motives informed MGM's decision to delay ``Windtalkers' '' release from the fall of 2001 until now, Cage feels that it was the right thing to do.

``When Sept. 11 happened, I was in no condition to talk to anybody. I didn't want to go to the movies; I didn't want to go anywhere,'' he says. ``I didn't want to leave my house, I was so horrified by it. So I understand it.''

Nevertheless, Cage has gotten out and tried something new recently: directing his first feature film. ``Sonny,'' a dark study of family dysfunction and prostitution filmed in New Orleans, is based on a script Cage has admired for more than a decade and a half. Now too old to play the lead character (``Spider-Man's'' James Franco stars), Cage was more than pleased to revisit John Carlen's screenplay for his helming debut.

``If I did direct, I wanted to direct a family drama, and also a tragedy,'' he explains. ``And a small movie; I don't want to direct big movies, I want to make independent movies. So this seemed to me to be the perfect material, because I always found it heartbreaking.''

That joke from ``Legally Blonde'' - ``Directed by a Coppola!'' - comes to mind. The nephew of ``Godfather'' auteur Francis Coppola, Cage seems to be following the path of several cousins toward the director's chair.

Not that genetics made the job any easier.

``It was nerve-racking at first,'' he says of filmmaking. ``It's a big challenge to take on, never having done it before. I felt like I was in my first day of school. But slowly, I began to find my rhythm, and by the end of the first week, it felt very harmonious to me, very natural.

``Because I'd been on so many movie sets all my life, I wasn't intimidated by that aspect. It's just that I found myself having to think in every character's head, feel what they were feeling, male or female. So it was a very emotionally challenging experience.''

Sibling rivalry 

Cage credits the acting challenge of ``Adaptation,'' the film he made in between ``Windtalkers'' and ``Sonny,'' with preparing him for the multirole thought process of directing.

Fans of the baby-napping, cockroach-eating, steroid-pumping wild man they remember from Cage's ``Raising Arizona''/``Vampire's Kiss''/``Kiss of Death'' period may be similarly edified by ``Adaptation,'' which is scheduled for release in the fall. It's the next feature from the ``Being John Malkovich'' team of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and director Spike Jonze. It sounds bizarre even by early Cage standards.

``I play a kind of surrealistic version of Charlie Kaufman, as well as his twin brother, Donald Kaufman,'' the actor explains. ``Charlie is really struggling with a screenplay he's trying to write about flowers - which is kind of tough, I don't know if there's ever been a movie about flowers before - then Donald decides that he wants to become a screenwriter, and his tastes are more formulaic action and thriller.''

Hey, sounds kinda like the yin/yang of Cage's movie career. Maybe this one will really be the ultimate synthesis role.

Think so, Nic?

OK, we know. Never that simple.

``I guess, maybe,'' he says hesitantly, ``if only because every character that I'm involved with is, to some extent, me. Even though I try to paint a picture that is, sometimes, very different from me, I still have to find some part inside myself that I can make grow into the character.''

nic on surviving love

Whatever trials Nicolas Cage puts himself through for his movies, it probably beats dwelling on the real-life variety. Last year saw both the final dissolution of Cage's once-storybook marriage to actress Patricia Arquette and a high-profile but short-lived romance with Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of the rock 'n' roll idol Cage has referenced in roles ranging from ``Wild at Heart'' to ``Honeymoon in Vegas.''

Asked if he's given up on relationships, the actor reliably comes up with an unexpected response.

``My personal life,'' he muses, laughing lightly. ``Well, you know, there's an expression in Buddhism called 'dukkha,' which is when you want something so bad, all wanting causes suffering. So when you let go and you're not wanting anymore, you don't suffer. So I wouldn't say I've given up. I've just let go.''

CAPTION(S):

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(1 -- color -- cover) Nicolas uncaged 

`Windtalkers' star opens up about his career and love

(2) no caption (Nicolas Cage)

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nic on surviving love (see text)