Chicago, IL -
If you don’t have HBO, get it quick.
On December 7th from 8:00-11:00pm ET, HBO Films presents Part One of “Angels In America” to be concluded on December 14th from 8:00-11:05pm ET. Not quite a full reading of the Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning play written by Tony Kushner in the late-80s and early-90s, the six-hour film is a rewritten realization of the sheer enormity of the stage experience. Directed by Mike Nichols and starring a host of talented multi-venue actors – award winners Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson and Mary-Louise Parker – the work is as vital and visionary today as it was when it lit up Broadway in 1993.
“Angels” is on its surface an AIDS film in which multiple characters face the onset of their disease and America faces the onset of the plague, snapping liberal/socialist doctrine from the mouths of homosexuals (that’s what we were called then) with the potent strength of a contentious intellect, and then ripping its own surety to the ground with a quick carelessness reminiscent of the virus itself. Kushner spares no subculture – jews, blacks, gays, and the conservative right (wink) – from high-level dissection, but he grounds his theses into the grotesque beauty of human relationships. And he is agnostic about those too – his subjects are gay, straight, asexual and omnisexual. The play’s subtitle was “A Gay Fantasia on National Themes,” and although that phrase does not play in the HBO version, it is equally accurate of this film: “Angels In America” examines, in six hours and in a homo-centric way, the morality of a country held fast in the grip of insecurity, hatred and disease. It’s a winning story that will have you laughing out loud one minute, crying the next – but its unique strength lies in the more compelling undercurrents of faith, justice, and the ultimately human truths that tie the two together.
What does that mean? You will fall head over heels for the characters, every one of them, and assuming you have not read the plays or seen the stage production over and over, will be held steadfast waiting for their stories to unfurl. Along the way, you’ll scratch your head as Kushner enmeshes metaphysical events into the film’s tapestry. Most will wonder what the hell the film is about even as it resonates powerfully within them – yet by the time its conclusions rolls around, the elegantly simple message shines right through.
Kushner’s writing is extremely brisk; you’ll need to read the text of the plays to fully appreciate it. But thanks to Mike Nichols (who is eminently qualified to bring theatrical stage events to the screen, having translated “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” “La Cage Aux Folles,” which became “The Birdcage,” and most recently the HBO version of “Wit”), this film for the most part does not feel like its actors are merely spouting philosophy in front of a Panaflex; contrary to what I had feared, the dialogues - and monologues - seem surprisingly organic.
It helps to hire some of the most prolific actors of the day. Al Pacino, Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson are highly recognized and respected thespians. Pacino plays Roy Cohn in what can only be the de-facto channeling of that historical figure for our time. He’s most always terrific to watch on film, but his performance here is gut-wrenching as his character proceeds through the stages of AIDS, watching his body, and then even more importantly, his identity, disintegrate. Streep and Thompson both play multiple roles (Thompson plays one very well-hidden – try to pick her out). In Streep’s case, you’ll have to wait until Part Two for her performances to truly coalesce; her largest role is tragically among Kushner’s weakest. But Thompson is radiant as the Angel, bringing every ounce of her Shakespearian training to bear on a role that dangerously balances between dramatic juggernaut and odd wit. That’s difficult enough for an unknown actress in a stage play; it’s doubly challenging when you’re the beloved Emma Thompson - every sympathetic role you’ve played works against you when you need to play both beauty and terror.
As far as the movie stars are concerned, Mary-Louise Parker walks away with the come-out role of the year. Normally I would not describe it thus for an actress who has won the Tony (for “Proof”) and played significantly in over a dozen films. But in her “Angels” role of the clinically depressed, Valium-addicted, married-to-family Harper Pitt, she seems to have submerged so deeply into character that it takes until her final scene for a single sentence to feel as if it comes from the script outside the actress. Parker deserves serious recognition for the dedication of her effort here.
You will also enjoy introductions to talents not often recognized off the Great White Way. Jeffrey Wright reprises his Broadway role as Belize with enough concentrated power behind his performance that he nearly pulls scenes from Pacino. Ben Shenkman, a virtual newcomer whose only claim to fame before this film was the role of Hal opposite Mary-Louise Parker in the aforementioned “Proof,” will certainly be known now, although his performance as Louis is the least magnetic of the leads. Patrick Wilson plays Joe Pitt, a closeted gay Republican Mormon law clerk (yeah, watch that one play out) with enough tortured pain in his eyes to make us feel his character’s desperate confusion. And Justin Kirk, who like Shenkman has virtually had only one prior hit in “Love! Valour! Compassion!”, plays the central role of Prior Walter – and is absolutely stunning to watch.
Lest is seem that I wax too much affection, “Angels” does have it share of demons. There are, alas, points in the film that suffer from the translation from the stage. Most notably, the presence of the heralds, gamely played by James Cromwell and Michael Gambon, lack potency here – their segments seem to waste time rather than add substance. And while the occasionally interminable meanderings of Kushner’s socialist harangues (which truly are more pedantic than pragmatic) have some merit, there are just too many of them. Eventually I utilized the moments in which characters (mostly Louis) begin to prattle on about the minimalization of race, the oppression of the Republican monolith or the bourgeois fixation on property, I headed for the refrigerator, point already taken. Are these serious flaws? Not at all – but the film could probably have been five-and-a-half hours and better for it. The audience for television, after all, is not held captive by the lack of house lights, and a more determined conviction to serve the medium might have in turn more effectively served the film.
But taken as a whole, HBO has a true winner on their hands – and I don’t just mean Emmys, although “Angels” will certainly be heaped with awards. It’s a cinematic achievement with the scale of epic mythology, the intelligence of a scholar and the heart of –dare I say – an angel. In its own words, “Angels In America” sits doggedly on the “threshold of revelation” despite its portents about the Millenium, with the potential to remain vital for decades yet to come.
But don’t wait that long… see it on December 7th. I’m the last critic to award an “A+” to any film, in or out of the Cineplex, because I’m always waiting for that perfect, or near-perfect film, to surface. I couldn’t have guessed it would happen on HBO – but it’s too important an event to banter about its format. Sit. Watch. You won’t regret it, and you won’t forget it.
On December 7th from 8:00-11:00pm ET, HBO Films presents Part One of “Angels In America” to be concluded on December 14th from 8:00-11:05pm ET. Not quite a full reading of the Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning play written by Tony Kushner in the late-80s and early-90s, the six-hour film is a rewritten realization of the sheer enormity of the stage experience. Directed by Mike Nichols and starring a host of talented multi-venue actors – award winners Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson and Mary-Louise Parker – the work is as vital and visionary today as it was when it lit up Broadway in 1993.
“Angels” is on its surface an AIDS film in which multiple characters face the onset of their disease and America faces the onset of the plague, snapping liberal/socialist doctrine from the mouths of homosexuals (that’s what we were called then) with the potent strength of a contentious intellect, and then ripping its own surety to the ground with a quick carelessness reminiscent of the virus itself. Kushner spares no subculture – jews, blacks, gays, and the conservative right (wink) – from high-level dissection, but he grounds his theses into the grotesque beauty of human relationships. And he is agnostic about those too – his subjects are gay, straight, asexual and omnisexual. The play’s subtitle was “A Gay Fantasia on National Themes,” and although that phrase does not play in the HBO version, it is equally accurate of this film: “Angels In America” examines, in six hours and in a homo-centric way, the morality of a country held fast in the grip of insecurity, hatred and disease. It’s a winning story that will have you laughing out loud one minute, crying the next – but its unique strength lies in the more compelling undercurrents of faith, justice, and the ultimately human truths that tie the two together.
What does that mean? You will fall head over heels for the characters, every one of them, and assuming you have not read the plays or seen the stage production over and over, will be held steadfast waiting for their stories to unfurl. Along the way, you’ll scratch your head as Kushner enmeshes metaphysical events into the film’s tapestry. Most will wonder what the hell the film is about even as it resonates powerfully within them – yet by the time its conclusions rolls around, the elegantly simple message shines right through.
Kushner’s writing is extremely brisk; you’ll need to read the text of the plays to fully appreciate it. But thanks to Mike Nichols (who is eminently qualified to bring theatrical stage events to the screen, having translated “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” “La Cage Aux Folles,” which became “The Birdcage,” and most recently the HBO version of “Wit”), this film for the most part does not feel like its actors are merely spouting philosophy in front of a Panaflex; contrary to what I had feared, the dialogues - and monologues - seem surprisingly organic.
It helps to hire some of the most prolific actors of the day. Al Pacino, Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson are highly recognized and respected thespians. Pacino plays Roy Cohn in what can only be the de-facto channeling of that historical figure for our time. He’s most always terrific to watch on film, but his performance here is gut-wrenching as his character proceeds through the stages of AIDS, watching his body, and then even more importantly, his identity, disintegrate. Streep and Thompson both play multiple roles (Thompson plays one very well-hidden – try to pick her out). In Streep’s case, you’ll have to wait until Part Two for her performances to truly coalesce; her largest role is tragically among Kushner’s weakest. But Thompson is radiant as the Angel, bringing every ounce of her Shakespearian training to bear on a role that dangerously balances between dramatic juggernaut and odd wit. That’s difficult enough for an unknown actress in a stage play; it’s doubly challenging when you’re the beloved Emma Thompson - every sympathetic role you’ve played works against you when you need to play both beauty and terror.
As far as the movie stars are concerned, Mary-Louise Parker walks away with the come-out role of the year. Normally I would not describe it thus for an actress who has won the Tony (for “Proof”) and played significantly in over a dozen films. But in her “Angels” role of the clinically depressed, Valium-addicted, married-to-family Harper Pitt, she seems to have submerged so deeply into character that it takes until her final scene for a single sentence to feel as if it comes from the script outside the actress. Parker deserves serious recognition for the dedication of her effort here.
You will also enjoy introductions to talents not often recognized off the Great White Way. Jeffrey Wright reprises his Broadway role as Belize with enough concentrated power behind his performance that he nearly pulls scenes from Pacino. Ben Shenkman, a virtual newcomer whose only claim to fame before this film was the role of Hal opposite Mary-Louise Parker in the aforementioned “Proof,” will certainly be known now, although his performance as Louis is the least magnetic of the leads. Patrick Wilson plays Joe Pitt, a closeted gay Republican Mormon law clerk (yeah, watch that one play out) with enough tortured pain in his eyes to make us feel his character’s desperate confusion. And Justin Kirk, who like Shenkman has virtually had only one prior hit in “Love! Valour! Compassion!”, plays the central role of Prior Walter – and is absolutely stunning to watch.
Lest is seem that I wax too much affection, “Angels” does have it share of demons. There are, alas, points in the film that suffer from the translation from the stage. Most notably, the presence of the heralds, gamely played by James Cromwell and Michael Gambon, lack potency here – their segments seem to waste time rather than add substance. And while the occasionally interminable meanderings of Kushner’s socialist harangues (which truly are more pedantic than pragmatic) have some merit, there are just too many of them. Eventually I utilized the moments in which characters (mostly Louis) begin to prattle on about the minimalization of race, the oppression of the Republican monolith or the bourgeois fixation on property, I headed for the refrigerator, point already taken. Are these serious flaws? Not at all – but the film could probably have been five-and-a-half hours and better for it. The audience for television, after all, is not held captive by the lack of house lights, and a more determined conviction to serve the medium might have in turn more effectively served the film.
But taken as a whole, HBO has a true winner on their hands – and I don’t just mean Emmys, although “Angels” will certainly be heaped with awards. It’s a cinematic achievement with the scale of epic mythology, the intelligence of a scholar and the heart of –dare I say – an angel. In its own words, “Angels In America” sits doggedly on the “threshold of revelation” despite its portents about the Millenium, with the potential to remain vital for decades yet to come.
But don’t wait that long… see it on December 7th. I’m the last critic to award an “A+” to any film, in or out of the Cineplex, because I’m always waiting for that perfect, or near-perfect film, to surface. I couldn’t have guessed it would happen on HBO – but it’s too important an event to banter about its format. Sit. Watch. You won’t regret it, and you won’t forget it.
