“Angel Heart” is an Accidental Critic classic and possibly one of the best examples of film noir - certainly the best from the 80’s. Figuring out what is going on in the film is not easy (though once you do, the plot is simple), but more interestingly, the attempt has a way of being personally disturbing.
What material is scarier than the truths we choose to hide from ourselves? The movie explores this material and succeeds in delivering these dark thoughts brilliantly by using supernatural undertones that illuminate our deepest and darkest fears.
Our “hero”, Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke), is a gentle private dick. He’s a nice guy. That he repeats the phrase “I’m from Brooklyn” (with just the right accent) as a way of explaining everything about him becomes just another lovable piece of his charm. You immediately develop a kind of liking for Harry Angel and you end up rooting for him - or at least you want him to stay out of trouble. But when he is hired by the mysterious Louis Cyphre (now say it fast, three times), played brilliantly by De Niro, to find “Johnny Favorite” a man who “owes” his client “a debt”, he begins a journey of self-discovery that he has been trying to avoid. We learn that Harry Angel is not who he claims to be, even as he desperately tries to convince himself during a riveting scene where he cries into the mirror “I know who I am! I know who I am!” No, Harry, apparently you do not...you’re not even close.
As the truth unfolds, we see Harry Angel existing between two worlds. The interplay between the truth about him and the reality of the world as he sees it is disconcerting. It is as if his inner life is far more truthful than the actual world in which he operates. He will do anything to hide the truth from himself and yet as the answer begins to reveal itself he finds that the truth has a gravity of its own. He is drawn, with horrifying fascination, to touch the shrouded figures that haunt him with the prospect of the real Harry Angel...
We don’t like to believe that those we like, trust, even love are not who we think they are, and may even be deeply rotten inside. When you think about it, it’s really a terrifying thought. Is it true that you never really know someone? Of course, we know ourselves, but what about self-deception? Don’t we also try to fool ourselves in so many ways? One could argue that in Harry Angel’s case, self-discovery is overrated. The bad choices he made early in life have irrevocably locked him into an existence where the “unexamined life” would have probably been his best bet.
Thankfully for most of us, the truth is not as horrifying as it is for Harry Angel, but it is just as irrevocable. No one can recreate the past, nor can they change the truth – no matter how desperately they try. Think of public figures of the day or anyone who, rather than be honest, attempts instead to twist and diminish the truth into something that allows them to maintain “control”. Of course, ultimately they only succeed in self-degradation, loss of control and loss of the respect of those who see through them.
Our “hero” tries to cheat fate and fails, but in the end he has enough self-respect to get into that descending elevator.
Showing posts with label Accidental Critic Classic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Accidental Critic Classic. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
The Double Life of Veronique *****
This movie is an Accidental Critic classic that has haunted us for years. If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth seeing even just to experience the music which is as beautiful and haunting as anything we’ve ever heard. Music plays a fascinating role in the film and the background on that is almost as intriguing as the film itself. The director, Krzysztof Kieslowski (considered by many as the greatest director of this period (80’s-90’s)), formed a lifelong friendship and partnership with Zbigniew Preisner a Philosophy graduate student who abandoned Philosophical study and became a self-taught composer. Unlike many film/music collaborations where the music comes after the film and only serves to accentuate it, the work of Kieslowski and Preisner was a much deeper collaboration where the music informs and inspires the story as much as the story brings the music to life.
The story revolves around two women, Polish singer Weronika and French music teacher Veronique, who are as alike as identical twins. They each have an innate sense of the other’s existence, though they have never met. It is an emotional bond that leaves each with the feeling of “not being alone in the world”. That is until Weronika dies of a heart attack during a concert while singing a passage from Dante's Paradiso (Canto 2: 1-9).
This is a wonderfully enigmatic film that resists too much deconstruction, but we have recently become intrigued by the interpretations of one scholar, Sylvia McCosker, who sees in the film the deeply Christian theme of “coinherence” or souls that exist in essential relationship with one another. The theory of coinherence is the divine solidarity of humankind which (according to Charles Williams) was first a created reality that we enjoyed before “the fall” and was restored by the redemption we receive through Christ. By creation as well as by redemption none of us is alone. This may seem like a stretch interpretation of the film, but McCosker sees some good stuff. She writes…
You can read McCosker’s complete work on the film here.
The final scene is perhaps the most haunting. We see Veronique driving to her Father’s home and she stops to reach out and touch a tree, meanwhile the Father who is a furniture maker is cutting wood and suddenly stops. This has been a scene that we’ve been trying to interpret for years and we are still not satisfied, but Dr. Dan does have a theory which was helped by McCosker and speaks to the film’s treatment of art and the artist as someone who attempts to represent the divine but ends up exploiting it in the very act of praise. We would love to hear other theories on this scene if you got them.
But while all this is very interesting, the truth is that this is a film that should be experienced and “felt” like the way you have that inexplicable good feeling watching the sun rise or like the way a memory comes to you through a scent or like the way sometimes, you just deeply know…you are not alone.
The story revolves around two women, Polish singer Weronika and French music teacher Veronique, who are as alike as identical twins. They each have an innate sense of the other’s existence, though they have never met. It is an emotional bond that leaves each with the feeling of “not being alone in the world”. That is until Weronika dies of a heart attack during a concert while singing a passage from Dante's Paradiso (Canto 2: 1-9).
This is a wonderfully enigmatic film that resists too much deconstruction, but we have recently become intrigued by the interpretations of one scholar, Sylvia McCosker, who sees in the film the deeply Christian theme of “coinherence” or souls that exist in essential relationship with one another. The theory of coinherence is the divine solidarity of humankind which (according to Charles Williams) was first a created reality that we enjoyed before “the fall” and was restored by the redemption we receive through Christ. By creation as well as by redemption none of us is alone. This may seem like a stretch interpretation of the film, but McCosker sees some good stuff. She writes…
The gospel story is alluded to at the beginning. First the child Weronika hears her mother telling her to look for the Christmas star; then the child Veronique hears her mother telling her to look at the new green leaves (which in a European context tells us it is spring, therefore Easter time). The heroine's name recalls one of the traditional Stations of the Cross. Reared in Catholic Poland, Kieslowski must have known the legend of Veronica - patron saint of photographers. St Veronica leaned from the roadside and with her veil wiped the blood and sweat from the face of Christ as he made his way toward Calvary. Afterward when she looked at her veil she saw stamped upon it the image of His face - hence her name, which means "true image".
You can read McCosker’s complete work on the film here.
The final scene is perhaps the most haunting. We see Veronique driving to her Father’s home and she stops to reach out and touch a tree, meanwhile the Father who is a furniture maker is cutting wood and suddenly stops. This has been a scene that we’ve been trying to interpret for years and we are still not satisfied, but Dr. Dan does have a theory which was helped by McCosker and speaks to the film’s treatment of art and the artist as someone who attempts to represent the divine but ends up exploiting it in the very act of praise. We would love to hear other theories on this scene if you got them.
But while all this is very interesting, the truth is that this is a film that should be experienced and “felt” like the way you have that inexplicable good feeling watching the sun rise or like the way a memory comes to you through a scent or like the way sometimes, you just deeply know…you are not alone.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
The Purple Rose of Cairo *****
When we read the Cave Allegory from Plato’s “Republic” we all think of the movies; when Woody Allen reads Plato it leads to a movie.
In the “Purple Rose of Cairo” Wood Allen creates a movie within a movie, showing you scenes from a fictitious black and white depression era movie (also entitled The Purple Rose of Cairo) because his heroine can’t help but watch it over and over again. For her it is escape and an impossible inspiration. According to the fictitious movie, the purple rose of Cairo is supposed to grow in a pharaoh’s tomb - the expression of a perfect love. Of course no rose is purple and flowers do not grow without light. It is an impossible inspiration. It’s all Plato’s fault.
According to him our relationship to the truth is dreadful. We are like people chained facing a wall in a cave, behind them a fire, and between the fire and their benches men parading objects whose shadows project upon the wall. Hankering for the truth, the viewers take shadows for reality. But Plato has another important point. Although our sense of reality is shadowy at best, we are only capable of understanding anything, thanks to a set of ideals which are beyond real experience. The impossible inspiration guides us through our shadows and intimates that there is more.
The movies are all that counts for the heroine of “The Purple Rose of Cairo”. Her chains are the miserable life to which she is subjected by the depression of the 30’s and her abusive husband. After too many hours in a theater watching her new favorite movie, about people with ideal life styles, one of its characters impossibly leaves the screen, and while comically attempting to establish himself in the real world, falls in love with her.
Screen characters running free in New Jersey, is bad for the movie business. So the actor who played the role is enlisted in the task of capturing his shadow and returning it to the screen. When he also falls for our heroine she has the ultimate Platonic choice: perfection or reality. Which would you choose?
In the “Purple Rose of Cairo” Wood Allen creates a movie within a movie, showing you scenes from a fictitious black and white depression era movie (also entitled The Purple Rose of Cairo) because his heroine can’t help but watch it over and over again. For her it is escape and an impossible inspiration. According to the fictitious movie, the purple rose of Cairo is supposed to grow in a pharaoh’s tomb - the expression of a perfect love. Of course no rose is purple and flowers do not grow without light. It is an impossible inspiration. It’s all Plato’s fault.
According to him our relationship to the truth is dreadful. We are like people chained facing a wall in a cave, behind them a fire, and between the fire and their benches men parading objects whose shadows project upon the wall. Hankering for the truth, the viewers take shadows for reality. But Plato has another important point. Although our sense of reality is shadowy at best, we are only capable of understanding anything, thanks to a set of ideals which are beyond real experience. The impossible inspiration guides us through our shadows and intimates that there is more.
The movies are all that counts for the heroine of “The Purple Rose of Cairo”. Her chains are the miserable life to which she is subjected by the depression of the 30’s and her abusive husband. After too many hours in a theater watching her new favorite movie, about people with ideal life styles, one of its characters impossibly leaves the screen, and while comically attempting to establish himself in the real world, falls in love with her.
Screen characters running free in New Jersey, is bad for the movie business. So the actor who played the role is enlisted in the task of capturing his shadow and returning it to the screen. When he also falls for our heroine she has the ultimate Platonic choice: perfection or reality. Which would you choose?
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