Angel Heart (15.)
Directed by Alan Parker.
Starring Mickey Rourke, Lisa Bonet, Robert De Niro, Charlotte Rampling. Released on Blu-ray and other formats by Studiocanal. 108 mins.
There are three people you want to consider when reflecting on this film: De Niro, Rourke and Parker. Let's start with De Niro because this film takes us back to the time, hard for you young uns to believe, when every time he appeared on screen was a big deal, monumental. So much so, that on the day it opened a friend of mine got the train up to London just to see it in Leicester Square. The next day, he came back raving about his performance: “And there was this bit where De Niro eats an egg, and nobody has eaten an egg like him.” The And Then Robert De Niro Ate An Egg line would be used against him for many years but the thing is, De Niro really does a job on eating that egg.
1987 was nearing the end of the era of De Niro greatness. Midnight Run the following year would be the last time that he was seen as infallible, though we didn't know that then. After that, the great performances would be the exception rather than the rule. Perhaps over the 80s he was realising that the ferocious intensity he had applied to his work for two decades was something he couldn't keep up for much longer. In the four years after Once Upon A Time In America was released in 1984, his only lead role was in The Mission. The rest were cameos: Harry Tuttle in Brazil, Al Capone in The Untouchables and in this the mysterious Louis Cypher. Cypher is a still seated figure with movement largely restricted to cane twiddling, the occasion camp hand gesture and egg eating. The performance is all in the stare and the delivery. Watching him now, and this four-scene cameo isn't one of his truly special performances, is to be reassured that he really was as good as his reputation. If he has chosen to take it easy for the last three decades, he earned it.
But, he's not the film's top turn. Along with 9½ Weeks, this was the moment when Mickey Rourke's star was in its ascendency, the moment when he was set to be a major movie star. In the part of Harry Angel, the standard down-at-heel private dick, he is so grubby and sleazy you can feel the slime on him, yet he is so charismatic, so charming, so comfortable up there on the screen it doesn't touch him. He's a gleaming hobo. And it's a fantastic performance. He more than holds his own with De Niro and brings an emotional intensity to the big scenes that few could match. His performance in Angel Heart is so effortlessly brilliant, so obviously the work of a major star that all the vapid nothings that actually did become film stars in the 80s – Cruise, Penn, Swayze, – must look at this film and realise that all they have is by the grace of him Travoltaring his career. Of course, if he had become a big star he would probably have appeared in a bunch of dull films; but Rourke being Rourke, he blew out stardom to make a bunch of really, really bad films.
I can't believe anyone reading this doesn't know the film's twist but I won't spoil it anyway. It is set in 1955 and has Angel being employed by Mr Cypher to investigate the location of a pre-war crooner called Johnny Favourite, but as he investigates everybody he talks to are murdered. There's lots of hoodoo-voodoo in a plot that takes us from New York to New Orleans.
It is a potboiler entertainer, but you have to say Parker (who also scripted, adapting a novel by William Hjortsberg) and his collaborators made the most out of it. It looks great, has a strong score and the quality acting isn't just from the stars. Stocker Fontelieu only has one scene as a rich Southern society type, and most of his dialogue is exposition, but he wrings every last bit of energy and excitement from it. Parker seems to have treated the project as an exercise in finding ways to slip exposition past the audience as seamlessly as possible. In his most shameless example, he has an actress undressing while filling in Angel on Johnny Favourite's background. How very sexist, tut-tut. There's a very fine moment on Coney Island beach where Angel talks to a married couple that is a perfect example of how to discretely slip plot exposition into an entertaining scene.
Parker, who hasn't made a film since 2003, always had a chip on his shoulder about his critical reception and felt that he was never forgiven for having come up through the advertising industry, along with most of the Puttnam-inspired wave of British directors who hit it big in Hollywood in the eighties – Adrian Lyne, the Scotts Ridley and Tony. Working in advertising is a mortal sin but I'd say by this point he'd just about redeemed himself.
He was always a lot more flexible in his approach and his choice of subject manner. (That said the southern scenes in Angel Heart were almost a trial run for Mississippi Burning.) A lot of his films seem to have fallen by the wayside and could be apt for rediscovery. Angel Heart is perhaps a good example of his merits and standing: it's not visionary, it's not a masterpiece but when you think about it, you're hard pushed to think of anyone who could've made a better job of it.
Extras.
Loads of them, but probably all from previous releases: director's commentary, making of, interviews and featurettes on voodoo.
Directed by Alan Parker.
Starring Mickey Rourke, Lisa Bonet, Robert De Niro, Charlotte Rampling. Released on Blu-ray and other formats by Studiocanal. 108 mins.
There are three people you want to consider when reflecting on this film: De Niro, Rourke and Parker. Let's start with De Niro because this film takes us back to the time, hard for you young uns to believe, when every time he appeared on screen was a big deal, monumental. So much so, that on the day it opened a friend of mine got the train up to London just to see it in Leicester Square. The next day, he came back raving about his performance: “And there was this bit where De Niro eats an egg, and nobody has eaten an egg like him.” The And Then Robert De Niro Ate An Egg line would be used against him for many years but the thing is, De Niro really does a job on eating that egg.
1987 was nearing the end of the era of De Niro greatness. Midnight Run the following year would be the last time that he was seen as infallible, though we didn't know that then. After that, the great performances would be the exception rather than the rule. Perhaps over the 80s he was realising that the ferocious intensity he had applied to his work for two decades was something he couldn't keep up for much longer. In the four years after Once Upon A Time In America was released in 1984, his only lead role was in The Mission. The rest were cameos: Harry Tuttle in Brazil, Al Capone in The Untouchables and in this the mysterious Louis Cypher. Cypher is a still seated figure with movement largely restricted to cane twiddling, the occasion camp hand gesture and egg eating. The performance is all in the stare and the delivery. Watching him now, and this four-scene cameo isn't one of his truly special performances, is to be reassured that he really was as good as his reputation. If he has chosen to take it easy for the last three decades, he earned it.
But, he's not the film's top turn. Along with 9½ Weeks, this was the moment when Mickey Rourke's star was in its ascendency, the moment when he was set to be a major movie star. In the part of Harry Angel, the standard down-at-heel private dick, he is so grubby and sleazy you can feel the slime on him, yet he is so charismatic, so charming, so comfortable up there on the screen it doesn't touch him. He's a gleaming hobo. And it's a fantastic performance. He more than holds his own with De Niro and brings an emotional intensity to the big scenes that few could match. His performance in Angel Heart is so effortlessly brilliant, so obviously the work of a major star that all the vapid nothings that actually did become film stars in the 80s – Cruise, Penn, Swayze, – must look at this film and realise that all they have is by the grace of him Travoltaring his career. Of course, if he had become a big star he would probably have appeared in a bunch of dull films; but Rourke being Rourke, he blew out stardom to make a bunch of really, really bad films.
I can't believe anyone reading this doesn't know the film's twist but I won't spoil it anyway. It is set in 1955 and has Angel being employed by Mr Cypher to investigate the location of a pre-war crooner called Johnny Favourite, but as he investigates everybody he talks to are murdered. There's lots of hoodoo-voodoo in a plot that takes us from New York to New Orleans.
It is a potboiler entertainer, but you have to say Parker (who also scripted, adapting a novel by William Hjortsberg) and his collaborators made the most out of it. It looks great, has a strong score and the quality acting isn't just from the stars. Stocker Fontelieu only has one scene as a rich Southern society type, and most of his dialogue is exposition, but he wrings every last bit of energy and excitement from it. Parker seems to have treated the project as an exercise in finding ways to slip exposition past the audience as seamlessly as possible. In his most shameless example, he has an actress undressing while filling in Angel on Johnny Favourite's background. How very sexist, tut-tut. There's a very fine moment on Coney Island beach where Angel talks to a married couple that is a perfect example of how to discretely slip plot exposition into an entertaining scene.
Parker, who hasn't made a film since 2003, always had a chip on his shoulder about his critical reception and felt that he was never forgiven for having come up through the advertising industry, along with most of the Puttnam-inspired wave of British directors who hit it big in Hollywood in the eighties – Adrian Lyne, the Scotts Ridley and Tony. Working in advertising is a mortal sin but I'd say by this point he'd just about redeemed himself.
He was always a lot more flexible in his approach and his choice of subject manner. (That said the southern scenes in Angel Heart were almost a trial run for Mississippi Burning.) A lot of his films seem to have fallen by the wayside and could be apt for rediscovery. Angel Heart is perhaps a good example of his merits and standing: it's not visionary, it's not a masterpiece but when you think about it, you're hard pushed to think of anyone who could've made a better job of it.
Extras.
Loads of them, but probably all from previous releases: director's commentary, making of, interviews and featurettes on voodoo.
