ANGELS IN AMERICA Remarkable, ambitious, important.

I had read, heard about and seen 30 second clips of various productions of the 7 plus hour theatrical versions of Tony Kushner's 1993 ANGELS IN AMERICA. I knew Robert Altman was once trying to direct it and there were other attempts to film it which included Brad Pitt in a pivotal role. When HBO finally gave the green light to a 60 million dollar, six hour version of the play with a dream cast, you heard a lot of people holding their breath, crossing their fingers and hoping the project would get finished and actually work.

It does work. It works very hard. Perhaps it works a little too hard to impress and overwhelm on several levels. Some of the performances are over-the-top and there are probably too many theatrical styles rants left in its presentation, but this visualization is an overwhelming, worthwhile experience.

Mike Nichols has given us the best Dennis Potter film I've ever seen. Dennis Potter had nothing to do with this film, of course but clearly THE SINGING DETECTIVE and PENNIES FROM HEAVEN were inspirations. Mike Nichols adds quite a bit of symbolism to the package for those paying attention. Some of it (a shot of spilling milk) is as corny as can be, but some of it is inspired and in a couple of instances took my breath away. The CGI effects are obvious but those scenes are surrealistic and one isn't supposed to think of everything you see as completely real.

There aren't too many movies that take my breath away. Oh some of these huge overbudgeted blockbusters try, but most of the action movies this summer including the Matrix sequels didn't do much for me even on a purely visceral level. I am talking about films that dazzle me with more than just a fantastic shot, or a wild stunt, or a ridiculously loud bit of music or sound effect anyway. ANGELS IN AMERICA had done that. Some of the acting, dialogue, juxtapositions, points being made worked. ANGELS IN AMERICA knows its IMPORTANT and it is supposed to be (and is) talky, theatrical, literal and smart but it doesn't feel stagy, stilted or condescending. It could have been a giant belly-flop of a well intended project. It could have been a gigantic mess. It could have been a DeMille style camp-fest or an un-watchable depressing tear jerker. It is not. ANGELS IN AMERICA is one of the best mini-series ever made.

Bold and colorfully, Angels begins taking chances right from the start. We witness a Jewish funeral where a very old and somewhat surreal, wise-cracking rabbi delivers a rather informal eulogy. We focus on a pair of men who are attending the funeral. You might find, at least at first, that it is a bit difficult to get into the film. The characters have lots of problems and hang-ups and they whine and yell and have to deal with them. None of these are the kind of entertaining problems that we run to the movies to see so we can escape from our wonderful lives. There are identity issues, there is AIDS, there is marital problems, and there is all the mortal fear, angst and amorality to deal with too. We cut between the male couple, the married couple, and we get little reminders of American life in 1985 under President Ronald Reagan and get a peek at what it was like to be Gay during this time. We move from purely fictional characters to ones like Roy Cohn who really existed . Eventually Dickensian and Shakespeare inspired ghosts, wild hallucinations, visions and surreal realities appear and some might trying figure out what is going on--what it means and how they can possibly continue this kind of thing for three more hours.

None of ANGELS wallows around the disturbing emotions or pours on the angst like a thick syrup for very long. There are clever comments and quips flying everywhere at times. Constantly we are moving from one character to another, from one perspective to another. There is a lot of humor, much of it self-deprecating and full of pop-culture references, and it's effective and sometimes poignant. There are long monologues, there is cross cutting between several scenes where characters deliver rat-tat-tat dialogue and there is also Al Pacino's performance.

Angels is too much to absorb in one 6 hour viewing of the film, and too much even to absorb in two 3 hour versions of the film but that is a good thing.

Pacino seems over-the-top in his performance. He is too loud and is not just chewing, but having multiple orgasms over the consumption of the scenery. We have seen Pacino do manic portrayals successfully in both Dick Tracy and Scarface before and at first he seems to be playing SATAN masquerading convincingly as Roy Cohn.

Pacino, however is not stealing all the scenes he is in. That is not what his performance is about. Pacino is portraying the kind of bigger than life character who explodes and blusters and acts in a theatrical fashion so that others fear him and keep him at arms length. The performance is not just loud and colorful, or mesmerizing it's risky and dangerous and balanced like a drunk tight-rope walker who never falls. Pacino plays Roy Cohn with enough make-up and a hair piece to strongly resemble the real-life Cohn. Cohn is portrayed as a character whose need for power and control are not only inseparable from his dark self-loathing, but also as important and necessary as breathing. This Cohn enjoys being Satan. Enjoys bargaining for people's souls. This is isn't entertaining camp, this is an actor who has gone way, way out on a limb and discovered the branch does support him. Director Mike Nichols isn't getting a boisterous, loud, unruly, hogging performance from Pacino, he's getting a finely crafted one that doesn't just rely on schtick or acting tricks. Oh you will spot tics and Pacino moments, but that is partly because you have watched him give everything he has in several movies before. Here, however, they are incorporated into a performance that becomes more real as we get used to the theatrical approach this film takes. Just look at the way, Pacino plays off the other actors in the scenes he shares. In fact, none of the actors he shares his scenes with are intimidated by what he is doing as an actor. He's not hogging or stealing the scenes you realize, but actually staying very balanced and playing this bigger than life character, as perfectly as can be done. There's even a warmth to this monster, but the performance doesn't have an ounce of sentimental pandering for sympathy. Somehow, director Nichols and his editor make sure in every scene that the movie keeps up with Pacino. They make sure that this huge performance doesn't overwhelm everything else like it did in Scarface.

Pacino is far from the whole show here. He's just a colorful supporting character in a rich tapestry that boasts fine performances from everyone involved. There's even a theatrical stunt being played on the audience where actors appear under lots of make-up in several scenes playing smaller supporting characters. You'll notice Emma Thompson and Jeffrey Wright doing this, and Meryl Streep as Ethel Rosenberg too, but a couple of appearances will fool you. I won't spoil the surprises for you. Most, (but not all) of Part 1's surprises will be revealed during the end credits. A few more in Part 2.

ANGELS is the story of two very different men diagnosed with Aids and two other men who must learn to deal with issues of cowardice, mortality and identity.

Prior Walter (Justin Kirk) has just learned he has AIDS. His live-in partner, Louis (Ben Shenkman) a law clerk (at Cohn's firm) can't deal with this revelation. He cannot stand to watch his lover suffer and die and so he starts to abandon his lover and wrestles with his cowardice and guilt.

Roy Cohn (Pacino), is a powerful conservative lawyer who has learned he has AIDS. Immediately his initial concern is public relations and how he will be branded a homosexual if news of his malady is leaked to the press. He has also picked an associate to do his bidding and represent him in Washington D.C.

Joe Pitt (Patrick Wilson) is the associate, he's afraid of change and of confronting his wife Harper (Mary-Louise Parker) with the idea that they should move to Washington D.C. Actually he is afraid of dealing with his wife at all because Joe is in denial about being a homosexual. He has been raised a strict Mormon and has buried his feeling for several years. He has been living the life of a strict young Republican but after a chance meeting with Louis (Shenkman), buried issues rise to the surface quickly.

Pitt's wife Harper, has been suffering emotionally because of the lack of intimacy in her marriage and to deal with her depression she has been taking Valium which has made her paranoid about leaving the Brooklyn apartment and fuels some odd hallucinations. May-Louise Parker has one of the most difficult roles to pull off, and while she's not quite allowed to be a sympathetic character, she gives her character more backbone than most actresses would be able to conjure. If you don't initially respond to what Parker is doing, hang on, she'll really surprise and connect with you in the second three hours. And her last scene is a memorable one.

Also having hallucinations is Prior Walter (Kirk) now on drug cocktails to deal with the AIDS that is attacking his body. It is in the fantasy sequences that guides, ghosts and even Angels reveal themselves to our characters. In the second 3 hours the hallucinations make more sense and Prior is transformed into a prophet and is continually visited by an Angel. He doesn't want to be a powerful being or an Angel or prophet however. He wants to live and he wants the love of his life back.

Jeffrey Wright plays one of Prior ex-lovers and good friend, Meryl Streep plays Joe Pitt's mother who has left Salt Lake City to visit her son in New York City, Emma Thompson plays a nurse caring for Walter. They also play other parts.

Patrick Wilson reminds me of the lead actor from HBO's SIX FEET UNDER. He is probably the least colorful and most bland of the main characters in Angels, whose conflicts are internalized throughout most of Part 1. His Joe Pitt begins as an every-man character, the Jimmy Stewart in a twisted It's A Wonderful Life scenario.

Wilson may have the dullest and least interesting role to play, but his role is the glue that holds so many of the other pieces together, particularly for us straight folks in the audience.

I can't really start referencing other films however because there are dozens which are already referenced and others that are talked about by the pop-culture aware characters in the piece, whose fantasies and hallucinations are born out of a life where too many movies and Broadway shows have been watched and admired. (Pacino has a hilarious throw-away monologue about Broadway's Cats and La Cage Aux Folles; in other scene there's a wonderful bad pun about Come Back Little Sheba etc, etc.). Later he's in full Richard the 3 mode.

Justin Kirk's Prior is the most charismatic likeable character in the film. We don't really know much about him at all, when he becomes the tragic figure of the piece who is sentenced to death by AIDS. His performance is a multi-layered rich one that is at times funny, disturbing, frightening and devastating to watch. It's remarkable how much we find ourselves caring about this character, considering we know so little about who he is.

Ben Shenkman who plays the nearly spineless Louis delivers a performance that allows us to have pity and compassion for his character who has done a horribly cowardly thing. You have to hate this guy, but we understand why he has done what he had done. It is Shakespeare of course, but the performance modernizes and gives it impact.

Jeffrey Wright only has a few scenes in Part 1, but they are good ones and he gives the character the depth needed to create a memorable performance. He is even better in Part 2. Emma Thompson and Meryl Streep have their moments as well, but during the first 3 hours they aren't quite as memorable as the others. Thompson gets some richer things to do in Part 2, but Streep doesn't have the kind of big scenes most of the others have. Well, then again I like very much what she does with Ethel Rosenberg.

Angels is a huge well-produced cinematic piece. It is talky and theatrical but it does not feel staged or confined. The play has been opened up tremendously and there's a lot of visual pizzazz going on. Director Nichols demonstrates what a talented juggler he is and he doesn't drop any of the dozens of objects he's thrown in the air.

The problem with ANGELS IN AMERICA for me is that I don't feel emotionally swept up into its storylines. There are passionate speeches, exciting visuals, and a lot of energy going on, but it's essentially an overly literate, political film. I am certainly grateful the movie isn't a tear-jerking melodrama, but it seems to me that Tony Kushner constructed his story-lines in order to have his characters philosophize on the state of the world and human nature. I don't blame Kushner a bit for going in this direction when he was putting together this play (set in 1985), which had its debut in 1993. He gives us a little too much Eugene O'Neil in its presentation but we are talking about an incredibly ambitious, risky theatrical piece here (originally 7 hours long). It's also important that when making a film of one of the most important theatrical events of the 1990s that you're faithful to its text. That has been done and is no small accomplishment. I just wish that the film would have been a little less political statement and a little more soulful and human. Of course I also realize this isn't some small independently produced film that will show at a few film festivals and play in a few art theaters in some large cities. This is it. You get 60 million bucks and a dream cast, an HBO play date, you test all the dice before your roll them.

I would like to believe that we live in a place and time that the timing of ANGELS IN AMERICA makes sense. It's not the kind of film that will cause a huge controversy that way it might have just a few years ago. We now have on our airwaves programs such as: Queer as Folk, Six Feet Under, Will and Grace and even Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. You might say it is an act of political correctness that this movie gets made with the money it requires and with the cast that will bring it the attention it should have. ANGELS IN AMERICA is an event to be admired, a piece of history that can be preserved and put up on a pedestal. It has that kind of IMPORTANCE. However there remains a powerful conservative majority throughout America that idolizes the Reagan years and believes the current administration is an improvement over the Clintons.

There are a lot of words to be digested in this epic film and many of them have been crafted and delivered with the kind of poetic grace that is rarely seen outside of successful revivals of Shakespeare's iambic pentameter. It’s rare that a successful theatrical piece makes a good transition to the screen, ANGELS IN AMERICA is worth spending a lot of time with. It gets better and better as it progresses. Nichols has a few strange edits, some scenes that clunk visually but have so much power in their acting and dialogue that many won't notice. Reserve lots of time for this it is worth it.


ANGELS IN AMERICA is an ambitious, important work that carries important messages driven home by impressive visuals and memorable performances. If it was even possible to release it into theaters, too few would attend. It would never be released on network television that is still too timid to even show a slightly less than flattering portrait of Reagan. While I personally don’t think it’s bold or brave to bring this to cable, it still is a very risky thing to do. There are many who still consider ANGELS subversive. Shame on them, but whether you label it homophobia or racism, most of us have some of it inside and it comes out in many forms. You’ll never get over it until you admit you have a problem. Maybe several viewers will take a brand new introspective look after viewing this film.

-- Copyright© Christopher J. Jarmick 12/2003