A great 6 hours (that I have repeated often)

I am writing an academic article on the film version of Angels in America and that makes it difficult to review—this is why I have put off writing an epinion about it despite having seen it originally 2 years ago and watched it several times since then.

In the interest of full disclosure, I saw each version of the plays Millennium Approaches and Perestroika and hated both of them with a deep and abiding passion. After seeing Mike Nichols’s adaptation, I realize my loathing came from what was a combination of poor acting and horrible directing (I left Perestroika at intermission). Whatever was broken in the plays was fixed for the HBO version.

Angels has an ensemble cast telling an ensemble of stories that interrelate only loosely. The entire story takes place in 1985 and 1986 New York City. The primary story is about Prior Walter’s (Justin Kirk) discovery that he has AIDS and how he and his friends cope with this knowledge. His story follows his descent into the disease and shows how he becomes a prophet of this new age—this is where the first Angel (Emma Thompson) actually makes an appearance. His main interlocutors are his boyfriend Louis (Ben Shenkman) and a nurse friend Belize (Jeffrey Wright). Roy Cohn (Al Pacino) is the centerpiece of another story. He has AIDS, but insists that his doctor refer to it as liver cancer. As he descends into the illness he is haunted by a spectral Ethyl Rosenberg (Meryl Streep); her main objective is to be a witness to Cohn’s disbarment proceedings. In addition to this ghost, Roy’s main interlocutors are Belize and Joe Pitt (Patrick Wilson). Joe is the centerpiece of the third main story line. He is a Mormon who is closeted about being gay. Roy wants to use the pretty boy to join the Justice Department in an attempt to squash the ethics problem leading to his disbarment. His wife Harper (Mary-Louise Parker) is a Mormon with a problem with valium. She and Joe have a complex relationship based on her ‘knowledge’ but denial of Joe’s homosexuality. Joe’s interlocutors are Roy, Harper, and Louis (with whom he has an affair) and his mother Hannah (Meryl Streep).

Those are natural storylines. There are two supernatural or dreamlike storylines. Prior and Harper both have problems with reality staying put. Harper creates people to talk to, the only one we see is Mr Lies (Jeffrey Wright) who is a travel agent that takes her to Antarctica. Prior has a problem with an angel and two heralds (two ancestors with the same name but from different epochs). The heralds explain the angel, the angel does her best to explain the rest. Each character comes to terms with their reality/delusion problem by the end.

No one stole the show. This is both important and amazing. This cast had enough Oscars, Oscar nominations, Emmys, Emmy nominations, Tonys, and Tony nominations to make any of their egos too large to work in an ensemble—there may well have been huge fights on the set, but they were all put aside when the cameras started. Meryl Streep plays Hanna Pitt, Ethyl Rosenberg, the Angel Australia, and the Rabbi at the beginning who does the funeral for Louis’s grandmother—all with distinct accents. Emma Thompson plays Prior’s nurse, the Angel America, and a schizoid homeless person in the Bronx—each with a different accent. Jeffrey Wright plays Belize, Mr Lies, and the Angel Europe. Ben Shenkman and Justin Kirk each play a small role other than their main ones. Of the main characters, only Pacino and Parker play only one role. In all of this cast confusion is some of the tightest acting I’ve seen, especially for something made for cable.

Mike Nichols was an excellent choice to keep control over both the information in the play and those who present it. A few years before this adaptation, there was a story that Robert Altman was going to direct it. Rest his soul, but I think that would have been horrible. I love many of Mr. Altman’s movies, but I believe his unique (sometimes bombastic) style would give a color to it that would not have been as successful as Mr. Nichols’s vision.

In doing research for the academic essay, I’ve run across several posits that I believe to have been built on a misunderstanding. One of them that is not a misconception is the open hostility towards Reagan and his administration and towards Republicans in general. Republicans are vilified in a way that no other group is in the play. Roy Cohn is shown for the evil P.O.S. he was, but that is so well documented that it is fitting. If you are a die hard Republican, you may find yourself left in the cold for the 6 hours it takes to watch, if you last.

Many opinions tackle the religion covered in the play. The essay I’m constructing tackles just this (anyone who has read my score of essays in the Religious Non Fiction essays on Epinions.com knows that I have a ton to say on the topic). Judaism, Mormonism, Irish Catholicism, and Hare Krishna are the only religions that are shown or mentioned. Judaism and Mormonism are the foci; Irish Catholic is only mentioned once by Prior during an examination when he talks about a friend who had died and H.K. is only shown in a tiny set piece that allows a segue between one major story line and another. No other religion or lack of a religion is covered.

Louis is a thoughtful, secular Jew who is kind of like a kid with a gun (his mouth)—he can use it, but not necessarily well and he might find a way to shoot himself if left to shoot it long enough. Roy Cohn is a vicious fighter for whom being Jewish during a time when this wasn’t popular makes his sword that much sharper and more biting. Cohn is totally reprehensible. Louis is essentially harmless and is mostly likeable until he starts on one of his lengthy polemics that show the tired image of a self-hating Jew. Still, given this, the play cannot be considered anti-Jew.

Joe, Harper, and Hanna Pitt are Mormons. Joe is closeted and nervous. Harper deals with her isolation and fear with valium and imaginary friends. Hannah is an upstanding, stoic woman who is really more frontier woman than Mormon if you do a deep analysis. She is a practicing LDS, but her stiff character seems to be more related to being western than not—she would be the same if Baptist or Presbyterian. Some ink and lots of pixels have been used to show how the play is anti-Mormon. I do not believe this to be true.

Judaism is the oldest monotheist religion in the Western tradition. Mormonism is the newest one, formed in America with a significant following (Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses—the Millerite religions—and Christian Science all came later, but LDS membership outstrips all of these). It is worth noting that Jews divide the world into Jews and Gentiles. Mormons do the same thing—there are Mormons and Gentiles (and in a very confusing mixture, Jews are Gentiles to Mormons). Each religion had a major Diaspora; each religion faced and faces discrimination; each found their homeland near an inland salt lake. There are many other comparisons but these will suffice for this essay. Using these two religions puts bookends on the Western tradition in a way that limits the discussion of fault, blame, fear rests in one tradition. Yes, the play pokes some fun at both religions, but it is, end the end, a dark comedy, so this part goes without saying.

Many LDS essays I’ve read excoriate the plays and the HBO version. The reasons for this are Joe not being at the fountain at the end and what the essayists presume to be Hannah foregoing church teaching. Joe’s absence from the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park is problematic and would take too long to go into here—I believe the LDS critics are somewhat correct with him, but I believe their analysis is surface only. They have no reason to say that Hannah has foregone the church. However, let’s assume she has. She is the only other character than Prior who witnessed an angel. For anyone of faith or no faith, having a run in with an angel is bound to have a different perspective than a group of church fathers who have never seen one in the ‘flesh’ so to speak. Still, I stick by my guns that there is nothing textural to indicate that Hannah has stopped being a Mormon.

The ending isn’t the significant part so stop here if you don’t want the significant part ruined by my babbling

The angels were why I hated the plays. The actors didn’t know what to do and it was obvious from the silliness that the director didn’t either—I didn’t see this on Broadway, so I am not complaining about that adaptation. The way the film handles them is brilliant.

The main angels are called Continental Principalities. The Angel America has two heralds explain that she is coming and that the current Prior Walter is a prophet. When America comes through the roof, it becomes very plain that Prior has no idea what she is talking about when she commands him to “obtain the sacred implements from their hiding place.” So she has to shout upwards, apparently to the recording angels, “revision in the text.” To me this is hysterical, but I am a massive fan of dark comedy. For a believer, the idea that what amounts to an Archangel showing up so unprepared for the reality she faces is frightening because of what it means.

It means that God is not in His Heaven and all is not right with the world.

Prior finagles a trip to Heaven to return the sacred book (he comes by this in exactly the way that Joseph Smith is said to have come to find and translate the book of Mormon by the way). The problem, according to the Continental Angels, is that people were God’s playthings and He basically got bored with humans on earth and just ‘left.’ The only way God will come back, according to the Angels’ strange reasoning is for people to stop moving, stop progressing, just stop. They believe that if this happens, God will return. Prior explains that this is not only impossible but stupid to expect. At this point, the notion of a Godless Heaven comes into sharp focus. Prior says “If He ever does come back, I’d sue the bastard.”

For a neverbeliever this is a great idea. I am not frightened by a Godless Heaven or a Heavenless afterlife; my belief is that nothing happens when we die. But I can see that a believer would be petrified at this and what it means. It means that woman/man has all of the responsibility for her/himself and no God to thank or Satan to blame for issues supposedly beyond her/his hands. It means that every decision, every non-decision is entirely our responsibility. I believe this anyway, so an infected human explaining to angels that they should sue God is funny. This is not how a believer would take it. In this one scene, the play divides the audience in a way I’ve never seen before. At this point, the play either maintains its comedic structure or it becomes a tragedy. I find this a very rich use of what can be dangerous (and sometimes silly) imagery.