Angel Heart

In 1987, the stars aligned for Alan Parker’s horror noir adaptation of William Hjortsberg’s 1978 novel, Fallen Angel, into the film Angel Heart. It was part of a trend in the mid to late 1980s of movies featuring supernatural elements tied to Caribbean or South American magic with Santería and brujería in The Believers (1987), and Voodoo magic in Child’s Play (1988) and The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988) being notable examples.
 
Several attempts had been made to adapt Hjortsberg’s book since its publication, but it wasn’t until Parker signed on to the project that it got serious traction. It didn’t hurt that he cast Mickey Rourke as his lead actor, red hot from the notoriety of 9 ½ Weeks (1986), and opposite him, Lisa Bonet, one of the breakout stars of the very popular television sitcom, The Cosby Show, which raised eyebrows at the time as she was known for playing a squeaky clean character in a wholesome show to starring as a femme fatale in a sexually explicit film.
 
Despite this, and the controversial, steamy sex scene between Bonet and Rourke’s characters, which forced Parker to cut 10 seconds to avoid an X rating, Angel Heart failed to make back its $18 million budget and received a mixed critical reaction. It has, however, gone on to influence filmmakers like Christopher Nolan and enjoyed a re-evaluation over the years as an atmospheric neo-noir fused with unsettling elements of supernatural horror.

New York City, 1955. Parker immediately immerses us in the snow-bound city with shadowy alleyways and great attention to period details with era-specific cars and clothes that set a noirish tone. Harold Angel (Rourke) is a slightly seedy private investigator approached by a mysterious client named Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro) for a job. They meet at a church in Harlem and right from the get-go something is off. It could be the woman outside on the verge of passing out, surrounded by family and friends, or it could be the room where a woman is scrubbing gruesome blood-spattered stains off a wall from an apparent suicide by a parishioner who blew his brains out.
 
The initial meeting between two of the greatest actors of their respective generations is as wonderful as one would hope as they face off against each other. Robert De Niro plays it low-key yet ominous with the occasional sidelong glances at his no-nonsense attorney (played by Law & Order’s Dann Florek) and exuding a cultured air while also a malevolence in his piercing stare. In contrast, Rourke playfully mispronounces Cyphre’s name and acts nervous, laughing uncomfortably as Harry is clearly intimidated by his future employer. Their scenes together, particularly their first and last one, are some of the film’s best moments if only to see De Niro’s bemused malice square off against Rourke’s smartass bravado.
 
Cyphre wants Harry to track down a well-known singer by the name of Johnny Favorite from back in the day who failed to honor a contract. Johnny came back from World War II suffering from shellshock and extensive facial injuries involving intensive reconstruction. He wants to know if the man is still alive but, of course, it isn’t that easy as Harry quickly realizes.

Rourke is perfectly cast as a low-rent P.I. in way over his head. He excels at playing these types of characters and delivers a memorable performance as a cocky gumshoe whose whole life gradually unravels. Harry is literally a tortured soul but not particular smart as it becomes apparent early on as he fails to pick up on the clues to the nature of his character. The film’s most significant moment of horror comes with his big revelation – something that was readily apparent to everyone else. Rourke gives it his all in the scene, conveying a truly tormented soul with raw intensity.

Much was made at the time of Bonet’s highly sexualized performance and how different it was from her family-friendly character on The Cosby Show. She shows off plenty of skin and is fine as a voodoo priestess with a secret, but comes off a little stiff, at times, in the scenes she shares with Rourke, a much superior actor. Fortunately, the camera loves her and she photographs very well, providing an alluring screen presence.
 
Parker’s screenplay tells us too much of what we are already seeing. On several occasions, Harry tells Epiphany Proudfoot (Bonet) how beautiful she is, which is unnecessary. We have eyes, we see her beauty by the way she is photographed. Harry also repeatedly says how much he hates chickens, which seems too on-the-nose, and that he’s from Brooklyn, which we quickly discern from his accent.

What Parker the screenwriter lacks in subtlety (Louis Cyphre = Lucifer – really?) Parker the director more than makes up for it with excellent direction and gorgeous cinematography courtesy of frequent collaborator Michael Seresin, aided by the incredible, period-rich production design by Brian Morris and art direction of 1950s era New York by Armin Ganz and Kristi Zea that envelopes you in this world with its evocative imagery of slow spinning fans and gated elevators going down, even if the latter image is rather heavy-handed (I wonder where it is going to?).

Visually, Parker contrasts the cold darkness of New York with the bright, sun-drenched heat of New Orleans. The source novel takes place entirely in NYC, but I can see what drew Parker to N.O. It is a visually stunning place with its own unique look and vibe. Parker plays up its hot house atmosphere, complete with sensual heat generated by Bonet and Rourke.
 
Alan Parker was sent the book when it was published in 1978 where it had immediately acquired a reputation for being tough to adapt as it was told in the first person “since so much of it happens inside the person’s head,” said the filmmaker. Paramount Pictures optioned the rights with the book’s author William Hjortsberg writing the screenplay. Robert Evans was being lined up to produce with John Frankenheimer directing. Not long afterwards Dick Richards replaced Frankenheimer with Dustin Hoffman starring as Harry Angel.

Parker was then re-introduced to the book when producer Elliot Kastner gave it to him in 1985. He hadn’t written a screenplay in a while, instead mostly rewriting other people’s work. He was also intrigued about the fusing of the supernatural with the detective story. In adapting the novel, Parker changed the story form being set entirely in New York City to half there and the other half in New Orleans for “very selfish reasons,” and “a lot of the leads within the novel itself went down to New Orleans, and I thought it was a way for me to open it up and give it a different look.” He also felt that New York was an “overly filmed city,” but was drawn to Harlem as he felt that not enough films had been shot there. He did research at the Harlem Library, looking into “bizarre religious movements of the 1930s and 1940s, born of economic isolation, and perhaps spiritual desperation.” He wrote most of the script there and “once I’d broken the back of the story” wrote the rest in New Orleans where he had wanted to move some of the action. It was there that he wrote, “sitting at corner tables in remote bars in the city’s shadowy back streets.”
 
In search of financial backing, Parker met with Andrew Vajna and Mario Kassar at the Cannes Film Festival after a screening of Birdy (1984). The independent movie producers had made millions of dollars with the lucrative Rambo and Terminator franchises and were willing to take risks on films like Angel Heart, agreeing to finance it.
 
For the casting Harry Angel, Parker met with Jack Nicholson but he didn’t show much interest. He then met with Mickey Rourke for lunch and, according to Parker, “told me quite emphatically that he was the only one to play Harry Angel and so I should ‘stop talking to the other guys.’”

Parker courted Robert De Niro for months, meeting a few times, and went over the script, “every single line and everyone single idea that he had from the point-of-view of the character,” the filmmaker remembered. Two weeks away from filming and Parker still hadn’t gotten De Niro to commit to the film. Originally, he had been approached to play Harry Angel but told the director that he wanted to play Cyphre. Parker didn’t want to pressure the actor in case he said no as there wasn’t an alternative choice for the part.
 
Parker had not seen Bonet on The Cosby Show. She came and was the second person to audition for the part. Parker was impressed with her: “She was very young, she had an innate intelligence beyond her years.”
 
Not surprisingly, De Niro committed fully to the transformation into his character: “All I know is when we were working we always knew when he was on the set because suddenly we all felt kind of strange. He became very creepy…You’d feel his presence. Somebody would say, ‘Bob must be here,’ and you’d turn around and there he was,” Parker remembered. For De Niro and Rourke’s first scene Parker used two cameras simultaneously in opposite directions, “this way, should the two of them begin to improvise or go off at a tangent, provoking in the other an action or reaction, a moment’s magic that one inspired in the other would be captured on film.” Observing their acting styles, Parker said, “Bob was cool, meticulous, charming and generous, but had everything under control. Mickey was disarming and ingenuous, but at all times gave as good as he took.”

Angel Heart was originally given an X rating by the Motion Picture Association of America for the sex scene between Bonet and Rourke’s characters. Parker said at the time, “They have not told me what it is specifically they objected to. I am not really sure what is acceptable and what is not…It’s like carving up a body. You get down to where there’s only a foot left and they say, ‘Ah, that’s it.’” The Director’s Guild of America then-president Gilbert Cates leant his support: “We’re against any kind of censoring of material.” Parker appealed the X rating twice before cutting 10 seconds from the scene to obtain an R rating on February 26, 1987. Parker said of the experience, “The film will play uncut almost everywhere in Europe. In most countries, sex is not something that gives you a problem. Violence is. It’s almost the reverse of the way it is here, where you can blow 10 people’s heads off in two minutes and it’s OK.”
 
Angel Heart received a mixed to negative critical reaction. Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half stars and wrote, “Angel Heart is a thriller and a horror movie, but most of all it's an exuberant exercise in style, in which Parker and his actors have fun taking it to the limit.” In his review for The New York Times, Vincent Canby wrote, “Affection of any sort is totally lacking in this film adaptation. The only wit is supplied by Mr. De Niro, who delivers his lines, some of which are genuinely funny, with a comic daintiness that gives firm style to the otherwise murky, pointless narrative “ The Washington Post’s Rita Kempley wrote, “While it has a sinister elegance, the movie is over-stylized, and we're over-stimulated when the soundtrack goes berserk, from a few thumpity-thumps to a visceral, ventricles a-pumping score.” In her review for The New Yorker, Pauline Kael wrote, “This is a lavishly sombre piece of hokum-funereal and loony.”
 
For all of its heavy-handedness, Angel Heart is ultimately a triumph of style over substance. I like how Parker gradually introduces the horror genre elements as Harry dives deeper into the voodoo culture that Johnny was a participant. He ratchets it up when more people Harry encounters wind up dead in all kinds of horrible ways. Horror noirs drenched in atmosphere are cinematic catnip for me and on this level the film certainly delivers. Parker has made a neo-noir as a waking nightmare with Harry trying to desperately to wake up, but unable to much like he is unable to escape his true nature.

Angel Heart would make for an excellent double bill with another horror noir, Roman Polanski’s The Ninth Gate (1999) also with a slight script offset by plenty of style to spare and featuring a damned protagonist to anchor the occult lunacy that threatens to overwhelm the film. Whereas Polanski’s film playfully pokes fun at genre conventions, Parker’s effort treats them with deadly seriousness, which exposes the script’s deficiencies. It could have used a bit more levity other than the occasional flourishes by Rourke. As a result, at times, we are laughing at Angel Heart rather than with it in the case of The Ninth Gate.
 
 
SOURCES
 
Daily Variety. April 28, 1986.
 
Gallagher, John A. Perfect Movies. February 17, 1987.
 
Parker, Alan. Angel Heart: The Making of the Film – Beat for Beat. Tri-Star Pictures. 1987.
 
Publishers Weekly. August 21, 1978.