Angels in America

I've written some pretty negative things about American TV and movies on this web site, so maybe it's time to give praise where due. I finally - many years late I'm ashamed to say - got around to watching this HBO mini series because my kids have just appeared in a school production of The Laramie Project, in which Angels in America is mentioned many times, and I felt abysmally ignorant at not having seen it. Thank you Netflix.

I've literally just finished watching the last part, and it's made a deep impression. Very moving, very imaginatively done, beautifully written and superbly acted. Looking back over several years of prior comments on this page, I am just astonished at people who can apparently force themselves to sit through six hours of something they hated! I mean, what part of the on/off switch can't they use? Six hours? Everyone occasionally finds themselves in the cinema sitting through a couple of hours of a film they aren't enjoying, but six hours on the TV at home? People, if you don't like it, or it offends, turn it off! Plenty of brain dead TV offends me. So I don't watch it. Ultimately, it's your free choice.

I'm just a boring, middle aged woman with a couple of teenage kids, probably not the target audience, but I found AinA life affirming, and thought provoking, and I loved the visual imagery and the portrayal of homosexual relationships as just as good/bad/complicated/simple/natural/valid/selfless/selfish as heterosexual relationships. I've always adored Meryl Streep, and she lived up to my expectations here, she's my role model of a talented woman growing older gracefully. Emma Thompson pulled off her role as American angel magnificently, Mary-Louise Parker was a revelation, I was appalled by Roy Cohn, so Al Pacino obviously did a great job, and all the other characters were perfectly cast (especially Jeffrey Wright and Justin Kirk.) I couldn't take my eyes off Jeffrey Wright when he was on screen. Utterly compelling in his portrayal of an upfront gay male nurse, dealing compassionately but practically with the cold reality of dying AIDS patients in his care.

This isn't a particularly easy six hours of TV to watch, but life shouldn't always be easy should it? It's good sometimes to have to struggle a bit to understand someone else's vision. There were many perfect speeches and I'm hoping for a revival of the stage play so I can catch up with those speeches in their original format. I'm still thinking about the line (paraphrased) "Life will be unbearable for a long time before it becomes impossible". Sounds very appropriate for what we are doing to the environment in the 21st century, doesn't it, as well as HIV in the 1980s? So this film is for all times, not just the 1980s.

There are films that are so good, so good, that are almost a miracle. That's the case of this extraordinary miniseries, "Angels in America", which proves that TV-movies don't have to be inferior, technically or artistically, to any other big production. It was good that Tony Kushner's adaptation of his Pulitzer-winning stage play was turned into a 6-hour miniseries, otherwise much of it would've been lost in a 2 and half hour movie.

"Angels in America" is a stunning epic about the AIDS crisis in 1985, around a group of people haunted by the disease. Kushner even included a real character, the hateful right-wing fixer Roy Cohn (Al Pacino - Cohn was also played by James Woods in another acclaimed TV-movie, "Citizen Cohn", in 1992). The 6 hours are always interesting, often sad, sometimes funny, never depressing. The ensemble cast is just wonderful and I couldn't pick one favourite - Justin Kirk (the real lead and the one who, sadly, got less awards, what's a shame by the way), Mary-Louise Parker, Meryl Streep, Pacino, Emma Thompson, Jeffrey Wright, Patrick Wilson, Ben Shenkman and James Cromwell. "Angels in America" is one unforgettable cinematic experience, everything that a film should be - films don't get better than this. It's hard to point out the "guilty", but let's give special credit to the veteran Mike Nichols ("Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", "The Graduate"), who made another modern masterpiece the following year: "Closer", based on a Patrick Marber's play. Since his debut in "Virginia Woolf", Nichols proved he could turn a play into a great film like no other. "Angels in America" is one of his finest works. Unmissable. 10 out of 10.

"This disease will be the end of many of us, but not nearly all. And the dead will be commemorated, and we'll struggle on with the living, and we are not going away. We won't die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come".

There was a statement that was going through my head while watching "Angels in America": I know what art is when I see it. Just like art, this ambitious miniseries dares the viewer to have an opinion on the various subjects brought up by screenwriter/playwright Tony Kuchner.

I saw the miniseries one chapter at a time, which may or may not have been a good idea to get the full impact of the point. At least it did motivate me to read both of Kuchner's "Angels" plays.

I found it to be both a frustrating and challenging miniseries. There were the great performances by Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Justin Kirk, and Jeffrey Wright and the good performances by Emma Thompson, Mary-Louise Parker, Patrick Wright and, in a small role, James Cromwell.

I find it rather humorous that some people thought Al Pacino was miscast as Roy Cohn. Though this is Kuchner's fictional view of Cohn and having seen the real Roy Cohn in television interviews, I though Pacino was not too far from the essence of who Cohn was: an ambitious but very bitter gay man in denial who helped his notable clients but was always out for himself. Cohn was rabid dog without a leash. This was Pacino's first television role and I though he did a great job. (Correction: Pacino's only television acting role prior to "Angels in America" and not including the edited version of "The Godfather Saga" was the short-lived but critically-acclaimed ABC drama "N.Y.P.D." (1967-69).

I did have a few problems with the mini-series. The role played by Ben Shenkman (Louis) was incredibly annoying. I heard that role is Tony Kuchner's alter ego. Louis redeems himself at the end but I found him to be a whiny, cowardly man who had difficulty counting his blessings. I loved it when after Louis' typically long diatribes, Belize (Jeffrey Wright) verbally put him down with a just a few words.

In both plays, many of the actors played multiple roles. It seems more of a gimmick on the small screen, though I think Streep and Wright fared best.

The always dependable Thomas Newman has fashioned a haunting musical score. It was minimalistic and very memorable. The theme has been on my mind ever since I first heard the theme when the miniseries won various awards at the Golden Globes. (Update: The miniseries received 21 Emmy nominations and won a record (for miniseries) 11 Emmys. For some mysterious reason, Newman's brilliant score was overlooked.)

I don't see this play adapted for the big screen without chopping a lot of things out. Congratulations to Mike Nichols and the cast and crew for taking a chance adapting "Angels in America" to television.

Simply the best piece of American Cinema/Television I have ever seen!! Superb acting by the entire cast, fantastic and clever script, magnificently filmed, a pure joy from start to finish.

I am amazed how well such an excellent stage presentation has translated to film. This will become a classic. All of the awards that it has received are fully deserved.

It has captured the essence of what being gay was in the 80's with all its fears, problems and excitements. But it is more than just a gay document, it speaks of life generally in the 80's, of everyones fears and hopes in such an affluent time. The depiction so real (even in the surreal sequences) so insightful of that period.

Totally remarkable.

Set in 1980s New York and subtitled "A Gay Fantasia on National Themes," the six-hour ANGELS IN America concerns a group of largely gay men who find themselves caught up in series of disasters that range from love to religion and from politics to philosophy--and most specifically caught between the rising tide of AIDS and a generally unsympathetic society.

In the midst of this, AIDS patient Prior Walter begins to have a series of visions, which may be fever dreams, medicine-induced hallucinations... or, most unnerving of all, real. His long dead ancestors rise to speak to him, the floor cracks open to reveal a burning book--and at the conclusion of the play's first half a beautiful woman with majestic wings crashes through his roof. She is the Angel of America. He is, she tells him, a prophet, and she has come to bring him a message for mankind.

Intertwined with Prior's other-earthly experiences are oddly parallel lives. Joe and Harper Pitt are a deeply dysfunctional couple doubting their faith in the Mormon Church, Joe a closeted homosexual, Harper a Valium-addicted and mildly psychotic woman given to visions as strange as those of Prior Walter's. And as further counterpoint historical figure Roy Cohn (1927-1986), among the most sinister figures of 20th Century America, finds himself taunted by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg as he drifts toward his own AIDS-induced death. The characters swirl in and out of each other's lives and dreams, playing to stereotypes and yet defying them, arguing politics and philosophy and love and death--and it is fascinating stuff.

Although the play stunned 1990s audiences, most considered it utterly unfilmable due to both length and content. But this HBO-produced, Mike Nichols-directed version not only captures the power of the original, in some ways it improves upon it. Playwright Tony Kushner has adapted his work to the screen, rearranging certain problematic scenes and bits of dialogue to better effect, and certainly no one could argue with the cast, which is absolutely stunning in a series of multiple roles.

With a mad swirl of irony, intense drama, outrageous humor, and unexpected twists and turns, ANGELS IN America is almost sure to hold your attention--particularly if you recall the Ronald Reagan years well enough to recognize the truly bitter allegory the film offers on what many consider his largely absentee second term. Truly a must have, multi-layered, bearing repeated viewings, beautifully directed, performed, and filmed.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer