Extras: Trailer, Alan Parker Interview, 3 Making-of featurettes, Personality Profiles,
Behind-the-scenes footage and Photo Gallery, Director's Commentary,
Exclusive 56-page companion book
Director:
Alan Parker
(Angel Heart, Birdy, Bugsy Malone, Come See The Paradise, The Commitments, Evita, Fame, Midnight Express, Mississippi Burning, Pink Floyd: The Wall, The Road To Wellville)
Producer:
Elliot Kastner and Alan Marshall
Screenplay:
Alan Parker (from the novel Fallen Angel by William Hjortsberg)
Music:
Trevor Jones
Cast:
Harry Angel: Mickey Rourke
Louis Cyphre: Robert de Niro
Epiphany Proudfoot: Lisa Bonet
Margaret Krusemark: Charlotte Rampling
Toots Sweet: Brownie McGhee
Ethan Krusemark: Stocker Fontelieu
Dr. Fowler: Michael Higgins
The first time I saw this film
I didn't really appreciate it as the stunning - and often dark - imagery
didn't quite gel on a fullscreen video, which is why I was looking forward
to this anamorphic widescreen DVD release.
Set in 1955, 37-year-old private eye Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke)
is more into the simple tasks like divorces and adulterers, so bites off
more than he can chew when hired by the imposing Louis Cyphre (Robert de Niro)
- and paid $125 per day -
for what begins as a simple investigation into a missing musician, Johnny
Favourite, last seen in 1943, but religious aspects and the seedy underbelly
of Louisiana take their toll on Harry.
His trail leads him to the 17-year-old daughter of Johnny's girlfriend
Evangeline Proudfoot, Epiphany (Lisa Bonet), the fortune teller
Madame Zora aka Margaret Krusemark (Charlotte Rampling), Johnny's
fellow musician Toots Sweet (Brownie McGhee) and a Dr. Fowler
(Michael Higgins) who oversaw Favourite's stay in a hospital.
However, the deeper he digs, the more people he comes into contact with
end up brown bread - making him the prime suspect - and the less he will
want to discover the truth.
In 1987, Rourke was high up the Hollywood acting list after a strong and
convincing turn here and the controversy courted by his previous year's hit,
9½ Weeks,
but soon after he fell from grace and, while he still makes scores of films,
his credibility has never since recovered. Just what went wrong?
The film is presented in its original cinematic ratio of 1.85:1 and is
anamorphic. It's only marred slightly by a hint of softness that may be
more intentional than anything else, in keeping with the period and the style
of the film.
The average bitrate is 6.26Mb/s, occasionally peaking over 9Mb/s.
The sound is Dolby Pro Logic as it was filmed. A Dolby Digital 5.1 remix
would have been stunning, but what we have here is much better than expected
given the haunting theme and the thunderous heartbeats with which many scenes
are provided. The dialogue is in English, German, French and Spanish.
Extras :
First up is a 2½-minute 4:3 fullscreen, open-matte trailer which you
shouldn't see before watching the film as it even includes the final moments.
A five-minute Alan Parker Interview, divided up into five chapters,
is included which was filmed on-set, a better idea than shooting it now given
that his recollection may not be quite what it was now, something that is
proved when you hear how he can't quite remember too much during the
feature-length Director's Commentary.
3 Making-of featurettes run for a total of 6½ minutes and
concentrate on voodoo, choreographing such a ritual and the whole look of the
film. I expected the Personality Profiles to be simple filmographies,
but are actually clips from the film mixed in with a deep voice (not THAT
deep voice though, of Don LaFontaine) providing information about Mickey
Rourke, Lisa Bonet and Alan Parker, totalling 10 minutes.
The Behind-the-scenes footage is 90 seconds of raw work-in-progress
of Rourke's performance and the 22-strong Photo Gallery is presented
just the way I like it - photos that fill the screen and aren't surrounded
by graphics rubbish to make it look like it's part of someone's scrapbook.
The final masterstroke is the Exclusive 56-page companion book (above right),
entitled "Angel Heart: The Making of the film - Beat by Beat",
detailing the production, day by day.
There are subtitles in 7 languages: English, German, Spanish, French,
Portuguese, Dutch, Turkish and something I didn't find in the menu but on
my DVD-ROM onscreen remote, "French - Children". My knowledge of the language
isn't so good now, so I have to presume this is a censored version of the
script.
The main menu has shots of the film accompanied by the haunting theme
as well as during the transitions between menus.
A fantastic start to the "Director's Chair" series, with some decent extras
and the aforementioned book, I shall be looking forward to Momentum's next
releases.
My only criticism with the presentation comes at the final, spooky moment
in the film after the end credits have finished. I won't divulge what happens,
but only that I'm sure the heartbeats faded out when I saw this on video,
after which we saw just the blank darkness of the film having ended, during
which we could reflect on what we'd just seen. Here, the DVD goes straight
back to the animated and scored menu.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
