Angels-MOVIES, ANGELS IN THE

Angels, perhaps due to their fantastical and ethereal nature, have been
the subject of numerous popular movies. Filmmakers revel in the opportunity
to portray heaven and, in particular, what the residents of heaven
look like and what they do. It is through this cinematic interpretation
that the common view of heaven has become so entrenched in popular
belief. Cinema heaven is approached through the golden gates guarded
by St. Peter, and is usually misty and filled with clouds. Angels are typically
white-robed, strum harps, are winged, and wear halos.
However, when angels leave their celestial abode, often they are
stripped of their heavenly encumbrances and take on Hollywood’s
favorite role of guardian (which holds with the job traditionally
assigned by theologians to this lowest ranking choir). These cinema
guardians usually assume human form, one that is easily recognizable
and identifiable to their human charges.
There have been numerous examples of guardian angels in
motion pictures over the decades. As has been Hollywood’s wont,
many of these have had various incarnations as originals and remakes.
For instance, Always is a remake of a Victor Fleming’s 1943 film, A
Guy Named Joe. In the new version, Pete (Richard Dreyfuss) is a firefighter
at Yellowstone National Park who has two significant people
in his life—his best friend, Al (John Goodman), and girlfriend, Dorinda
(Holly Hunter). When Pete dies and crosses over to the afterlife
after his heroic effort to save Al, he becomes a guardian angel for
another pilot, Ted (Brad Johnson). His assignment is to pass on his
considerable piloting skills to the young pilot Ted, who falls in love
with Dorinda. When Ted volunteers for a dangerous mission to save a
crew of firefighters, Dorinda, afraid of loosing Ted, steals his plane and
completes the mission with the help of Pete’s inspiration. Afterwards,
Pete lets go of her to allow Ted to take his place.
One of the classic examples of Hollywood angels can be found in
The Bishop’s Wife (1947), in which Cary Grant is cast as the angel
Dudley, sent to the aid of an absentminded young Episcopalian bishop
played by David Niven. The assured Grant brings a relaxed quality
to Dudley, and produces a calming effect among his troubled earthly
charges. The audience is drawn to Grant in much the same way as
the bishop and his wife, family, and friends are. He soothes us with
his calming tones and mesmerizes with his beatific features. It is
impossible not to believe that Dudley is, indeed, heaven sent. In the
1996 update, titled The Preacher’s Wife, Denzel Washington plays
Dudley. He is sent to earth to help Henry Biggs (Courtney B. Vance),
a struggling pastor in a Baptist church in a poor section of New York
City. Biggs, who devotes himself to his family and community, is
struggling to keep things going. Several problems shake his faith,
however: Joe Hamilton (Gregory Hines) wants to buy his property
and build condominiums, and Biggs’s marriage to Julia (Whitney
Houston) is undergoing a lot of strain. With his problems multiplying,
Biggs prays to God for direction. But in a twist, Dudley, sent to
restore Bigg’s faith, finds himself unexpectedly falling in love with
the preacher’s wife.
An angel not quite of the same gracious ilk appears in another
classic, It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), one of the most-watched films of
all time. Frank Capra poignantly tells the story of George Bailey, a
man of high moral fiber who rediscovers his own worth. In this movie,
Henry Travers is cast as the bulbous-nosed, very droll angel second-
class Clarence, who gives the disturbed hero (James Stewart) the gift
of reliving events as they might have been had he never been born.
Clarence may not possess the debonair qualities of Grant’s Dudley, but
he has the faith of a child, and is probably the most recognized and
best loved of all cinematic angels.
The opposite end of the spectrum of Hollywood angels can be
found in the 1996 film Michael. John Travolta plays the archangel
Michael, who is sent to earth to share his heavenly philosophy about
life and what lies beyond. Michael is portrayed as a smoking, beerdrinking,
coarse individual with an extremely active libido. He enjoys
laughing and dancing, and appreciates the wonders and the gift of
earthly life. Reporters Frank Quinlan (William Hurt) and Huey
Driscoll (Robert Pastorelli), who work for newspaper in Chicago, travel
to Iowa to meet Michael, along with angel expert Dorothy Winters
(Andie MacDowell). Once they arrive they convince the angel to
come back with them. The road trip becomes a journey of laughter, sadness,
and romantic tension between Dorothy and Frank the reporter.
After they arrive in Chicago, Dorothy and the reporter get together,
and Michael exits the earth.
In a myriad of other Hollywood films, angels come to the aid of
their charges for a variety of reasons. In Here Comes Mr. Jordan
(1941), one of the most delightful feature films of the 1940s, the
inhabitants of heaven are forced to admit their fallibility and set
about to remedy their mistake. Joe Pendleton, played by Robert
Montgomery, is a boxer called to meet his maker before his time.
Thus, heavenly messenger Mr. Jordan must accompany him back to
earth, where they search among those about to die for a suitable
replacement body. The movie was remade in 1978 as one of the most
popular angel films of the decade, Heaven Can Wait. This time Joe
Pendleton is an aging quarterback (Warren Beatty) for the Rams.
The cornerstone of the plot remains the same as in the first film: Joe
is accidentally snatched by heaven before his time. Joe insists that he
is not ready to die and is eventually deposited into the recently murdered,
unathletic body of millionaire Leo Farnsworth, who is working
with the farcical coach Max Corkle to get in shape for an upcoming
Super Bowl game. All the while the bewilderment of Farnsworth’s
wife and her scheming lover, who thought they’d killed Farnsworth
the first time, add to the fun.
In 1950 For Heaven’s Sake cast Clifton Webb as tart heavenly messenger
Charles and the more benign Edmund Gwenn as his angelic
sidekick, Arthur. They are sent to earth to help the prospective parents
of a child angel called Item, who has been waiting seven years to be
born. For most of the film, Webb assumes the role of a wealthy Texas
rancher. He is confronted by earthly temptations—women, drinking,
gambling—and succumbs to several of them. In typical Hollywood
style, though, he is forgiven by his superiors when all ends well and
Item is finally born.
Angels in the Outfield (1951) is unique in that it is a combination of
sports flick with a religious message. Angels, in this case, come to the
aid of an entire baseball team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, as they rise from
the bottom of the National League to win the pennant. This miracle
comes about as a result of an unseen heavenly voice who visits Guffy,
the Pirate’s acerbic manager (Paul Douglas). If Guffy reforms his unsavory
ways, promises the angel, Heavenly Choir Nine will assist his losing
team to victory. “You play ball with me and I’ll play ball with you,”
the angel bargains. The film was remade by Disney in 1994.
In 1970 director Jan Kadar put to film a short story by Bernard
Malamud called The Angel Levine. This allegorical movie again makes
use of the guardian angel theme, but with a twist. Zero Mostel, as
Morris Mishkin, is a world-weary, cynical Orthodox Jew, who is convinced
that the world is against him. In answer to his constant complaints,
God sends a divine intermediary in the guise of a dapper black
man (Harry Belafonte). The angel introduces himself as Alexander
Levine, a Jewish angel on heavenly probation, and explains that his
task is to convince Morris that he is legitimate.
In the 1956 Forever Darling, a similarly handsome guardian angel
appears to Susan Bewell, played by Lucille Ball, a screwball socialite
convinced that she is losing her mind. Susan asks her playboy father,
“Guardian angels don’t have wings do they?” Her father answers,
“Guardian angels aren’t like angels from Heaven. They can look like
ordinary men.” The urbane James Mason is cast as Susan’s guide, who
assures her that he is, in fact, her guardian angel. “If you are what you
say you are,” questions Susan, “why do you look like James Mason?”
To which Mason replies, “I look the way you want me to look.”
(Mason would again take on the role of heavenly messenger in Heaven
Can Wait.)
Another film to make use of angelic themes is The Kid with the
Broken Halo (1982), in which a young black angel (Gary Coleman)
and his reluctant elder descend to earth and save three diversely ethnic
souls. In The Heavenly Kid (1985), macho Bobby Fontana is the
ultimate loser in a drag race, and as his car tumbles over a cliff and
explodes, he finds himself on a subway going nowhere. He is
approached by a very earthy angel named Rafferty, played by
Richard Mulligan. “I was expecting something different,” says
Bobby, “Angels and harps and that kind of stuff.” “Oh no,” Rafferty
explains, “That’s in uptown. This is midtown. Sort of a way station…
temporary.” Rafferty further explains that, until Bobby takes
on and successfully completes an assignment on earth, he will ride
the subway forever. Bobby is saved from this Hollywood purgatory by
coming to the aid of Lenny, a young boy so dissatisfied with his life
that he attempts suicide.
Date with an Angel (1987) is a rather lackluster film about an
angel who is sent to earth to interrupt the unpromising life of a young
musician (Michael E. Knight). There are some rather interesting
points to note, however. The angelic being sent to the musician is
female, and when she descends to earth she cannot speak, implying
that angels do not communicate in the same way as humans. Further,
the angel falls in love with her heavenly charge, and unlike Dudley in
The Bishop’s Wife, chooses, and is allowed to remain, on earth. When
she metaphorically hangs up her wings, she literally is able to communicate
because she has become an earthly being.
Since the 1980s, a number of darker films have been made involving
angels and apocalyptic visions. William Hjortsberg’s 1978 novel,
Falling Angel, inspired the 1987 film Angel Heart. Violence and religion
intertwine with diabolical scenes of voodoo ceremonies, grizzly
murders, and hallucinations of bloody horror for the protagonist—and
for the imaginations of the audience members who are able to sit
through this film. Robert De Niro stars in the part of Lou Cyphre, who
hires detective Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke) to find a famous singer
named Johnny Favorite, who has mysteriously disappeared before
making good on a bargain he made with Cyphre. The narrative
unfolds in the gloomier districts of 1950s Harlem and Louisiana
marshes in the quest for Favorite. The detective finally discovers that
he is, in fact, Johnny Favorite, who had previously failed to honor his
contract when he sold his soul to the Devil.
The next year, 1988, saw the release of The Seventh Sign, directed
by Carl Schultz. This apocalyptic story revolves around an expectant
mother (Demi Moore), whose unborn child is the key to the fate of
the world. It seems that heaven is full and the soul of her child, if it
dies, will unlock the seventh, and final seal that heralds the endtime.
Jurgen Prochnow is cast as the mysterious angelic presence sent to
earth to keep the biblical prophesy at bay.
Dark Angel: The Ascent (not to be confused with multiple version
of the movie Dark Angels) is a very unusual 1994 movie about an evil
angel who is tired of inflicting punishment on the inhabitants of the
underworld. Directed by Linda Hassani, the film’s atmospheric visual
effects for the underworld were created in a Romanian castle with
torches instead of electrical lighting. The fallen angel Veronica
(Angela Featherstone) escapes from hell through a secret passage just
before her bloodthirsty father slashes her with his sword. Featherstone
arrives on the earth through a manhole with her dog. She slays
murderers and rapists, sending their souls to hell. In avenging the
good, however, she is doing evil and must return to the underworld to
be cleansed in the river Styx. The love of a good man helps her learn
compassion.
In the 1997 film Ceremony, a rebellious angel is banished from
heaven for falling in love with Satan and imprisoned in a box called
The Clockwork. Centuries later, it opens in the home of a college student.
Her buddies get together to put the fallen angel back in his box.
As one might anticipate, the angel inflicts mayhem on the students,
though most come back to life at the end of the film.
Constantine is a 2005 film loosely based on the Hellblazer comic
book series. The background to the story is that heaven and hell have
a wager about which side can win the most souls. As part of the conditions
in this bet, neither angels nor demons can manifest directly on
the earthly plane. The central character, John Constantine (Keanu
Reeves), teams up with female detective Angela Dodson (Rachel
Weisz), who is trying to find out if her twin sister committed suicide.
As the story unfolds, Constantine discovers that the son of Satan,
Mammon, has betrayed his father and is attempting to take over earth.
Constantine, who has made killing demons a life mission—thereby
earning Satan’s enduring wrath—mounts an attack to thwart Mammon’s
plot. The archangel Gabriel (Tilda Swinton), who has been
upset that humans can redeem themselves so easily (by mere repentance),
intervenes, incapacitating Constantine and aiding Mammon.
Constantine, however, commits suicide and is able to summon
Lucifer—who comes to personally take Constantine to hell—and tell
him about the plot. Lucifer then sends his son back to hell and attacks
Gabriel, who subsequently must live life as an ordinary human being.
In order to prevent Constantine from going to heaven—he had
redeemed himself by requesting that Angela’s sister be released from
hell—Lucifer brings him back to life, hoping that he will one day slip
up and so eventually end up back in hell.
Not all recent movies involving angels have been so dark, of
course. There have been a number of much more light-hearted tales.
Almost an Angel (1990) is a light-hearted film staring Paul Hogan and
Linda Kozlowski of Crocodile Dundee fame. Hogan plays Terry Dean, a
small-time criminal who believes he has died and been given a second
chance by being sent back to earth as an angel to make amends for his
wayward life. Terry runs into Steve (Elias Koteas), who takes him
home and introduces him to his sister Rose (Kozlowski). Terry begins
helping out at Rose’s center for neighborhood kids, eventually tricking
a potential donor into contributing heavily to the center.
The 1997 film A Life Less Ordinary starts out with a Hollywood
version of heaven, where everything is divine and bright. The problem
is that the angels have not been doing a very good job at connecting
men and women together for lifelong commitments. The archangel
Gabriel sends two angels, O’Reilly (Holly Hunter) and Jackson
(Delroy Lindo), to connect a mismatched couple. Robert, a Scottish
janitor (Ewan McGregor), loses his job and kidnaps the boss’s daughter
without a plan. Celine (Cameron Diaz) assists Robert in obtaining
ransom money from her father. The angels, knowing they will be punished
with permanent exile should they fail, show up as bounty
hunters and are eventually instrumental in prompting the mismatched
couple to fall in love.
Dogma (1999) is a star-studded, satirical comedy featuring the
earth-bound lives of two fallen angels: Bartleby (Ben Affleck) and
Loki (Matt Damon). Loki was the former Angel of Death before he
and Bartleby were banished from heaven for getting drunk and giving
God the finger. They were then condemned to spend the rest of eternity
in exile in Wisconsin. With the help of a New Jersey church campaign
organized by Cardinal Glick (George Carlin) to attract more
followers, they realized they could get back into heaven by obtaining
an indulgence from him. Unfortunately, defying the rule of God would
cause an end to all of existence, so God has helpers to prevent the duo
from getting to the church. The film follows the escapades of these
two homicidal angels on their travels to New Jersey.
Movies with angel themes have also entered the genre of children’s
animated features. A prime example is 1989’s All Dogs Go To
Heaven. In this story, Charlie, a streetwise, wily German shepherd,
gets killed by a wicked bulldog. After spending a short time in heaven,
Charlie becomes bored and yearns for the excitement of earth. He also
wants to get even. Ignoring the warning that if he sneaks out of heaven
he might not be allowed back, Charlie slithers past the gate keeper.
Later, Charlie is fighting for his life as evil dogs attack him and a little
orphan girl. Dying again, the Devil Dog tries to claim Charlie as a permanent
resident in canine hell. Heaven’s emissaries, however, reclaim
him because he had heroically given up his life to save the orphan girl.
The film generated one theatrical sequel, All Dogs Go to Heaven 2; a
television series; and a Christmas special, An All Dogs Christmas Carol.
On the European scene, the best interpretation of the fall of
angels on earth is without doubt Wim Wenders’s black-and-white
masterpiece Wings of Desire (1987), which proposes that redemption
occurs with a descent into physicality. Ganz, one of a pair of angels
visiting Berlin, decides he wants to be human after falling in love with
a circus performer. Wenders’s angels, who have perceptual access to
everyone’s subconscious, are perfect humanists whose center of operations
is the Berlin public library and whose chief function is to calm
savaged emotions and save despairing lives. City of Angels is a remake
of this film. Here, Seth (Nicolas Cage) is an angel who roams Los
Angeles. Invisible to human beings, he listens to people’s thoughts,
celebrating their lives and deaths. Whenever someone’s death
approaches, he assists them through the transformation to the other
side. While in a hospital to guide a dying man to the afterlife, Seth’s
attention is captured by the determined doctor Maggie Rice (Meg
Ryan) who tries to save her patient’s life. He returns with the intention
of relieving Maggie’s distress. Spending hours watching her, he
realizes he has fallen in love with her. He meets a former angel turned
human (Dennis Franz), who reveals that Seth has the ability to cross
over as a mortal to be with Maggie. Once becoming human, he warns,
there is no going back. Seth goes through the transformation and
makes the journey to see Maggie. The couple makes love, introducing
Seth to the experiences of human touch and pleasure. Maggie then
dies in a sudden accident the next day, leaving Seth to live a lonely
life alone, but with no regrets. Wenders continued his saga in the
1993 sequel to his original film, Far Away, So Close.