I haven’t seen that film since watching it on VHS nearly 30 years ago. Great film (poor Mickey Rourke). One thing I always remember is how somewhat long yet how meticulously manicured De Niro’s fingernails were as Louis Cipher.
I only just now figured out that when Harry is attacked in that church where he first met Louis…Harry has already killed (Via possesion by Lucifer) Winesap there. The attackers probably have discovered the body and are trying to apprehend Harry.
Johnny eats Harry’s heart…sending Harry to Hell. Now are you asking does Johnny possess Harry’s body?
I have timeline questions also. I’ll need to rewatch the film. The characters seem to either fear or hate Johnny so I don’t think they let a brain damaged Johnny Favorite go or if they did they thought he was faking.
I’ll finish my rewatch which inspired this thread. DeNiro is so good and this was one of what I used to call (before Sin City and other more recent ones) what I used to call "Mickey Rourkes two and a half good films he’s done) The other being Pope of Greenwich Village…and the half being Year of the Dragon.
Man, I love that film. I don’t know what temperature they think New Orleans is in January, or where the hell one gets an accent like Lisa Bonet’s got, but I’ll allow it. Wrote an essay on it for one of my husband’s books and a podcast for his website, I like it so much.
Now, that’s not to say it makes sense. The timeline doesn’t really, and it doesn’t do to pay too much attention. Works, though.
Great book (which lacks the Nawlins setting) and an even better movie. Dark, spooky, bloody, with an enduring air of menace and malign secrets. Wonderful Fifties costumes, cars, settings. Rourke and De Niro are both excellent in their roles, and Lisa Bonet is smokin’ hawt.
Here’s director Alan Parker’s very interesting (although typo-ridden) essay on making the movie: Angel Heart - Alan Parker - Director, Writer, Producer - Official Website. My favorite line: “Mickey, congenitally scruffy, has the rare ability to make the most elegant suit look like a discarded potato sack, so it was easy to ‘dress him down.’”
This thread reminded me how much I love this film and since I never read the book I got it for the long weekend. One of the very rare times I’ve found the movie superior to the book. Could be because the movie is a long held favorite and I’ve lost all objectivity but, for instance I think Alan Parker’s decision to stage the second half of the movie in New Orleans was genius and really added a lot. I tried to read the book with fresh eyes that had never seen the movie and going by the author’s description I had no sense of the characters. Louis Cyphre for instance was way over the top in the book where De Niro’s portrayal was perfect. Ditto the the Harold Angel character. He wasn’t particularly sympathetic and I really couldn’t picture him in my mind’s eye. It was very satisfying just picturing the characters as the ones in the movie.
[QUOTE=Dale Sams]
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Originally Posted by NDP View Post
One thing I was never sure about: were Johnny Favorite and Harry Angel sharing the same body?
Johnny eats Harry’s heart…sending Harry to Hell. Now are you asking does Johnny possess Harry’s body?
[/QUOTE]
No,Harry was killed during the ritual and his body disposed of. Harry would not have gone to hell, as he was an innocent. The ritual didn’t actually work; Johnny was still in his original body(albeit with a surgically changed face) with his original, doomed soul. His messed up memory and mistaken self identity were due to the injuries he suffered during the war.
[QUOTE=Dale Sams]
I only just now figured out that when Harry is attacked in that church where he first met Louis…Harry has already killed (Via possesion by Lucifer) Winesap there. The attackers probably have discovered the body and are trying to apprehend Harry.
[/QUOTE]
You might be right but I thought we were shown at least one telephone conversations between the two of them after that scene (?)
[QUOTE=Hail Ants]
I haven’t seen that film since watching it on VHS nearly 30 years ago. Great film (poor Mickey Rourke). One thing I always remember is how somewhat long yet how meticulously manicured De Niro’s fingernails were as Louis Cipher.
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In the article that Elendil’s Heir - thanks EHeir; that is a great essay- Mr Parker say that they made his nail’s subsequently longer as the film progressed. As many times as I’d seen it I had not noticed it. That was a fun tidbit to watch for.
Parker says in his director’s commentary that the man with the cane walking down the NYC street at the very beginning is meant to be Cyphre, who has just killed the woman whose body the dog discovers. It’s just a random murder, to show the vagaries of fate and violence in the big city - nothing to do with the rest of the movie.
In one of the long shots of Angel walking down a NYC sidewalk in daylight, you can see, in the distance for just a second or two, modern cars passing by.
Rourke, De Niro and Bonet are all excellent in their roles.
Cyphre’s nails definitely get a little longer in each scene.
Still don’t like the unscary, fake-looking devilish contact lenses on Cyphre or the baby at the end, though.
No. It’s unclear when Winesap dies, but we never see him again onscreen after Angel’s and Cyphre’s first meeting at the Harlem church.
This thread prompted me to watch it again. What a great flick. Don’t know if this is obvious but in the scene where Angel goes to meet Cyphre for the first time, a woman is shown crying and being comforted by a group outside the church. For some reason I used to think it was just a parishioner who was overcome by “the spirit” and her over the top emotional state was just to add to the atmosphere. Then I thought it must be the aftermath of a funeral. In watching it this last time it dawned on me that shortly after that scene is when Angel sees the person scrubbing the blood off the wall. Are we to conclude that she is the widow of the “flock member that put a gun to his head?”
Correction: we see him again just for a second or two, wide-eyed and apparently fearful, being pulled forward by someone (Harry or Cyphre?), in one of Harry’s flashbacks.
And from IMDB.com’s trivia page for the movie: “[A] Fangoria article about the movie from the time when it was released had a pictures of deleted death scene of Herman Winesap. On [sic] one picture director Alan Parker is shown sitting next to the headless corpse with blood all over the room. Same article also shows picture of partially burned body of the journalist woman who slept with Harry earlier in the movie laying next to the burned house.”
I wish they’d included those scenes, or at least Winesap’s. Even if it was just in a brief flashback when Angel is realizing the truth about himself. It’s not that I’m a big gore hound but just a quick flash of that headless body, where your brain registers it just enough to be creeped out but not enough to be sure you actually saw it would have added even more chilling fun. Oh how I wish “they” still made movies like this.
Just watched it again. And it was…well…it was not good. Not nearly as good as I remembered.
I could buy the premise of the devil getting Johnny to remember who he is to torture him a bit before sending him on. I cannot buy, however, that Johnny is murdering people he doesn’t remember to protect a secret he doesn’t know!
And I turned up the volume but did not hear the whispering.
Not to try to change your opinion - if you don’t like it, you don’t like it- but Harry / Johnny’s evil deeds were guided by the hand of Cyphre and he’s not in control of the murders. Also, the whispering comes at the very end of the credits, I think after the screen has gone black, so if you were already annoyed you might not have waited long enough to hear them.