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Dom Robinson reviews
The Director’s Chair CollectionA pact with the Devil… and a descent into Hell.
Momentum Pictures
- Cert:
- Cat.no: MP009D
- Running time: 108 minutes
- Year: 1987
- Pressing: 2000
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 20 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby ProLogic)
- Languages: 4 languages available
- Subtitles: 7 languages available
- Widescreen: 1.85:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- 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 filmI didn’t really appreciate it as the stunning – and often dark – imagerydidn’t quite gel on a fullscreen video, which is why I was looking forwardto 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 offmore 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, JohnnyFavourite, last seen in 1943, but religious aspects and the seedy underbellyof Louisiana take their toll on Harry.
His trail leads him to the 17-year-old daughter of Johnny’s girlfriendEvangeline Proudfoot, Epiphany (Lisa Bonet), the fortune tellerMadame Zora aka Margaret Krusemark (Charlotte Rampling), Johnny’sfellow 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 withend up brown bread – making him the prime suspect – and the less he willwant to discover the truth.
In 1987, Rourke was high up the Hollywood acting list after a strong andconvincing 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 isanamorphic. It’s only marred slightly by a hint of softness that may bemore intentional than anything else, in keeping with the period and the styleof 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 remixwould have been stunning, but what we have here is much better than expectedgiven the haunting theme and the thunderous heartbeats with which many scenesare provided. The dialogue is in English, German, French and Spanish.
Extras :
First up is a 2½-minute 4:3 fullscreen, open-matte trailer which youshouldn’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 giventhat his recollection may not be quite what it was now, something that isproved when you hear how he can’t quite remember too much during thefeature-length Director’s Commentary.
3 Making-of featurettes run for a total of 6½ minutes andconcentrate on voodoo, choreographing such a ritual and the whole look of thefilm. I expected the Personality Profiles to be simple filmographies,but are actually clips from the film mixed in with a deep voice (not THATdeep voice though, of Don LaFontaine) providing information about MickeyRourke, Lisa Bonet and Alan Parker, totalling 10 minutes.
The Behind-the-scenes footage is 90 seconds of raw work-in-progressof Rourke’s performance and the 22-strong Photo Gallery is presentedjust the way I like it – photos that fill the screen and aren’t surroundedby 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 onmy DVD-ROM onscreen remote, “French – Children”. My knowledge of the languageisn’t so good now, so I have to presume this is a censored version of thescript.
The main menu has shots of the film accompanied by the haunting themeas well as during the transitions between menus.
A fantastic start to the “Director’s Chair” series, with some decent extrasand the aforementioned book, I shall be looking forward to Momentum’s nextreleases.
My only criticism with the presentation comes at the final, spooky momentin 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, duringwhich we could reflect on what we’d just seen. Here, the DVD goes straightback to the animated and scored menu.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.