I can only imagine there was disappointment and frustration around the financial performance of "Birdy" and I'm surprised Tri-Star actually got to distribute Parker's next film but I'm guessing it was a contract thing.
Alan Parker was introduced to William Hjortsberg’s novel "Falling Angel" immediately after its publication in 1978, Parker was keen on the project but before he could pursue the rights it was snapped up by the Hollywood machine, Filmmakers were atracted to this story due to it blending the genres of a Noir Raymond Chandleresque detective mystery crossed with an Occult/Supernatural tale.
For years the rights moved to different people and studios but remained un-filmed until one lunchtime in 1985 when legendary American film producer Elliott Kastner dropped a copy of the novel "Falling Angel" onto the table in-front of Alan Parker in the Pinewood Studios canteen.
Angel Heart (1987)
Directed by Alan Parker, Screenplay by Alan Parker, Based on the novel "Falling Angel"
by William Hjortsberg, Produced by Alan Marshall & Elliott Kastner, Music by Trevor Jones, Cinematography by Michael Seresin, Edited by Gerry Hambling, Starring
Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro, Lisa Bonet,
Charlotte Rampling.
Harry Angel is a private detective contracted by Louis Cyphre to track down the iconic singer Johnny Favorite. However, everybody that Angel questions about Favorite seems to meet a tragic demise. Eventually the trail leads Angel to New Orleans where he learns that Favorite had dabbled in the black arts. As Favorite's whereabouts and true identity become clear, Angel learns that being hired by Cyphre was not a random choice.
The first thing Parker did was to adapt Hjortsberg's novel into a screenplay, Alan then came face to face with one of the biggest issue with screen adaptations of all traditional first-person detective tales, the translation of literary exposition into a filmic cinematic narrative. Something that has historically been tackled with the over-use of voice-over in films in this genre but voice-over was something Parker desperately wanted to avoid while writing a noir which he mostly did although a couple of lines did sneak into the final cut for economy of telling the story.
The biggest change Parker made from the novel was to move the bulk of the story away from New York to New Orleans. Parker said many of the threads of the story led to New Orleans in the novel and he had conversations with the author William Hjortsberg who revealed that he had also thought of doing this. The motivation for the location move was not only for story telling but as a filmmaker Parker didn't want to be helming yet another Manhattan-based detective story would be tricky to make visually fresh in that overly filmed city. Of course, there have also been many films set in New Orleans but Alan visited New Orleans many times while writing his script he said in an interview "much of the script was handwritten sitting at corner tables in remote bars in the city’s shadowy back streets."
Originally Parker wanted Robert De Niro to play the lead role of Harry Angel, but after reading the script De Niro became fixated on playing the mysterious benefactor Louis Cyphre Robert asked Parker endless questions and had meetings but De Niro avoided committing to the project.
The director reflected,
"I had been courting [De Niro] to play [Cyphre] in Angel Heart for some months and we had met a few times—and he had continued to bombard me with questions examining every dot and comma of my script. I had walked him through the locations we had found, read through the screenplay sitting on the floor of a dank, disused church in Harlem and finally he said ‘yes’."
Jack Nicholson and Mickey Rourke were both considered for the role of Harry Angel. Parker met with Nicholson in Los Angeles to discuss the project. Nicholson ultimately passed on the role. Parker said, "I did my pitch and he was most gracious, although, to be honest, he was quite distracted at the time... my movie and the possibility of him taking part seemed to slip from his immediate area of concentration and interest."
Parker then met with Rourke, who expressed a strong interest in playing Angel and secured the leading role after a meeting with Parker in New York. Rourke is wonderful in the role. (He was once a very handsome man)
Many actresses auditioned for the role of Epiphany Proudfoot before Lisa Bonet was cast. The casting of Bonet in the role of a sex positive woman who was also a practitioner of Louisiana Voodoo sparked significant controversy. At the time Bonet was most famous for playing the role of Denise Huxtable on the family-oriented sitcom "The Cosby Show" Parker said he cast Bonet purely based on the strength of her audition and was unaware of her role on The Cosby Show.
On preparing for the role, Bonet said, "I did a lot of meditation and a lot of self-inquiry. I did some research on voodoo. My earnest endeavour was really to let go of all my inhibitions. It was really necessary for me to be able to let go of Lisa and let Epiphany take over."
Principal photography for Angel Heart began on March 31, 1986, The film was shot in various locations, Eldridge Street in Manhattan which acted as Harry Angel's neighbourhood. Filming then moved to Alphabet City in Manhattan, where several bar scenes and a sex scene was shot. The production then used locations in Harlem, Coney Island, Staten Island, Hoboken in New Jersey before returning to Manhattan then the production moved to New Orleans.
An unused Louisiana field was used to create a racetrack and Magazine Street and Jackson Square in New Orleans were used as locations and were extensively dressed to recreate the New Orleans of the 1950's. Scenes were shot in an abandoned bus depot and St. Alphonsus Church and Royal Street in the French Quarter.
In the town of Thibodaux, Louisiana, Parker and his crew discovered an entire plantation workers' village that would serve as a graveyard. He said, "We had the good fortune to find an entire plantation workers’ village almost intact and, with careful dressing, this became Epiphany's world. The graveyard was a dressed set, but much of what we filmed was already there."
The production filmed a voodoo ceremony scene which was choreographed by Louis Falco. Falco had previously choreographed Parker's 1980 film Fame, The scene is based on an actual Haitian ceremony.
Principle photography wrapped on the 20th of June 1986.
Parker then took his 400,000 feet of film consisting of 1,100 different shots to Europe and spent four months editing and assembling the film.
On submission The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) gave the original cut of Angel Heart an X rating, which is widely associated with pornographic films.
The board expressed concerns over several seconds of the sex scene involving Rourke and Bonet in which "Rourke's buttocks are seen thrusting!" Parker appealed but failed to get the film reclassified to an R rating.
The film's distributor Tri-Star Pictures refused to release it with an X rating due to it having limited appeal to theatre owners so having fewer theaters willing to book it and fewer venues to advertise the film. Parker was deeply reluctant to alter the film in anyway so he filed a second appeal which again failed but he did find out what exactly the MPAA were upset about so Parker then set about removing ten seconds of sexual content from the offending scene. "That scene was very complex, very intricate, and the cutting was quite rapid, involving 60 to 80 cuts in the space of about two minutes," he said. "Eventually, I cut only 10 seconds from the scene, or about 14 feet of film."
February 24, 1987, the film was granted an R rating. Parker later stated that the MPAA's concerns led to "a wasteful, pointless and expensive exercise".
The film was completed with a production budget of $18m.
In North America, Angel Heart opened in wide release on March 6, 1987, With an R rating distributed by Tri-Star Pictures.
The film debuted at number four at the weekend box office but ultimately the film grossed $17.2 million in North America, against a budget of $18 million.
The film at the time did receive mixed reviews, reviewers generally praised Rourke's performance, as well as the score, cinematography, and production design, while criticism was aimed at Parker's screenwriting for being convoluted and exposition-heavy.
Pauline Kael of The New Yorker criticised Parker's direction: "There's no way to separate the occult from the incomprehensible... Parker simply doesn't have the gift of making evil seductive, and he edits like a flasher." Kael went on to criticise De Niro's appearance, writing, "It’s the sort of guest appearance that lazy big actors delight in—they can show up the local talent."
Rodger Ebert, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, gave the film three and a half stars out of four, writing that "Angel Heart is a thriller and a horror movie, but most of all it's an exuberant exercise in style, in which Parker and his actors have fun taking it to the limit".
I feel a significant opinion of the film at the time was what William Hjortsberg, author of Falling Angel thought. He voiced his support of the film adaptation, stating, "Parker wrote an excellent script and went on to make a memorable film. Casting Robert De Niro as Cyphre was a brilliant touch."
But as we all know reviews of a film contemporary to its release and it's initial box office performance are in no way an indication if a film is "good" or not it's a films legacy and how it has held up over the years. The stylish approach Alan Parker took in directing and editing Angel Heart is what turned people off in 1987 but it is that same approach that to a modern viewer you feel you are watching something special and a little dangerous. The modern attitude to the film seems to be,
"Angel Heart lures viewers into its disturbing, brutal mystery with authentic noir flair and a palpably hypnotic mood".
In 2010, Wired magazine ranked the film at number 22 on their list of "The 25 Best Horror Films of All Time.
Filmmaker Christopher Nolan has sighted Angel Heart as a massive influence on his 2000 film Memento.
Angel Heart is currently rated 3.6/5 on Letterboxd, 7.2/10 on IMDb
and 82% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
I love it and highly recommend it.
Immediately after completing Angel Heart Alan Parker embarked on a very challenging project.
Historical context,
On June 21, 1964, civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were arrested in Mississippi, by Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price, and taken to a Neshoba County jail. The three men worked on the "Freedom Summer" campaign, attempting to organise a voter registry for African Americans. Price charged Chaney with speeding and held the other two men for questioning. He released the three men on bail seven hours later and followed them out of town. Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner then disappeared.
When the men failed to return to the headquarters of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) fellow workers placed calls to the Neshoba County jail, asking if the police had any information on their whereabouts.
Two days later, FBI agent John Proctor and ten other agents began their investigation in Neshoba County. They received a tip about a burning estate car seen in the woods off Highway 21, about 20 miles northeast of Neshoba.
The investigation was given the code name "MIBURN" (short for "Mississippi Burning"),
and top FBI inspectors were sent to help with the case.
On August 4, 1964, the bodies of the three men were found after an informant nicknamed "Mr. X" in FBI reports passed along a tip to federal authorities.
They were discovered underneath an earthen dam on a 253-acre farm located a few miles outside the town they were last seen. All three men had been shot.
Nineteen suspects were the subject of a federal indictment for violating the workers' civil rights. On October 27, 1967, a federal trial conducted in Meridian resulted in only seven of the defendants, including Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price, being convicted with sentences ranging from three to ten years. Nine were acquitted, and the jury deadlocked on three others.
In 1985, screenwriter Chris Gerolmo discovered an article that excerpted a chapter from the book "Inside Hoover's F.B.I." which chronicled the FBI's investigation into the murders of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner. This inspired him to pen the script that was then sold to Orion Pictures that became.
Mississippi Burning (1988)
Directed by Alan Parker, Written by Chris Gerolmo, Produced by Frederick Zollo & Robert F. Colesberry, Music by Trevor Jones, Cinematography by Peter Biziou, Edited by Gerald Hambling, Starring Gene Hackman, Willem Dafoe, Frances McDormand, Michael Rooker, Brad Dourif, Darius McCrary, Stephen Tobolowsky & Tobin Bell.
When a group of civil rights workers goes missing in a small Mississippi town, FBI agents Alan Ward and Rupert Anderson are sent in to investigate. Local authorities refuse to cooperate with them, and the African American community is afraid to, precipitating a clash between the two agents over strategy. As the situation becomes more volatile, the direct approach is abandoned in favour of more aggressive, hard-line tactics.
Screenwriter Chris Gerolmo
Alan Parker was given a copy of the script In September 1987 by Mike Medavoy who was the executive vice president and co-founder of Orion Pictures. Parker was instantly onboard.
Parker then had to travel to Tokyo, Japan, to be a juror for the 1987 Tokyo International Film Festival, while he was away, his colleague producer Robert F. Colesberry began researching the time period, and compiled books, newspaper articles, archive news footage and photographs related to the 1964 murders. After his Tokyo trip Parker returned to the US he spent several months with Colesberry in New York viewing the research and creating a cinematic vision for the project. Parker also spent a month doing an uncredited rewrite to the script as well as assembling his creative team.
Parker was now in the situation having made seven feature films and always conducting himself professionally he could now surround himself with talented people he had previously worked with. He hired casting directors Howard Feuer who worked on "Fame" and Juliet Taylor who had cast "Birdy", director of photography Peter Biziou who had shot "Bugsy Malone" & "Pink Floyd's The Wall for Parker, editor Gerry Hambling was Parkers go-to editor who had worked on all his movies to date, costume designer Aude Bronson-Howard who had just done "Angel Heart", production designer Geoffrey Kirkland who had worked on "Bugsy Malone", "Midnight Express", "Fame" & "Birdy", camera operator Michael Roberts who had worked on "Birdy" & "Angel Heart" , and music composer Trevor Jones who had scored "Angel Heart".
Side Note, camera operator Michael Roberts had been a regular collaborator with Ray Harryhusen.
Parker and his casting directors held casting calls in New York, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Orlando, New Orleans, Raleigh & Nashville.
The filmmakers made the choice not to use the names of the actual people involved in the case so many of the supporting characters were composites of real people.
Orion Pictures were less fussy about who was cast in the role of Agent Alan Ward. After completing the filming of Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1988), Dafoe expressed interest in playing Ward so Parker travelled to Los Angeles and met with the actor to discuss the role and he was cast shortly after that meeting.
To prepare for the role, Dafoe emersed himself in the time period reading novels about that time as well as about the specific case, He watched 1960s documentary footage detailing how the media covered the murder case.
Actor Brian Dennehy was originally considered for the role of Rupert Anderson, FBI agent and former Mississippi sheriff until Orion Pictures suggested Gene Hackman.
As the script was coming together, Parker reached out and discussed the project with Hackman and got him onboard.
Hackman said in an interview,
"it felt right to do something of historical import. It was an extremely intense experience, both the content of the film and the making of it in Mississippi."
Frances McDormand plays Mrs. Pell, the wife of Deputy Sheriff Clinton Pell. On working with Hackman, McDormand said: "Mississippi Burning, I didn't do research. All I did was listen to [Hackman]. He had an amazing capacity for not giving away any part of himself (in read-throughs). But the minute we got on the set, little blinds on his eyes flipped up and everything was available. It was mesmerizing. He's really believable, and it was like a basic acting lesson."
Stephen Tobolowsky plays Clayton Townley, a Grand Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. The character is based on White Knights leader Samuel Bowers.
Michael Rooker plays Frank Bailey, a Klansman involved in the murders of the three civil rights activists.
As you could imagine The filmmakers were initially reluctant to film in Mississippi because things have not moved on as much as people think.
Actor Tobin Bell who is now well known for playing Jigsaw in the SAW horror franchise actually made his feature film debut playing Agent Stokes an FBI enforcer in Mississippi Burning.
They pursued filming in Forsyth County, Georgia, before being persuaded by John Horne, head of Mississippi's film commission to use Mississippi. Parker also met with Mississippi governor Ray Mabus, who voiced his support of the film's production.
Parker and his producers set up production offices at a Holiday Inn hotel in Jackson Mississippi. They scouted more than 200 courthouses to find one that could be used for filming. Parker and Colesberry also had difficulty finding a small town before choosing LaFayette, Alabama, to use for the fictional town of Jessup County, Mississippi, with other scenes being shot in a number of locations in Mississippi.
Principal photography began on the 7th of March 1988 and wrapped on the 14th of May.
Mississippi Burning held its world premiere at the Uptown Theatre in Washington, D.C., on December 2, 1988, with various politicians, ambassadors and political reporters in attendance.
United States Senator Ted Kennedy voiced his support of the film, stating,
"This movie will educate millions of Americans too young to recall the sad events of that summer about what life was like in this country before the enactment of the civil rights laws."
The film went on to make $34.6 million at the North American box office against a production budget of $15 million.
The was marred in controversy on release that definitely showed up in the reviews at the time. In the film all the names were changed and it was set in a fictional town and told a story inspired by true events this was a concept people could not grasp.
Parker defended the film, stating that it was "fiction in the same way that Platoon and Apocalypse Now are fictions of the Vietnam War. But the important thing is the heart of the truth, the spirit ... I defend the right to change it in order to reach an audience who knows nothing about the realities and certainly don't watch PBS documentaries."
You can also imagine that there was many people in the media that did not appreciated a film highlighting the kind of appalling crimes committed by white Americans due to the wide spread systemic racism ingrained in American society.
Roger Ebert in The Chicago Sun-Times surmised what about the film shocked viewers in 1988, "We knew the outcome of this case when we walked into the theatre. What we may have forgotten, or never known, is exactly what kinds of currents were in the air in 1964."
On his year-end top ten films list, Ebert ranked Mississippi Burning the #1 movie of 1988.
Variety magazine praised the performances, writing, "Dafoe gives a disciplined and noteworthy portrayal of Ward ... But it's Hackman who steals the picture as Anderson ... Glowing performance of Frances McDormand as the deputy's wife who's drawn to Hackman is an asset both to his role and the picture."
Sheila Benson, in her review for the Los Angeles Times, wrote, "Hackman's mastery at suggesting an infinite number of layers beneath a wry, self-deprecating surface reaches a peak here, but McDormand soars right with him. And since she is the film's sole voice of morality, it's right that she is so memorable."
The modern critical consensus reads,
"Mississippi Burning draws on real-life tragedy to impart a worthy message with the measured control of an intelligent drama and the hard-hitting impact of a thriller."
The film was nominated for seven Oscars but only won one on the night for
Best Cinematography. It won three BAFTA's Best Sound, Best Cinematography & Best Editing.
Straight off the back of the controversy of making a film about American white supremacists murdering civil rights campaigners Parker made the WW2 drama "Come See The Paradise" starring Dennis Quaid based around the disgusting injustice of the US government putting Japanese Americans into internment camps in the 1940s.
I haven't seen this film and in all honesty until researching Alan Parker's filmography I had not even heard of it but it is now on my watch list.
Come See The Paradise (1990)
Directed by Alan Parker, Written by Alan Parker, Produced by Robert F. Colesberry & Nellie Nugiel, Music by Randy Edelman, Cinematography Michael Seresin, Edited by Gerry Hambling, Starring Dennis Quaid, Tamlyn Tomita, Sab Shimono, Shizuko Hoshi.
In this drama from director Alan Parker, on-the-lam Jack McGurn flees to Los Angeles and takes a job as a projectionist at a movie theater owned by a Japanese-American man. Jack falls for the owner's daughter, Lily, but they are forced to elope to Seattle when her father forbids the relationship. The couple marry and have a daughter, but when World War II breaks out, Jack is powerless to stop his new family being forced into internment camps.
End of part three.
