Angels in America
I recently re watched the HBO miniseries “Angels in America.” I have seen it multiple times and I just think it is such a magnificent piece of work that I knew I would regret it if I did not take some time to write about it. So, “Angels in America” is a miniseries of the two-part, Pulitzer Prize winning play written by Tony Kushner. For anyone who doesn’t know, a two-part play is a play where one part will be the length of an ordinary play, including an intermission, and then the second part would be later that day or the next day or however the schedule worked. “Angels in America” focuses on five main characters as they live in New York City during the AIDS epidemic in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. And let me just say: THIS IS A SHOW FOR MATURE ADULTS. I’ll say it one more time:THIS IS ONLY A SHOW FOR MATURE ADULTS.
I know what most everyone is probably thinking, that this is me so of course I would watch and subsequently love a show that deals with a syndrome that mostly affects homosexual people. Hmm. Okay, hopefully now that I’ve verbalized that judgement, people won’t feel the need to have those negative thoughts.
Okay, let’s talk about the show. First, let's talk about acting. This stars Meryl Streep, Al Pacino, Mary-Louise Parker, Emma Thompson, Jeffrey Wright, Patrick Wilson, Ben Shenkman, and Justin Kirk. The acting is phenomenal! The show garnered Emmy wins for Streep, Pacino, Parker, and Wright. The show also won the award for best miniseries along with many other awards. I’ve never been a huge speaker on behalf of Meryl Streep, I’ve felt like everybody loves her and her record setting amount of awards and nominations speak more for her career than I ever could. I will just say this, her transformation between characters that she plays in various films is exquisite! Now Let me touch on Al Pacino. Man, he is so good! I have only ever seen him in “Ocean’s Thirteen” and “The Irishman.” (I know, I’ve never seen any movies from The Godfather franchise, can I even call myself a fan of films?) He was excellent in his portrayal of Roy Cohn. He was able to make the character so dislikable yet I was still sad when his character died.
I won’t go over each character and actor but I will say that like the stage play on which it is based, most of the cast plays multiple characters in the show which adds some fun of trying to find who is whom in the show.
I love the dialogue! I know, it’s a Pulitzer Prize winning play, so the dialogue is expected to be good but it is really really thought provoking and multi-dimensional. Whenever I watch films, I like to type meaningful quotes into my phone but this has such incredible writing that I had to just stop before I copied the whole six-hour script in my phone. The way each character talks is so realistic! The words might not make sense if you look at a statement on its own, but in the moment and knowing the context of the conversation you can totally understand what the character is trying to say and get across.
A major part of the plot is a character who grew up as and is Mormon and I loved and really connected with that aspect because I grew up as Mormon and was Mormon for a very long time. Let me tell you,Tony Kushner must have really studied the Mormon Church because so much of what was in the show, the relics to the lingo the Mormon characters used, was historically accurate. I was like, yep, this is so early 90’s Mormon. When Mary-Louise Parker’s character is like- that’s Utah talk, don’t do that. I SAY THAT!!! I audibly laugh out loud at that part everytime.
I liked how this wasn’t “flashy.” There weren’t bright colors in much of the show which fits with the tone of the show. It is a show that focuses on darker subjects and wants the audience to think about what's happening and listen to the dialogue instead of focusing on bright or shiny pieces in the scenes. With that being said, though, there were camera shots that really stood out to me. For instance, there is a shot, toward the beginning, of a cemetery that I thought was absolutely breathtaking. You know what, the coloring and tone of this set of shows seems similar to what the tone of the Netflix film “Tick, Tick...BOOM!” will be, and I am looking forward to it. “Tick, Tick...BOOM!” is a musical written by Jonathan Larson, the writer of the musical RENT. It is also set in New York City in the early 1990’s, so it should have the same tone. It will star Andrew Garfield and is being released later this year.
This is a miniseries from 2003 which means that the CGI and various technologies are not what you might expect from a film from current times. It is good, though! It does it’s job which is all we would expect from it. One of the things that I especially liked about the older nature of the CGI and other technologies was the fact that during dream sequences and hallucinogenic scenes, the different shots weren’t so vivid that they were almost real. It added to the “fever dream” aspect of this which I actually enjoyed. I normally hate watching things that cause me to feel woozy and like I’m having a “fever dream” but I don’t mind this. Go figure.
To summarize, this is an exquisite set of films. (I think of them more as just a set of films rather than a show.) You may have already watched it, but if you haven’t yet, what are you doing?! Go watch it!
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