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The 1987 film "Angel Heart" should be considered, fundamentally, a mystery. Its a mystery in the sense of what the ancient Rosicrucians and other such mystical societies meant by that term: a spiritual truth made known to man by divine revelation. Harry Angel, a private investigator, is searching for Johnny Favorite. According to the Christian myth, Lucifer was God's favorite angel until he was replaced by the heavenly father's human creation (and we humans have been caught in this jealous struggle ever since). Even Johnny Favorite's original name was Liebling (German for "dearest or most precious"). Many religions and mystics speak of humans as half animal and half divine - that would make us all, in a way, "hairy angels". In the film the heart represents the center of the self, the divine aspect - and it was the heart that the infernal Johnny Favorite tore out of Harry Angel to take the innocent's place in the world and submerge his baser identity. "Angel Heart" is about the search for lost identity (the original case of identity theft, I suppose - in a metaphysical sense). Are we also, to one degree or another, private investigators of the soul, searching for our lost selves? This movie is filled with this kind of religious symbolism and Jungian archetypes. In a way it asks what came first, the chicken or the egg? Was it the creator or its creation? There's the character, Dr. Fowler (the drug addicted physician) - even his name is symbolic ("a handler of fowl") juxtaposed to the voodoo rites involving the handling and sacrifice of chickens in spiritual rituals. I see the chickens in "Angel Heart" as representative of the life force (the carrier of the egg, or "the Soul", afterall). Fowler is a man of science which, in many ways, is our modern world's new priesthood of materialism. Science's relationship with the life force has, of course, been quite self-destructive - besides the great comforts and breakthroughs in knowledge its created it has also brought about nuclear weapons and other meltdowns of the natural world. In addition, western man has become addicted to technology and increasingly under "the spell" of materialism. Beyond the layer involving the christian myth - Lucifer and the fall of humanity - the film also has the greater Jungian perspective that takes in all religious myth along with individual dreams. Carl Jung's central idea is what he calls the "process of individuation", which is what he feels leads to consciousness, to completeness (like a flower opening to sunlight). This involves confronting ones "shadow", which is basically the unconscious, negative part of ones psyche (the image in the mirror to painful to ponder). In the context of the film, the black race, as portrayed in Harlem and New Orleans, is shown as a societal projection of "the shadow" - one that white-western man has demonized as something to be kept apart and to be feared. Harry Angel's intrusion into this world is seen as something taboo and dangerous for he's venturing into an area thats "for colored patrons only", one in which the white man is not suppose to participate. This confrontation with the dark-side, "the shadow", contains the truth of who one really is as an individual, which is beyond good and evil and the world of duality - of heaven and hell. Jung speaks of "the anima" which in the case of the male is the totality of the unconscious feminine psychological qualities that he possesses. The anima (or dream-girl) is an archeptype of the collective unconscious (which all individual psyches emerge from) and it will manifest itself in life and by appearing as figures in dreams (I hear Rourke whistling "Girl Of My Dreams" in the background). Jung wrote that confronting ones "shadow" is an apprentice-piece, while confronting ones "anima" is the master-piece. The character Epiphany is a pure anima figure. The word epiphany also has the definition, among others, as "a manifestation of deitys on earth such as angels appearing to mortals". Harry Angel is drawn to her in his search, spiritually and erotically, because he seeks to be re-united with the unconscious aspect of his true identity - the one that was there before the original fall, before he hid himself behind a mask (what Jung refers to as "the persona"- the front that one presents to the world). But first Harry needs to confront the shadow-side, make the blood sacfrifice and make his hellish descent. This has to happen before he can ever be redeemed and experience grace - he will have to do his time in Hell. This is like Dante wandering through Hades before he can find his feminine ideal, Beatrice ( another classic anima, "Girl Of My Dreams" figure). The vicious attack dog that chases Angel is a contemporary hellhound which in myths are often depicted as chasing a lost soul - "There's A Hellhound On My Trail", to quote the great bluesman Robert Johnson. One could also say, "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" (to quote Bob Dylan) in discussing another reoccuring image in the film. The rain can be seen as a cleansing of the soul, a purification, which first must come with judgement and personally being held accountable for who and what one REALLY is. After that its possible to be resurrected, to be whole - the final flowering of the individuation process. Its not by coincidence that Lucifer the Angel in ancient texts has been referred to as "the bringer of light" (the latin translation of the name) since its his intervention that forces the hero to confront his real self. Its funny that I've seen people refer to this film as a simple story - I guess they also consider the bible simple, too.
In some ways the most fascinating level going on in "Angel Heart" is that Mickey Rourke seems to have been acting out the mythic story in his "real" life. The film is filled with parallels with "the actor's" own development - selling ones soul for stardom, losing the bargain, undergoing facial re-construction, etc.
...This isn't just being a great poetic actor (as Sean Penn has referred to him) - its being an iconic actor . . . and "Angel Heart" is an iconic film.
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Don't tape receipts to the covers of product
To the idol who taped the receipt to the cover of the DVD.Thanks.....Other than that is a good DVD..
