by Ben Spatz
_City of Angels_ is a gorgeous movie. The imagery is exquisite. The angels all lined up on the beach, the metaphorical chorus in the library, the helicopter shots of the city, the scene in which he falls and then wakes up, the many visions of solitary figures watching over humanity...
I couldn't escape the weird feeling that Nick Cage was playing a stalker. Maybe this was because I had just seen him in _Face/Off_, but there was definitely a strange thing going on with all these dark trenchcoated men watching people invisibly... Why are there no female angels? The angels are double-edged: The movie wants to set them up as asexual protective brother figures, but it's impossible to escape the fact that they are the male gaze incarnate.
Why is America recently obsessed with angels?
America (I mean the cities, I mean the Hollywood arena, I mean the money and the power) is more industrialized and urbanized than ever before--and more than any other country is or ever has been, I believe. I think that it's true what they say about technological societies. We develop a new kind of loneliness, a new kind of isolation sickness. We see so many people and life goes by so quickly, with email and phones and computer meetings and no concept of the goodness of slowness, quietude, or emptiness. I think angels have always been the salve for a certain kind of loneliness. If angels like Seth existed, we would be protected. I don't think the main thing, at least for me, is afterlife. I don't care much about afterlife, because it seems so absurd to me. But the idea that there is someone out there who knows all your thoughts and forgives you all your trespasses is wonderfully comforting. That has always been the function of God.
This country was founded on Protestantism and it seems to me that angels are the ultimate extension of individual faith. Instead of a group God, everyone has their own protector. In this case, protector is also lover. This fills in a hole in our lives where a religious heritage might be. We have inherited a certain loneliness. The idea of angels combats the existential belief that no one understands us, that we are eternally alone. In this case, it also gives us a lover who knows everything about us, as well as being perfect (an angel), not to mention one who has Given Up Everything to be with us. What more could a hardened, working-day, lonely, single, painfully agnostic American long for?
My own love of angels has a slightly different angle, focusing on the martyr aspect which is not given much power in _City of Angels_. The original version (below) by Wim Wenders puts more focus on this aspect by showing the angels' world in black and white until he falls in love and sees momentarily into our world of color. This cinematic trick is an excellent metaphor, with no counterpart in the new version. I love the concept of the fallen angel more than anything. It is the idea of the fallen angel bound to earth, remembering the days in the silver city, remembering being aloof and painless, but in the rain.
There are some images of Seth in that position, and they work fairly well. But the best representation I know of is in a "Hellraiser" comic book, when John Constantine gains control of an angel by destroying its heart. This "fallen angel" is the archetype of the pauper king, the hereditary royal god reduced to filth and thievery. What do I love about this? It's not just any martyrdom. It's the idea of knowing your own integrity. It's Aragorn in _The Lord of the Rings_. It's Chery Cutler fighting Wesleyan. Though reduced by her battle with Bennett, she is still noble. It is the "sad-eyed angel" in Elie Weisel's Night. He has been hanged, but he is still beautiful. Perhaps we hope that this life is just a test, that we are like Job, soon to be rewarded for living through our pain. Or perhaps it is nothing so tacky. Perhaps we just like to get confirmation that there can be such goodness. That truth and beauty are in the eyes, in the soul, not in the flesh. That true beauty is deeper than skin. How can you not love the angel cast down to earth in the rain? The innocent young rich girl orphaned and sent to Avonlea on Prince Edward Island? The king turned out of doors by his very own daughters? Lear in the storm. But Lear is so angry, so rageful, so blind. Only those who have seen everything know how to love everyone even after hardship has come their way. The angel in the rain.
A word about Cassio, friend to Seth, the other angel. He is the MAN! He had a lovely face. My friend Lauren asked me why he, too, didn't renounce eternity and become human? Because then the humans would be seen only as blessed. It must be that both sides are beautiful. The angels, in their loneliness--most of them must be happy, or at least content. And most humans must be satisfied with their lot, in some sense, as well. For then we can zero in on those few souls who are living the wrong life, who must yearn either for Apotheosis or for Catabasis.
_Wings of Desire_ is a completely different movie. This city is more about the nature of cities and of angels. There were more characters, like the old man who wandered around the city, and the woman the angel falls in love with has far less screen time. The remake is primarily a love story, whereas this is only secondarily a love story. This one is also more purely poetic, whereas the new version saves poetry for certain moments and more clearly a realistic narrative. This one is full of spoken thoughts that are both graceful and mysterious in their koan-like style. Even the fall was much less obvious; he simply became human. The whole cosmology was much more vague and there were absolutely no mentions of god or even references to an organizational structure. No gathering of angels on the beach, no talk of "free will" or anything so obviously religious. It's entirely nondenominational, almost nonreligious. Also, in the library, there were female angels.
The movie is dedicated "to all the former angels, but especially Yasujiro, Francois, and [someone]." Dad tells me that Francois is Truffaut, which makes Yasujiro Ozu. What a lovely compliment, to call someone an angel. What does itmean?