December 7 (2003-12-07) – December 14, 2003 (2003-12-14)
Angels in America is a 2003 AmericanHBOminiseries directed byMike Nichols and based on thePulitzer Prize–winning 1991play of the same name byTony Kushner. Set in 1985, the film revolves around six New Yorkers whose lives intersect. At its core, it is the fantastical story of Prior Walter, a gay man living withAIDS who is visited by an angel. The film explores a wide variety of themes, includingReagan era politics, the spreadingAIDS epidemic, and a rapidly changing social and political climate.[1][2]
HBO broadcast the film in various formats: two three-hour chunks that correspond toMillennium Approaches andPerestroika, further divided into six one-hour "chapters" that roughly correspond to an act or two of each of these plays; the first three chapters ("Bad News", "In Vitro", and "The Messenger") were initially broadcast on December 7, 2003, to international acclaim, with the final three chapters ("Stop Moving!", "Beyond Nelly", and "Heaven, I'm in Heaven") following.
Angels in America was the most-watchedmade-for-cable film in 2003, and earned much critical acclaim and numerous accolades: at the56th Primetime Emmy Awards, it became the first of only three programs in Emmy history (along withSchitt's Creek in 2020, andThe Crown in 2021) to sweep every major eligible category, and won all four acting categories. It also won in all five eligible categories at the61st Golden Globe Awards. In 2006,The Seattle Times listed the series among "Best of the filmed AIDS portrayals" on the occasion of the 25th anniversary ofAIDS.[3]
It is 1985,Ronald Reagan is in theWhite House, andAIDS is causing mass death in the Americas. InManhattan, Prior Walter tells Louis, his lover of four years, that he has AIDS; Louis, unable to handle it, leaves him. As disease and loneliness ravage Prior, guilt invades Louis. Joe Pitt, a Mormon andRepublican attorney, is pushed byright-wingfixerRoy Cohn toward a job at theUS Department of Justice. Both Pitt and Cohn are inthe closet: Pitt out of shame and religious turmoil, Cohn to preserve his power and image. Pitt's wife Harper is strung out onValium, causing her to hallucinate constantly (sometimes jointly with Prior during his fever dreams) and she longs to escape from hersexless marriage. An angel with ulterior motives commands Prior to become a prophet.
Prior is helped in his decision by Joe's mother, Hannah, and Belize, a close friend anddrag queen. Joe leaves his wife and goes to live with Louis, but the relationship does not work out because of ideological differences. Roy is diagnosed with AIDS early on and, as his life comes to a close, he is haunted by the ghost ofEthel Rosenberg. As the film continues, the lost souls come together to create bonds of love, loss, and loneliness and, in the end, discover forgiveness and overcome abandonment.[4][5]
Cary Brokaw,executive producer of the series, worked for over ten years to bring the 1991stage production to television, having first read it in 1989, before its first production. In 1993,Al Pacino committed to playing the role ofRoy Cohn. In the meantime, a number of directors, includingRobert Altman, were part of the project. Altman worked on the project in 1993 and 1994, before budget constraints forced him to move out, as few studios could risk producing two successive 150-minute movies at the cost of $40 million. Subsequently, Kushner tried squeezing the play into a feature film, at which he eventually failed, realizing there was "literally too much plot," and settling for the TVminiseries format. While Kushner continued adapting the play until the late 1990s,HBO Films stepped in as producer, allocating a budget of $60 million.[7]
Canopus ofHadrian's Villa, where the heaven sequence was shot
Brokaw gaveMike Nichols the script while he was working with him onWit (2001) starringEmma Thompson, who also co-adapted theplay of the same title. The principal cast, includingMeryl Streep, Pacino, and Thompson, having recently worked with Nichols, was immediately assembled by him. ThoughBen Shenkman had previously portrayed Louis in the San FranciscoA.C.T.'s production (as well as portraying Roy Cohn in the NYU graduate acting program's workshop ofPerestroika prior to its Broadway opening),[8]Jeffrey Wright was the only original cast member to appear in the Broadway version, having won the 1994Tony Award forBest Performance by a Featured Actor for his stage performance.[9] The shooting started in May 2002, and after a 137-day schedule, ended in January 2003. Filming was done primarily atKaufman Astoria Studios, New York City, with several pivotal scenes being shot on the streets of the city and atBethesda Fountain in Central Park. The Heaven sequence was shot atHadrian's Villa, the Roman archaeological complex at Tivoli, Italy, dating early 2nd century.
Special effects in the series were byRichard Edlund (Star Wars trilogy), who created the two important Angel visitation sequences, as well as the opening sequence wherein the angel at the Bethesda Fountain opens its eyes in the end, signifying her "coming to life".[7] CostumerMartin Izquierdo was hired to design functioning wings for Thompson's Angel.[10]
Review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes gave the series a 92% rating based on 24 reviews, with an average rating of 9.5/10. The critical consensus reads: "InAngels of America, writer Tony Kushner and director Mike Nichols imaginatively and artistically deliver heavy, vital subject matter, colorfully imparted by a stellar cast."[11]The New York Times wrote that "Mike Nichols's television version is a work of art in itself."[12] According to aBoston Globe review, "director Mike Nichols, and a magnificent cast led by Meryl Streep have pulled a spellbinding and revelatory TV movie out of theTony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning work" and that he "managed to makeAngels in America thrive onscreen...".[13]
IndieWire ranked the series first on its list of best LGBTQ TV shows of the 21st century.[14]
In2004,Angels in America broke the record previously held byRoots for the most Emmys awarded to a miniseries in a single year by winning 11 awards from 21 nominations.[15]Angels in America became the first of only three programs (following bySchitt's Creek in comedy at the72nd Emmy Awards andThe Crown in drama at the73rd Emmy Awards) to sweep every major category in Emmy history. It also joinedCaesar's Hour, in1957, as the only series to win all four main acting categories in one night.
Along with television miniseriesEleanor and Franklin, the series became one of the two most-honored programs in television history.[16] The record was broken four years later byJohn Adams at the60th Primetime Emmy Awards, which won 13 trophies from 23 nominations.[17]
Richard Edlund, Ron Simonson, Liz Ralston, Stefano Trivelli, Don Greenberg, Lawrence Littleton, Michele Moen, Steven Kirshoff, and Gregory Jein(for "Perestroika")
^Bell, Chris (2006)."American AIDS Film". In Gerstner, David A. (ed.).Routledge International Encyclopedia of Queer Culture (1 ed.).Routledge. pp. 28–29.ISBN9780415306515. RetrievedJune 15, 2022.
