So...wow
I just finished watching the HBO mini-series Angels in America, which is adapted from the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning play, and "holy shit" basically is the only coherent thought I can form after that. It was...mindblowing. Acid trip-y at times, but if you can look past that, damn.
It's a narrative centering around AIDS and homosexuality in 1985/1986. But, it deals with issues far beyond that too, which I can't even begin to properly explain--religion, love, modernity, time, etc. It's one of those things that you read/watch and you know you've missed so much, but what you have absorbed as left you totally breathless.
The characters are complete perfection. The actors cast in the HBO series--Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson, just to name a few--are flawless in their roles. What's really cool is that the play itself was written for eight actors, so actors had to play multiple parts. They've kept that aspect of the play in the movie, So Meryl Streep ends up playing a Jewish rabbi (complete with beard), a ghost, and the mother of one of the main characters.
UGH.
My favorite characters ended up being Belize, Prior, Louis, and Hannah. Harper was pretty awesome too, not gonna lie. My children--should I have any in the future--will be lucky if I don't end up naming them after these incredible creations.
I've not engaged with a narrative this much in quite a while, and it's something I'd maybe like to study at length in grad school, department willing. I'm almost overwhelmed. No, I am pretty overwhelmed, let's be real.
For anyone interested, you can get the HBO series on DVD (it's six hours long) or you can apparently watch it on youtube here.
It's a narrative centering around AIDS and homosexuality in 1985/1986. But, it deals with issues far beyond that too, which I can't even begin to properly explain--religion, love, modernity, time, etc. It's one of those things that you read/watch and you know you've missed so much, but what you have absorbed as left you totally breathless.
The characters are complete perfection. The actors cast in the HBO series--Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson, just to name a few--are flawless in their roles. What's really cool is that the play itself was written for eight actors, so actors had to play multiple parts. They've kept that aspect of the play in the movie, So Meryl Streep ends up playing a Jewish rabbi (complete with beard), a ghost, and the mother of one of the main characters.
UGH.
My favorite characters ended up being Belize, Prior, Louis, and Hannah. Harper was pretty awesome too, not gonna lie. My children--should I have any in the future--will be lucky if I don't end up naming them after these incredible creations.
I've not engaged with a narrative this much in quite a while, and it's something I'd maybe like to study at length in grad school, department willing. I'm almost overwhelmed. No, I am pretty overwhelmed, let's be real.
For anyone interested, you can get the HBO series on DVD (it's six hours long) or you can apparently watch it on youtube here.