{"id":11063,"date":"2011-03-05T15:46:44","date_gmt":"2011-03-05T15:46:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=11063"},"modified":"2011-03-05T15:46:44","modified_gmt":"2011-03-05T15:46:44","slug":"alan-parker-on-angel-heart-1987","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2011\/03\/05\/alan-parker-on-angel-heart-1987\/","title":{"rendered":"Alan Parker on Angel Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-11064\" title=\"Alan Parker on Angel Heart\" src=\"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Alan-Parker-on-Angel-Heart.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"560\" height=\"376\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0092563\/\">Angel Heart<\/a><\/strong> (1987) remains of the more underrated films of the late 1980s, and around its US release director <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Alan_Parker\">Alan Parker<\/a> gave a lengthy interview about it and his career up to that point.<\/p>\n<p>Adapted from <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/William_Hjortsberg\">William Hjortsberg<\/a>&#8216;s novel <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Falling_Angel\">Falling Angel<\/a>, it is a dark thriller set during the 1950s about a Brooklyn private eye (<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mickey_Rourke\">Mickey Rourke<\/a>) hired by a mysterious man (<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Robert_De_Niro\">Robert De Niro<\/a>) to locate a singer.<\/p>\n<p>At the time it divided critics and a rough sex scene ruffled feathers at the MPAA, but over time it has become something of a cult favourite with directors such as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0634240\/\">Christopher Nolan<\/a> singing its praises (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=CYO-zUdUoTE\">he has admitted<\/a> it was an influence on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0209144\/\">Memento<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" width=\"560\" height=\"450\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dW5D5kues_Q\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The interview was part of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.co.uk\/url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;cd=7&amp;ved=0CEIQFjAG&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fuser%2FdirectorsSeries&amp;ei=KU1yTZDcKI7Jsgb12IWEDg&amp;usg=AFQjCNGR396jrF-phej73Zgauh_BcVHlCA&amp;sig2=DvN9p_bjgsvnX10m9mebRw\">a series<\/a> conducted by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0302410\/\">John A Gallagher<\/a> and contains some interesting nuggets of information including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Robert Redford originally owned the rights to the novel<\/li>\n<li>Why he loves switching genres<\/li>\n<li>How <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Carolco_Pictures\">Carolco<\/a> funded it after making lots of money on the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rambo:_First_Blood_Part_II\">Rambo<\/a> series<\/li>\n<li>Working with <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mickey_Rourke\">Mickey Rourke<\/a> (who is &#8216;very much his own man&#8217; &#8211; diplomatic words?)<\/li>\n<li>The appeals process with the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Motion_Picture_Association_of_America_film_rating_system\">MPAA<\/a> over the sex scene<\/li>\n<li>How the greatest crime is just to make &#8216;another movie&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>The importance of shooting on location rather than a studio sound stage<\/li>\n<li>How he got his break writing and filming in the &#8216;egalitarian&#8217; world of advertising<\/li>\n<li>The pragmatism of choosing <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0074256\/\">Bugsy Malone<\/a> (1976) as a film project<\/li>\n<li>Working with <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/David_Puttnam\">David Puttnam<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Oliver_Stone\">Oliver Stone<\/a> on Midnight Express (1978)<\/li>\n<li>Why he thinks <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pink_Floyd_The_Wall_(film)\">The Wall<\/a> (1982) is almost &#8216;too angry&#8217; despite being proud of it<\/li>\n<li>The state of the British film industry at the time (very perceptive comments on this)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&gt; Buy Angel Heart on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/gp\/product\/B001AOHPYY?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=filmdetail-21&amp;linkCode=xm2&amp;camp=1634&amp;creativeASIN=B001AOHPYY\">DVD<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/gp\/product\/B002BD9DRK?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=filmdetail-21&amp;linkCode=xm2&amp;camp=1634&amp;creativeASIN=B002BD9DRK\">Blu-ray<\/a> from Amazon UK<br \/>\n&gt; Alan Parker at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0000570\/\">IMDb<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/mubi.com\/cast_members\/26471\">MUBi<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A lengthy interview from 1987 where Alan Parker discusses Angel Heart and his career as a director. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[413,16],"tags":[1890,1082],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11063"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}