Angels & Demons (2009)
(Columbia Pictures / Imagine Entertainment / Sony Pictures)
d. Ron Howard; pr. John Calley, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard; scr. David Koepp, Akiva Goldsman; novel. Dan Brown; ph. Salvatore Totino; m. Hans Zimmer; ed. Daniel P. Hanley, Mike Hill; cast. Tom Hanks, Ewan MacGregor, Stellan Skarsgard, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Ayelet Zurer, Pierfrancesco Favino, Nikolaj Lie Kaas (138 mins)
a Rationalist/Atheist Perspective on the Crisis of Faith in Post 9-11 American Cinema
Post 9-11 Hollywood is consumed by two ideological crises intersecting and resonating with American audiences like never before.
The ideological-moral-ethical-social and religious discourse now emerging in contemporary Hollywood product represents a profound transformation in the way America reflects on the dynamics of secularism (and secular humanism) inherent in America’s Constitutional values but undermined by a Born-Again Christian President whose War on Terror was motivated by Theist belief and its accordant morality –
Oliver Stone in the recent biopic W. stages two scenes in which Bush receives “spiritual guidance”: one from a Pastor to whom he says that he believes God has chosen him to be America’s President; and one from Karl Rove, who uses Bush’s Christianity to market him to America’s evangelical Religious Right – the political force secular analysts outside the US attribute to Bush’s Presidency and thus the War on Terror that this Christian President has bequeathed his country as a legacy.
One of the most popular books during the War on Terror Presidency was Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code, a clever pastiche on Catholic lore which literalists in the Vatican apparently considered threatening to their Theist authority enough to protest. Made into a film by director Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks, it was a box-office success amidst the minor distraction of its protest by religious orthodoxy (who have never liked fiction to begin with yet base their concept of human morality on the clash between an invisible man in the sky and a talking snake). What marked The DaVinci Code was the narrativization of what could be considered a “crisis of faith” – using the detective thriller to undermine religious authority but ultimately remain unquestioning of Theism itself. In short – despite Catholic protests, in the hands of Howard and Hanks, The Da Vinci Code was a safe and reassuring vehicle which far from questioning Theism, merely played some intelligent games with the Art History representing it.
The DaVinci Code was never a threat to orthodox Catholicism but it was a clever and engaging conceit which found resonance with both faith-based and atheist audiences. Both Howard and Hanks return for Angels & Demons which, although essentially more of the same playful Catholic mythography, Angels & Demons is a superior sequel far more attuned to the crisis of faith facing modern Catholicism than was The Da Vinci Code and, finally, even more reassuring to those of a Theist persuasion.
Angels & Demons dramatizes the post 9-11 crisis of faith facing America and is writ large on the screen as an initial radical questioning, but finally complacent endorsement, of Theist belief and its proper expression in Catholic Patriarchal authority. As entertainment, it makes good religious propaganda and little else: but before scrutinizing it, it is necessary for a little more background information on the current trends dominating successful American film in the post 9-11 environment for it is in Angels & Demons that several unresolved tensions in American film find their supposed resolution – and one that is extremely worrying as pop-culture validation.
Firstly, after an absence of several years where the subject was considered taboo on American screens, a wave of terrorist thrillers were unleashed upon post 9-11 Hollywood – Body of Lies, A Mighty Heart, Traitor, Rendition, Redacted, The Hamburg Cell among them – which examined the ethical challenges to American “democracy” put forward by the War on Terror and the new use of tortures such as “water-boarding”, sanctioned by the Born-Again Bush Christian Administration for widespread use even though such arguably violated the Geneva Convention and had to be carried out covertly beyond US shores in countries with no Constitutional Bill or Rights protecting essential human rights or set up in Guantanamo Bay as a means of what amounted to, as such documentaries on Abu Ghraib as Taxi to the Dark Side, The Road to Guantanamo and Standard Operating Procedure implied, sidestepping the US Constitution and irreparably compromising American democracy. This examination of how the War on Terror has changed America’s socio-cultural values – indeed the very core of its democracy – finally peaked when Oliver Stone’s W. turned to the core, previously only tentatively acknowledged issue - the assessment of Church and State: of “faith-based” politics in America.
Oliver Stone in W. found “faith-based” politics a dangerous absurdity and could not resist including satirical asides (particularly in the use of folksy music) which mocked this Christian President’s claim to divine purpose – his validation from “the invisible man in the sky”, as George Carlin said to so perfectly encapsulate the delusional stupidity of Theist belief. Stone stops short of satirizing the apparent irony that God’s chosen leader for a Christian America would condone the use of torture, involuntary detention and enact compromises to the US Constitution which compromise core democratic values. However, Taxi to the Dark Side, for instance, implicates the Born-Again Christian Bush Presidency as effective “war criminals” – indeed, there are moves in international courts outside the US to hold the former Bush government (particularly the architect of torture, Dick Cheney) to account for their actions, lest the US again place itself above international law and ethical accountability for the example they set in the War on Terror Bush years.
Taxi to the Dark Side does not address the faith-based justification for the Bush government it indicts as war criminals and so does not implicate Theism itself in the process of democratic compromise – Stone, avoiding the war-criminal analogy for satiric biopic, addresses the dangerous absurdity of faith-based politics in America as shaping what documentaries like Taxi to the Dark Side consider a moral and ethical aberration when enacted at foreign policy level. Between these two films – one fictionalized bio and one Academy Award winning documentary – lies the ideological crisis now facing contemporary Hollywood: faith vs. reason and accountability.
Though an increasingly prominent discourse within the cinema of terrorism (which the Village Voice ironically but inappropriately termed “the pornography of terror”) is the assessment of religious faith as sanctioning the War on Terror (from both Christian and Islamic perspectives in Traitor: devout Muslim double-agent Don Cheadle bonding with Baptist minister son Aussie Guy Pearce about the duty to God), populist cinema in Angels & Demons finds another outlet, and a new direction for the assessment of faith-based ideology - religion.
The astonishing co-incidence of the success of atheist authors Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett – the so-called “four horsemen” – and the critical scrutiny of faith-based politics and their repercussions on American Constitutional democracy in the Cinema of Terrorism centred on Bush War on Terror foreign and domestic policy has efefctively radicalized religious, faith-based discourse in populist Hollywood entertainment. This trend, what might be termed “eschatological fantasy” reconfigures an American identity in terms of a Theist ideal – God’s judgement of post 9-11 America for its actions. The ideological crisis confronting contemporary Christianity in what is considered the failure of the Bush Presidency as spearheaded by the resurgence in the American Cinema of Terrorism has now segued into summer blockbuster popcorn fodder where the construction of traditional Hollywood narrative is being reconfigured to chart an effective crisis of faith, question religious lore but, worryingly in the case of Angels & Demons, reassure and placate the American population as to the genuine and unquestioned moral-historical authority of Patriarchal Christian Theism as embodied in the Vatican.
In that, Angels & Demons is preceded by several such eschatological fantasies: the first of these was I am Legend, a remake of a non-Christian science-fiction / horror classic. Ending with a new civilization beginning for America to the sound of a Church-bell ringing, this Christian re-writing of what was essentially a Rationalist screen myth in the original Richard Matheson source novel (used for Vincent Price in The Last Man on Earth and Charlton Heston in The Omega Man) was soon followed by the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, a vacuous retread of a once-again rationalist original movie intent on forwarding an intelligent design allegory amidst superficial Biblical analogies and a laughable validation of the Theist myth of self-sacrificial martyrdom which saw an impassive Keanu Reeves in a Christ analogy. Thankfully Aussie director Alex Proyas stripped the religious component that dominated Day’s director Scott Derrickson (an outspoken Christian, described as Hollywood's most powerful Christian in their press) from his appropriation of eschatological principle in Knowing; but now there is Angels and Demons, Hollywood’s respectful validation of Catholic Theism in the guise of a detective thriller for the sceptical.
It is in Angels and Demons that the trend towards political criticism of Church and State and the formation of a genre where narrative propulsion is inspired by the examination, criticism of, and final reconciliation with, Theist belief unite.
However, the union here is barely addressed and indeed given a throw-away reference at the film’s end: nevertheless, the equation is telling, and worrying. Angels & Demons in a nutshell concerns a plot to destroy the Vatican, to blow it up. There have been countless terrorist threats to do such but Angels & Demons concocts a fanciful plot involving “anti-matter” in order to sidestep any practical or realistic logistics involved in such a plan. This rather hokey science-fiction plot device is nevertheless intriguingly handled, and even allusive to John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness. Director Ron Howard uses this conceit to initially set up the Catholic Church in opposition to the world of Science.
Scientists – modelled on Galileo, whose suppression by the Catholic Church is a spectre hanging over this film’s assessment of Catholic responsibility to “scientific truth” – are responsible for the discoering and releasing the “anti-matter”. Loosed by science and with the awesome power to destroy the world in a cataclysmic event (thus condensed into an eschatological symbol) “anti-matter” is a metaphor for the challenges of science to Theist religion – recalling how the plague that destroyed humanity in the eschatological fantasy of I am Legend was depicted as God’s punishment for scientific hubris at finally curing cancer: science challenges God – God punishes science. Indeed, the dramatic hook of Angels & Demons is the crisis of faith posed to Catholicism by the world of science and Academia as popularized in the work of the afore-mentioned atheist authors. The scientist is of course the obvious personification of “science” (dismissed as not naïve but innocent in failing to foresee the consequences of her discoveries) and ever-dependable Tom Hanks as the protagonist personifies the Academic hero (unable to commit to faith but respectful of those who do and, at some level, perhaps envying their leap of faith).
Hanks plays an expert on Catholic history. When four cardinals, all of whom are eligible to be the next Pope, are kidnapped and threatened with execution by an unknown killer claiming to represent the ancient Illuminati cult suppressed by the Vatican as it prosecuted Galileo (the history of which is intriguingly detailed in the movie), Hanks is summoned by the Vatican to stop the Illuminati plot. Avid researcher hanks pores through the Vatican library to uncover a secret Illuminati Map that the kidnapper-killer is using to infiltrate the Vatican. He joins together with the scientist and a Vatican policeman, member of the elite “Swiss Guard” (Stellan Skarsgard) to protect the Catholic Church from those who would use the advances of scientific rationalism to overthrow it - the modern day “Illuminati” intent on blowing up the Vatican in an explosion of light. Yet, this “explosion of light” is a heavily religious metaphor, recalling not simply the challenge to Church authority in the historical “Enlightenment” but also a clear metaphor for the “New Enlightenment” that Four Horseman author Hitchens calls for so eloquently in God is Not Great.
Cleverly thus, anti-Church tradition is united with the militant atheism of Hitchens in the characterization of the barely-glimpsed Illuminati killer. This killer, who murders Cardinals in elaborate murder-as-art set-pieces ironically recalling the religious serial killer played by Kevin Spacey in Se7en (intent on punishing sinners), is the film’s only true atheist – Hanks is more properly considered agnostic, making him a more identifiable figure in a crisis of faith narrative.
Clever, ruthless and of course for hire, this atheist character is the most enigmatic in the film. Surrounded by believers, he sees all divine validation – whether by God, Allah or Yahweh – as equally absurd, does not seek to hurt Hanks and is more concerned with following deposits into his bank account than restoring God’s authority over humanity – as is the concern of those who use (and manipulate) the atheist killer to do their bidding. Thus, he is also the only truly amoral character in the film: sadly, the film equates non-Theist amorality with mercenarial-homicidal pathology – indeed, here the atheist anti-hero is a smart, cynical opportunist though a pawn of those intent on religious reform.
Significantly, this atheist killer is one of only two young men in the film. All central male characters are old (and many of them celibate): the narrative drive to re-establish the authority of these old men over the amoral, radical youth as enacted in the film symbolizes a move to the re-establishment of Patriarchal (Christian) moral-cultural authority (and its underlying Theist mythology) threatened by the developments of science (the old enemy) and what the film sees as a generational struggle to control impetuous, anarchic and fanatical young men either abandoning God altogether (the atheist) or fanatical about restoring God’s authority over the threat of science. The atheist is one such young man. The other, played by Ewan McGregor, is effectively the youngest priest in the Vatican and the one most intent on reform. As the Vatican is without a leader, its cardinals retiring to elect a new Pope as crowds flock to St. Peter’s Square to see the white billowing smoke signifying the election of a new Pontiff, McGregor temporarily has power and wants to bring the Church to the people and rescue the faith in God from the challenges of science.
Youthful fantacism (both atheistic and devout) threatens traditional Patriarchal authority as based on Catholic Theism and the manipulation of audience sympathy regarding McGregor is used by director Howard to finally validate the rule of old, celibate men as moral authorities. MacGregor is a deceptive character and Howard manipulates his sympathetic nature for a reactionary, fearful postulation of youthful ideological zeal. Angels & Demons uses the plot gimmick of a Vatican bomb threat as an excuse to validate Patriarchal authority – whether or not one believes in Theist lore (Hanks’ dilemma), respect for those who do is seen by director Howard as essential. Despite its liberal toying with Catholic history and some playful irony (Hanks mentions the Pope who ordered the genitalia be removed from all Vatican male statues lest it inspire lust, and repeatedly references Church persecution of scientific “heresy”), Angels & Demons is as conservative as the Vatican it ultimately pays respect to: as Hollywood propaganda, Angels & Demons acknowledges the crisis of faith in modern American put forward by science and militant atheism but ultimately validates Theist faith in the plot resolution of its “anti-matter” sci-fi hokum.
Angels & Demons uses this sci-fi angle quite cleverly (though never for a moment believably) in this: “anti-matter” begins the film symbolic of the challenge of science to destroy religion. However, as the plot unfolds, the scientific basis for the threat to religion is negated and the discoveries of science – “anti-matter” – far from threatening religion are transformed so as to validate it in a way in which many Americans find increasingly reassuring.
It is McGregor – the young man as the future of Catholic authority – who sees science as a threat to religion and in his fanatical theism would seek to restore God to the world. Though Hanks is an agnostic and the Vatican men are responsible believers, young men are polarized as fanatics who either reject totally or accept unquestioningly. The disavowal of youthful upheaval (both the challenge of atheistic amorality and the zeal of fanatical theism) and the reconciliation of science and religion through faith is the narrative drive behind Angels and Demons: thus “anti-matter” starts as science’s threat but through narrative twists slowly is reconsidered as the very “particle of creation”, the scientific validation of an all-powerful God. In this way, religious faith is validated by the existence of a “particle” (the “God particle”): science and religion are no longer separate but united in what the film implies, but does not mention as a theory by name, “intelligent design” – the evidence of the creator (God) ironically being in the power to unleash cataclysmic destruction: eschatology.
The existence of anti-matter in this film when seen from a science-fiction perspective is an intelligent design trope, just as was the alien invasion to save the planet Earth from environmental pollution in The Day the Earth Stood Still. This reconfiguration of religious faith according to the intelligent design belief is the hallmark of what was earlier described as the “eschatological fantasy” and is in Angels & Demons equated as the continuation of traditional Patriachal authority – of a Catholic Church that can finally reconcile science and religion: the core belief behind the cinema of eschatological fantasy as it developed in reaction to the rise of militant atheism and embraced “intelligent design” Creationism. But in conclusion, Angels & Demons makes a troubling post 9-11 analogy: although the film originates as sci-fi in its anti-matter plot, its narrative drive (psycho-dramatizing the crisis of faith in modern America and modern Catholicism) gradually stops this reference as the term “anti-matter” ceases and “bomb” replaces it.
INTERVIEWS:
Ewan McGregor
Tom Hanks
By the end of the film, the anti-matter threat disrupting the election of the new Pope is dismissed as a terrorist attempt to derail God’s proper authority over the world. The threat of science is, like that of atheism’s amorality, equated to a Terrorist threat to the proper functioning of Patriarchal (Christian) authority. In this way, militant atheism and scientific rationalism are demonized as terrorist threats to traditional Theist power – the Vatican setting negates any question of the separation of Church and State (this film argues for none).
Thus, what begins the film as the serious threat of science to religious faith ends up dismissed as a terrorist threat to disrupt the sustaining essence of Theism, Patriarchal authority – as here symbolized by Vatican Catholic tradition in conflict with anarchic, youthful modernity. And as mentioned, the terrorist threat comes from young men while the proper authority director Howard apparently believes to be respected finally rests with old men, celibates no less. The duty of Patriarchal authority to suppress any challenge and yet accommodate change – from without or within – is the reactionary, conservative Christian agenda that drives Angels & Demons from a beginning critical of the Vatican and Theist belief to an ending wholly and uncritically endorsing both – Hollywood populism at its most religiously propagadaistic: an opportunistic “crisis of faith” narrative which seeks to validate intelligent design as the new belief behind a Patriarchal authority which fuses Church and State authority.
Angels & Demons may play with Catholic dogma in ways which orthodox Catholicism may resent at an ideological level (hence rumours of Vatican attempts to derail the filming on St. Peter’s Square) but it comprehensively validates Patriarchal Christian authority just as it narrativizes a uniquely Catholic crisis of faith. However, far from threatening Church authority (which orthodox literalists would argue) Angels & Demons finally dismisses any idea of science offering humanity a new enlightenment outside religion, validates intelligent design, disposes of its anarchic youth challenges and suggests that Hanks may even have been God’s messenger to deliver the Catholic Church. Young men are dangerous; old men are wise and duly entrusted through Theist ordained Patriarchal authority to rule humanity.
A more reactionary conservative, pro-Catholic message than that put forward by the end of Angels & Demons is difficult to imagine: this film treats Theism with so much respect it can only be dismissed as ideological gibberish of no consequence except to those who need to validate their Theism, which judging by recent trends in American popular cinema after the Bush War on terror years, many in America now need rather desperately to do. In the end Angels & Demons is a self-congratulatory exercise in Patriarchal reassurance designed to placate old men (even agnostic Academics) as to their place in God’s world: not uninteresting as popular entertainment, trivial as philosophical statement and worrying as propaganda.
