Thought provoking
Added 9/8/2009
Agnes of God is a strange and ambiguous film. Wonderfully acted, the three dynamo actresses of this film explore faith, miracles, mental illness, abuse, and survival. Each woman is given a well developed character, each with her own past, secrets, and beliefs.
The dynamic characters clash in devastating moment when Agnes, a novice nun, is found seriously ill. She has just given birth alone, and the infant is dead in a waste basket. As disturbing as this initial scene is, it is nothing compared to the rest of the traumas this film exposes. Is Agnes is crazy? Is she a liar and a very convincing actress? Is she a saint and the vessel of a miracle in this all too modern and secular world? Each possibility is explored in this film, with little resolution (in my opinion).
The beauty, and madness, of this film is that as uncertain as faith is, so is the ending. The ending depends on what you believe. One aspect I thought about later was how the "ungodliness" of some people, or of society, make miracles impossible. Maybe Agnes is a saint, but what she endured in the secular world made that saintliness impossible to sustain. Or is her "sainthood" a defense mechanism used to escape a hostile world? Or maybe she just has bats in the belfry? You decide based on the heartbreaking script that is well acted and beautifully film. This film is worth a watch to question your beliefs, as well as for Meg Tilly's amazing performance. And if you find yourself hankering for more nuns and ambiguity, check out Doubt.
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One of my favorite films
Added 8/12/2009
Besides being a good story, the cinematography is magnificent, with beautiful lighting effects, as well as autumn and winter landscapes. The soundtrack by the late George Delerue is hauntingly beautiful. Even though the topic of the film is gruesome, I still find this movie very spiritually uplifting.
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Why Meg Tilly should have been an A-list actress.
Added 7/28/2009
Agnes of God (Norman Jewison, 1985)
John Pielmeier's play Agnes of God is one of those perfect locked room mysteries without actually being a locked room mystery, which makes it intriguing from the get-go. Norman Jewison's film adaptation, nominated for three Oscars, is a fantastic translation featuring two established stars and one on the rise who should have been a household name after this. Everything about it points to the term "modern classic". So why is it that twenty-five years later, the movie has faded into obscurity? I don't know, but sometimes it seems to happen in order for people to rediscover it and make it into the classic it deserves to be later on. At least, that's what I hope is going on here.
The film opens with a gruesome discovery: the body of an infant and bloody towels in the trash can of a young Catholic novitiate, Sister Agnes (Psycho II's Meg Tilly). Agnes contends the birth was miraculous, but the police aren't buying it. They send in Martha Livingston (On Golden Pond's Jane Fonda), a psychologist, to find out whether Agnes is insane; on the other side of the equation is Miriam Ruth (Blazing Saddles' Anne Bancroft), the mother superior of Agnes' convent. As the two of them dance around, Agnes almost fades into the background of the dance between Miriam and Martha, antagonists who come to grudgingly respect one another.
All this true, perhaps, and yet despite both of her co-stars being stalwarts (at the time the film was made, Fonda had already won two Oscars and been nominated for a handful more, while Bancroft, who picked up another Best Actress Oscar nomination for this role, had three nominations under her belt), every time Meg Tilly appears on the screen, she not only holds her own, she steals the show entirely. No surprise, then, that Tilly also picked up a nomination here (for Best Supporting Actress, losing to Anjelica Huston in Prizzi's Honor), and well-deserved it is. The one thing that jars in the movie is that it often seems as if Tilly's performance doesn't quite belong in the same movie as Fonda's and Bancroft's do. I've been mulling on this for a while now and I haven't quite figured out why this is, but there's a different tone to the scenes with Tilly than there is with the rest of the film. Still, it is the case here--as it almost never is in such circumstances--that both pieces of this whole are equally accomplished. The trio of lead actresses all turn in incredible performances. The sets are minimalist, almost sere, but beautifully photographed, and the pacing is dead-on. If you missed this one the first time around, or are too young to have caught it when it first came out, it's well worth rediscovering. ****
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Gripping drama....are you ever quite sure of Agnes??
Added 7/9/2009
This gripping tale of Meg Tilly as a young troubled nun with Jane Fonda as a court appointed therapist assigned to evaluate her. Anne Bancroft offers a strong performance as the Mother Superior. I won't say much more because I don't want to give away the plot, but in the end, I was left wondering....what really happened to Agnes???
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Agnes of Gawd
Added 10/11/2008
Did this movie have a point? I really don't think it did. Its unbriphilous director, Norman Jewison, seemed to try his best to make something of what he had to work with, but even a talent-oozing cast and a picturesque setting couldn't do much to deliver on what had sounded to me like an intriguing tale. Oh, well, maybe other people saw the emperor's clothes but I just saw his doodle.
0 out of 7 people found this helpful.
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Thought provoking
Added 9/8/2009
Agnes of God is a strange and ambiguous film. Wonderfully acted, the three dynamo actresses of this film explore faith, miracles, mental illness, abuse, and survival. Each woman is given a well developed character, each with her own past, secrets, and beliefs.
The dynamic characters clash in devastating moment when Agnes, a novice nun, is found seriously ill. She has just given birth alone, and the infant is dead in a waste basket. As disturbing as this initial scene is, it is nothing compared to the rest of the traumas this film exposes. Is Agnes is crazy? Is she a liar and a very convincing actress? Is she a saint and the vessel of a miracle in this all too modern and secular world? Each possibility is explored in this film, with little resolution (in my opinion).
The beauty, and madness, of this film is that as uncertain as faith is, so is the ending. The ending depends on what you believe. One aspect I thought about later was how the "ungodliness" of some people, or of society, make miracles impossible. Maybe Agnes is a saint, but what she endured in the secular world made that saintliness impossible to sustain. Or is her "sainthood" a defense mechanism used to escape a hostile world? Or maybe she just has bats in the belfry? You decide based on the heartbreaking script that is well acted and beautifully film. This film is worth a watch to question your beliefs, as well as for Meg Tilly's amazing performance. And if you find yourself hankering for more nuns and ambiguity, check out Doubt.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
One of my favorite films
Added 8/12/2009
Besides being a good story, the cinematography is magnificent, with beautiful lighting effects, as well as autumn and winter landscapes. The soundtrack by the late George Delerue is hauntingly beautiful. Even though the topic of the film is gruesome, I still find this movie very spiritually uplifting.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Why Meg Tilly should have been an A-list actress.
Added 7/28/2009
Agnes of God (Norman Jewison, 1985)
John Pielmeier's play Agnes of God is one of those perfect locked room mysteries without actually being a locked room mystery, which makes it intriguing from the get-go. Norman Jewison's film adaptation, nominated for three Oscars, is a fantastic translation featuring two established stars and one on the rise who should have been a household name after this. Everything about it points to the term "modern classic". So why is it that twenty-five years later, the movie has faded into obscurity? I don't know, but sometimes it seems to happen in order for people to rediscover it and make it into the classic it deserves to be later on. At least, that's what I hope is going on here.
The film opens with a gruesome discovery: the body of an infant and bloody towels in the trash can of a young Catholic novitiate, Sister Agnes (Psycho II's Meg Tilly). Agnes contends the birth was miraculous, but the police aren't buying it. They send in Martha Livingston (On Golden Pond's Jane Fonda), a psychologist, to find out whether Agnes is insane; on the other side of the equation is Miriam Ruth (Blazing Saddles' Anne Bancroft), the mother superior of Agnes' convent. As the two of them dance around, Agnes almost fades into the background of the dance between Miriam and Martha, antagonists who come to grudgingly respect one another.
All this true, perhaps, and yet despite both of her co-stars being stalwarts (at the time the film was made, Fonda had already won two Oscars and been nominated for a handful more, while Bancroft, who picked up another Best Actress Oscar nomination for this role, had three nominations under her belt), every time Meg Tilly appears on the screen, she not only holds her own, she steals the show entirely. No surprise, then, that Tilly also picked up a nomination here (for Best Supporting Actress, losing to Anjelica Huston in Prizzi's Honor), and well-deserved it is. The one thing that jars in the movie is that it often seems as if Tilly's performance doesn't quite belong in the same movie as Fonda's and Bancroft's do. I've been mulling on this for a while now and I haven't quite figured out why this is, but there's a different tone to the scenes with Tilly than there is with the rest of the film. Still, it is the case here--as it almost never is in such circumstances--that both pieces of this whole are equally accomplished. The trio of lead actresses all turn in incredible performances. The sets are minimalist, almost sere, but beautifully photographed, and the pacing is dead-on. If you missed this one the first time around, or are too young to have caught it when it first came out, it's well worth rediscovering. ****
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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