Ellen Burstyn’s crowning
achievement in movies might be her multidimensional star turn in Martin
Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here
Anymore (1974), though strong arguments could be made for her fearless work
in The Exorcist (1973) and Requiem for a Dream (2000). Obscured by
these famous movies is the offbeat gem Resurrection, in which Burstyn not only incarnates the complex facets of a fully rounded individual, but in which she explores realms
beyond normal human understanding. As its title suggests, Resurrection is about a woman who dies for a brief time before
returning to life, and upon returning from “the other side,” she gains
supernatural healing powers. As Burstyn articulated in her autobiography, she’s
been on a lifelong spiritual journey, so in some ways, Resurrection might be her ultimate role. It’s a problematic film
that some viewers will find too incredible, and even fans of the picture are
likely to quibble about plot points. Nonetheless, most of what happens onscreen
in Resurrection is memorable and
strange and touching.
Burstyn, who received an Oscar nomination as Best Actress
for the picture, stars as Edna, an everywoman who experiences a terrible car
accident. Her husband dies in the crash, but Edna rouses despite being legally
dead for a period of time. Upon discovering her brush with morality has gifted
her with special abilities, Edna gradually detaches from her old life and
becomes a faith healer. She also falls in love with Cal (Sam Shepard), a deeply
religious man whose beliefs allow him to accept the “miracle” of Edna’s
supernatural power. Yet a schism grows in their relationship because Edna
refuses to acknowledge God as the author of her destiny, which puts Edna on the
road to the film’s powerful final act.
Written by the imaginative Lewis John
Carlino and directed by the reliable Daniel Petrie, Resurrection has a bit of a TV-movie feel, but the smallness of the
presentation is perfect for the subject matter. By eschewing grandeur, Petrie
keeps the focus on the turbulence that paranormal phenomena causes in Edna’s
life and the lives of those around her. Seeing Edna do incredible things sparks revelatory reactions, with desperate
people seeing Edna as the deliverance they crave, small-minded people seeing her as a personification of everything that frightens them, and spiritual
people seeing Edna as proof that forces beyond man guide the universe. Through
it all, Edna experiences a litany of surprising emotional changes, some of
which are more believable than others, but the stark contrast the filmmakers
draw between the person Edna was before her transformation and the person she
is at the end of the story makes a powerful statement about human potential.
Burstyn commits wholeheartedly
to even the most outlandish scenes, thereby grounding the picture in simple
emotional truth. The fine supporting cast, which also includes Roberts Blossom,
Jeffrey DeMunn, Richard Farnsworth, Eva Le Gallienne (who received on Oscar
nomination as Best Supporting Actress), and Lois Smith, helps weave a canvas of
rural authenticity, with Shepard’s fire-and-brimstone ire providing a sharp
counterpoint to Edna’s embrace of the mysterious. Resurrection is far from perfect, but it’s filled with ambiguities
that provide fodder for fascinating conversations.
Resurrection: GROOVY
4 comments:
A wonderful and gravely overlooked film! I've seen it several times when it popped up on cable (it was unavailable on DVD for a long time I believe) and am always moved by Burstyn's performance. Twenty years ago I took a college course called "Religion and Spirituality in Film" and this movie is so unknown it wasn't featured--as it should have been. Lovely ending too. So glad you reviewed it!
I re-watched this last night after reading your review and while I think there's a compelling idea somewhere in this movie, the writer and director needed to connect the dots a little better to make a cohesive story. And although I wouldn't go so far as to say that there are some "scene missing" moments, the transitions in several sections seem rushed or unclear. A strange movie scene for scene, but the concept remains interesting, and Burstyn sells it all pretty convincingly.
Struggled at boxoffice due to awful ad campaign. Universal dropped ball on this and MELVIN AND HOWARD the same Fall
A movie intensely connected to both Burstyn's major presence in Freidkin's searing attack on all organized religion and it's eternally toxic effects on humanity though the ages in 1973's "The Exorcist", as well as to the phenomena of a neo-Christian revival fueling the rise of Republican neo-conservative politics in 1980, when this was released to a strange combination of critical praise and complete audience indifference. it's seems to be both an attempt at a "new liberal Christianity" that uses a manipulative critique of mentally-ill Christian fundamentalism to promote new "humanist" wine in old conservative Jesus-loving bottles, all masquerading under the seemingly intellectual pretense of an argument between the spiritually damaging effects of secular materialism and science, vs. Bible-thumping psychopaths, and trying to find an acceptable and newly gift-wrapped Christian worldview between the two. The key here, or the dead giveaway, after all the liberal embrace of human sexuality and psychic new-age mysteries acting a kind of theological repackaging, is Burstyn's line "I still accept Jesus".
And this, I think, is why the mass audience didn't bite, and sensed something very "off" about the whole enterprise. You can even read it as some sort of opportunistic apologia by Burstyn for the scrupulous incineration of Christian thought by a Jewish film director (Friedkin) who impacted the world by taking no prisoners: a crucifix and all it represents mutilates a child's genitalia as a metaphor for the absurd notion of original sin, and doesn't accept any truly loving thing connected to a "Christ figure" whatsoever, the ultimate healing effect of "The Exorcist" altogether.
Post a Comment