First steps.
Angel is in a sense, a revenge thriller, a movie that deals with violence and its effect on people who are directly or indirectly responsible or victimized. The movie was influenced by a film John Boorman had made called Point Blank (1967) starring Lee Marvin. In the book Cinema and Ireland the two films are compared:
Both films [Point Blank and Angel] end at the locations where they began and just as Walker in Point Blank discovers how he has been manipulated by the Organization leader, Fairfax, so Danny in Angel now learns that he has been used by the police detective, Bloom … in order to uncover the assassins. While both men have assumed themselves to be in control of their actions, the endings reveal how they have also been turned into puppets.[1]
Although Angel takes its thriller structure from Point Blank, it deals in many ways more with the consequences of violence rather then displaying it solely for the entertainment factor. If we look at individual characters we can see how the movie is analyzing their responses and views on violence. This is evident when we watch how Danny, the protagonist slowly becomes increasingly fascinated with murder.[2]
There can be no doubt … that it was the thriller element, which turned the film into a minor hit. It sets a clear precedent for Jordan’s films, which are remarkable in their attempts to use the commercial possibilities of genre filmmaking to investigate genuinely original material.[3]
This observation is again valid in Jordan’s next film The Company of Wolves. This is the classic story of Little Red Riding Hood and is based on the adaptation by Angela Carter. In his book World Cinema, Brian McIlroy makes a curious observation:
Strangely, the film ran into distribution problems: the British Board of Film Censors gave it an 18 certificate which meant that few children (its intended audience) could go and see it on their own …This is all the more strange since the joint script between Jordan and Angela Carter is very subtle in its layered narrative and framing devices.[4]
It’s curious to see McIlroy talk about The Company of Wolves so lightly, because although the story is essentially a children tale, the presentation is that of a horror movie; with dark forests and gothic settings. The movie deals also with sexuality in a dark way as Roger Ebert writes in his review of the movie:
A wolf is sometimes much more than he seems. … The key word there is “he.” There are no female wolves in this film, or at least not in the leading roles. The wolves are all male, and the males are almost all wolves. … “The Company of Wolves” is a dream about werewolves and little girls and deep, dark forests. It is not a children’s film and it is not an exploitation film; it is a disturbing and stylish attempt to collect some of the nightmares that lie beneath the surface of “Little Red Riding Hood.”[5]
Although Ebert says the film is good, he calls it a definition of a nightmare. McIlroy’s observation is perhaps valid in a sense because although the film could be seen commercially as a new take on the Little Red Riding Hood story but when we look more closely at the film it investigates the elements of children coming of age, sex and sexuality and again, violence. The theme of violence and men is evident in the dialogue of the movie and goes back to Angel. The theme of Angel is stated by one of the characters: “men start out as angels and end up as brutes”[6] and the same thing happens in The Company of Wolves when Rosaleen says to granny: “I’d never let a man strike me” and granny responds: “Oh, they’re nice as pie until they’ve had their way with you. But once the bloom is gone… oh, the beast comes out”.
The film was a considerable success for Jordan, it was filmed and produced in England and made it possible for him to make Mona Lisa.
