RESURRECTION
US, 1980, 103 minutes, Colour.
Ellen Burstyn, Eva La Gallienne, Sam Shepard, Richard Farnsworth.
Directed by Daniel Petrie.
Resurrection is a film that received very varied responses. Dismissed on the one hand as religious soap-operatic film-making, it was, however, nominated for several Oscars including Ellen Burstyn and Eva La Gallienne for their acting roles.
The film shows an ordinary woman involved in an accident dying and coming back to life and gradually discovering that she has a healing power. The film shows religious fanaticism as well as scepticism. It tends to work emotionally rather than intellectually - especially with a symbolic ending as the healer retires to the desert - making it bloom with flowers and embracing visitors with healing.
The acting is good and the cast includes playwright Sam Shepard who appeared in The Right Stuff, Frances, Days of Heaven, Country. Distinguished stage actress Eva La Gallienne makes a rare screen appearance. The film was directed by Daniel Petrie whose films range widely from A Raisin in the Sun and The Bramble Bush to Fort Apache the Bronx.
1. Interest and entertainment? Mixed responses? Oscar nominations?
2. The film as a piece of Americana - city/country? The range of location photography? Special effects for Edna Mae's experience? Maurice Jarre's score?
3. The title and the significance of life and death, the specific Christ-focus? Healing? Healing powers, powers from God, powers of love?
4. The opening and its atmosphere, the picnic on the rocks, the relationship between Joe and Edna Mae, the joke, her buying a car for his birthday, seeing him at work, the bond between the two, the happy atmosphere and the crash?
5. The visual impact of the accident? Its effect on Edna Mae? The hospital, her death and the special effects: light, the sounds, the tunnel, the dream fantasy, the people from the past welcoming her? Her movement towards the light and then the return? her experience of reawakening? Resurrection? How persuasive the images for this experience of death?
6. Edna Mae as an ordinary woman, the impact of her recovery, the loss of her legs? Her returning home? The importance of the encounter with Esco Brown and his kindliness? Her dreams? His dreams of going to Peru? The two-headed snake? His stories? His faith, imposing hands on her in benediction? Edna Mae's experience becoming more extraordinary? Going back to Esco's place for her final retreat? Her ageing, the postcard from Esco in Peru, selling gas, the preserved snake, the flowers blooming in the desert, her kindness, the embrace of healing the cancerous boy, the close-up of her joyous face at the end? A spiritual journey?
7. Edna Mae and her father, his visit to the hospital, talking with her, the awkwardness between the two, his wanting to bring her home, his being welcoming but taciturn? The reality of his making her have an abortion, the hurt between the two? His denouncing her for her relationship with Cal? His dying and her return, talk of heaven, reconciliation?
8. The joy of her return, the love of Grandma Pearl and the bond between the two women, Pearl and the photo album, Edna Mae's memories, helping her to understand her gift? The farewell? Edna Mae welcomed at home, stopping the nosebleed for the child, discovering her powers of touch and healing, the wide response, the various healings that she performed and people's reaction, the tent healings, Cal's father with his fire and brimstone denunciations, Edna Mae healing Cal's bleeding?
9. Edna Mae's ordinariness, a growing awareness of her power, a sense of it? Associated with her death and her dream? Her finding the identity of people in her dream? Her growing power of love, not self-centred? her decision to go to the university, the experiment and her bending the light, the demonstration in front of the class, her taking on the illness of the woman cured, her three-day illness, her sense of her father's dying?
10. Cal and his rebellion against his parents, his being healed by Edna Mae, fascinated by her? His observing her, the growing friendship, the affair and the denunciation? The effect on each of them? Cal and his going to the city, watching her healing? Call’s getting religion, reading the apocalyptic passages from the scripture, a growing fear? His seeing Edna Mae as a Christ-figure and forcing her to be more than she was? The growing preoccupation and eventually shooting her? His inability to cope?
11. Edna Mae as a Christ-figure, her not making this claim, yet her power to heal and love? The motives for her retreat?
12. A film about religion and faith, the atmosphere of Middle America and the South, the differences between people with love and faith and fanatics, power of life and death?
