Angels and Demons:Travelogue of Rome

Four Rivers Fountain, Piazza Navona, Rome

Destination: Rome

Movie: Angels and Demons

Well, here we are at the end of Italy week.  I went to the long-awaited movie of Angels and Demons around noon today. I would say it was the equivalent of dining on one of those fancy bakery cakes decorated with lard and sugar icing and fresh violets.  Absolutely beautiful, but no substance.

I think that the movie Angels and Demons reflected Angels and Demonsthe book perfectly.  The book was shallow and error-prone.  Ron Howard, director of the movie, said in an interview that they stripped away the non-essential things. So what do you have when you take something that is insubstantial to begin with, and strip things away? Certainly not much brain food.

I have to hand it to the model-makers, set designers, set decorators, etc.  I have been to Bernini’s Piazza San Pietro (St. Peter’s Square) at the Vatican, I had been in the tombs below the Vatican, and although I unfortunately had never been in the Sistine Chapel it is familiar from pictures. The accuracy of their portrayal in this movie should win those guys an Oscar or two.  I would have sworn the scenes in Saint Peter’s Basilica and other parts of the Vatican were really in those places. However, since the Vatican would not allow the film crew inside Vatican property, it was all the work of clever designers.  Note, however, that when the camera scans the Sistine Chapel, it moves quickly, not focusing enough for you to study the art work and statuary, and the scenes there are brief. Very clever work, indeed.

(Spoiler alert) And somebody gets loads of credit for that gorgeous, turbulent sky when the anti-matter explodes. I was waiting for Michaelangelo’s outstretched fingers of God and Adam to appear.

The dialogue, on the other hand can only be called lame.  What kind of exposition is it when a Professor of Humanities is having to tell a woman with a PhD in Physics about how Galileo thought that the earth revolved around the sun, and therefore the church excommunicated him? The movie seems to rely more on dramatic music and sound effects than dialogue to move the plot along.

When I read Angels and Demons, I thought the book  was a fun, quick, read, but superficial.  The movie is the same, but its saving grace is the gorgeous views of Rome, both aerial views and close up inside famous piazzas and churches–enough to satisfy any afficiando of Italy. And perhaps to lure some travelers to visit the Eternal City. Given that fact, I would certainly not want my negative remarks to deter you from seeing the movie.

If you want to check on the movie’s accuracy in presenting familiar sites in Rome, or if you just love the way the movie looks and want to know how to get there yourself—read Angela Nickerson’s FREE e-book, Rome’s Angels and Demons. I have, and it is a wonderful guide. When you go to her site to get the book, you can enter a contest, too.

I would appreciate it, if when you visit Angela’s site, you tell her that you came from A Traveler’s Library. Thanks, and this concludes our Italy week, which started with a rather eccentric book and ended with a rather eccentric movie.  Would you like a week devoted to another country? Tell me which one and we’ll be off to the races.

Photograph by Vera Marie Badertscher. All rights reserved.

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Tags: A.K.Nickerson, Angels and Demons, Bernini, e-book, Italy, Movie, Piazza Navone, Rome, Ron Howard, Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Square, Travel