Angel Heart: Robert de Niro, a devil of an actor

Arte is offering a special evening dedicated to the New York star this Sunday. This Alan Parker classic will be followed by the documentary Robert De Niro, The Weapon of Silence.

New York, 1955. Harry Angel, a private detective, finally finds a client in the person of the very enigmatic Louis Cyphre. He tasks him with finding a certain Johnny Favorite, a singer he has under contract and of whom he has no news after returning from war from which he emerged seriously shocked, disfigured and amnesiac.

To play Louis Cyphre (pronounced Lu-cifer…), the disturbing character manipulating detective Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke), Alan Parker first thought of Marlon Brando. But during the tests, the director is so fascinated by the game of Robert de Niro that he immediately offered him this role.

If Angel Heartreleased in cinemas in 1987, is less often cited than his collaborations with Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas…), this thriller remains one of the key films in the career of the 80-year-old actor, to whom Arte is paying tribute this weekend. While he has just been acclaimed for Killers of the Flower MoonDe Niro is the subject of a special evening this Sunday.

The documentary dedicated to him by Jean-Baptiste Peretie (already behind a magnificent portrait of his “rival” titled Al Pacino, the Bronx and the Fury, on the same channel) looks back on his journey with the help of numerous archives. Excerpts from interviews or making-ofs, makeup session… De Niro sees himself scrutinized from all angles to describe the paradoxes of an artist who has become a myth by seeking to hide behind often dark roles, and sometimes requiring a significant physical transformation.

Martin Scorsese looks back on his exceptional relationship with Robert De Niro

If Angel Heart helped make Robert De Niro a key actor in American cinema, his filming was not easy, as the rivalry with Mickey Rourke was intense. When it was released, the duo made no secret of it, and neither did the director: Alan Parker detailed in First how the tense relationship between his two main actors had ultimately served his film.

“It was war! Everyone was watching the other, everyone wanted to be the best, to steal the scene. It was like a boxing match.” confided the filmmaker, before specifically recounting their first exchange during a key scene in the film: “We rehearsed it a few times, then I saw there was a puddle under Mickey’s chair. In fact, his hands were sweaty from stage fright. So, he put ice cubes in his pockets, and he buried his hands in them to cool down… But it was wonderful to see, this fight between them.“

In the same issue, Mickey Rourke confirmed the director’s words by recounting his version of the filming of this same sequence: “We rehearsed first. In the scene, I enter, he is sitting, I shake his hand, then I sit down opposite him, and the dialogue starts… At rehearsal, no problems. We try the scene two, three times, then we decide to shoot it. Parker says ‘action‘, I enter, De Niro extends his hand, shakes mine… And doesn’t let go! We stayed like that, looking at each other, straight in the eye, before I got my hand back… The war was on!”

Another remarkable sequence ofAngel Heart : when Louis Cyphre devours hard-boiled eggs in front of Mickey Rourke, De Niro shows a face so terrifying that he truly distressed his partner, unable to pronounce the slightest word… and who then admitted in our pages that this encounter had ” vscompletely emptied“.

Their rivalry has resurfaced several years later, in 2019, when Mickey Rourke publicly accused Robert de Niro of having ensured thathe is ousted from the casting of The Irishmanby Martin Scorsese.

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