Did Wim Wenders's WINGS OF DESIRE give a generation of angel films their wings? The seminal German film certainly inspired one major American box office hit: Brad Silberling's CITY OF ANGELS, a loose remake cleverly relocated to Los Angeles. Recently Boys' Bible Study has moved into full-time analysis of the Y2K angel boom in American cinema, and CITY OF ANGELS may be the most essential film of that wave, spawning countless imitations. One of the movie's main draws is its A-list cast. Nicolas Cage plays Seth, an angel stationed at an LA hospital, where he becomes unprofessionally enamored with heart surgeon Dr. Maggie Rice, played by Meg Ryan. Dennis Franz, fresh off his fame from NYPD BLUE, co-stars as Nathaniel Messenger, a hedonistic patient of Dr. Rice who is later revealed to be an angel who chose to "take the fall" and live as a mortal. The idea of angels longing to inhabit the world of flesh is a key trope pioneered by WINGS OF DESIRE, where the fallen angel was portrayed by American actor Peter Falk playing himself. CITY OF ANGELS expands on this idea by making the fallen angel a physically weak, unremarkable everyman, offering Seth a grim preview of the fate that may await him if he gives up eternity for love. After an emotionally intense courtship that unfolds across planes of existence, Maggie and Seth commit to each other, and Seth rejects immortality in order to experience human love and sex. He gets to do this exactly once before a cruel twist of fate, seemingly engineered by a mischievous God, befalls the newly mortal couple. CITY OF ANGELS lays its melodrama on thick and can feel like a tedious watch more than 25 years later, but it remains a well-made artifact of an era when nondenominational angels dominated the airwaves and lived vividly in the public imagination. Humans live briefly, angels live forever, and movies exist somewhere in between.

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