Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Agnes of God Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson December 21, 2019

Agnes of God (1985) is being released exclusively as part of Shout Select's eight-disc box set, The Anne Bancroft Collection.

The New York playwright John Pielmeier first got the idea to make Agnes of God into a play after he read a newspaper article about a traumatic incident that transpired in a convent in Brighton, NY. Nuns discovered Sister Maureen Murphy bleeding inside a convent. Although Sister Maureen repudiated the charge that she gave birth (she couldn't even recall being pregnant), the baby was found dead inside a trash bin, asphyxiated. This formed the premise for Pielmeier's play, which premiered in 1980 in Louisville, Kentucky and landed on Broadway in 1982 where it was performed by several outstanding actresses including Geraldine Page, Diahann Carroll, Carrie Fisher, and Amanda Plummer. In 1985 Norman Jewison, who produced and directed Charles Fuller's play A Soldier's Play into a sleeper hit a year earlier, commissioned Pielmeier to translate Agnes of God into a feature-length screenplay. (It's far less known that the work was turned into a novel by writer Leonore Fleischer.)

The movie follows the same pattern of events that happened to Sister Murphy. Young Sister Agnes (Meg Tilly) is found bleeding profusely by other sisters in a small room within a Canadian convent. Agnes survives but an infant is uncovered with its umbilical cord wrapped around in a waste basket. Dr. Martha Livingstone (Jane Fonda) is the court-appointed forensic psychiatrist assigned to determine whether Agnes acted out of malice and strangled her newborn, if someone else in the room engaged in foul play, or if rape was involved some time earlier. Martha clashes with Miriam Ruth (Anne Bancroft), the Mother Superior, who's protective of Agnes and guarded in her responses to Martha's questions. Agnes claims that she can't remember delivering the baby and shows low self-esteem. She claims she's grown too fat and not acceded to God's demands. Martha places Agnes under hypnosis to return her to that fateful night and she if she can dish more out of her.

Reflecting years later on adapting his play for the screen, Pielmeier writes on his official website that the film is "somewhat leaner" than what he wrote for the stage. I haven't read the play but as much as Pielmeier and Jewison have opened it up in the cloistered streets of Montreal and Quebec (where it was shot), the story events are choppily assembled and the narrative doesn't have the proper rhythm to sustain the tension of the film's central enigma: Was Agnes's conscience simply acting amoral or was a devilish force at work here and vetoing a call from God? The film deserves some praise for not making the moral and spiritual issues clean-cut. But while Agnes of God (play and film) were controversial during the '80s, it looks pretty conservative by today's standards.

It's always a pleasure to see the old feminist spirit of Jane Fonda duke it out with Anne Bancroft, who received her fifth and last Oscar nomination as Sister Ruth. Agnostic Martha has a sort of tug-of-war with the Mother Superior over the sacred and profane. Miriam counters that she's highly familiar with the world outside of the convent as a woman married for over twenty years with kids. I've always been fond of Meg Tilly since she played Matt Dillon's girlfriend in Tex (1982) and does solid work as one of the visitors to the Bates Motel in Psycho II (1983). Tilly ably lays bare Agnes's wounded soul in some excruciating scenes. (She took home the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress and also garnered an Oscar nod.) The three leads carry the film and overcome an uneven script.

Agnes of God Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

This is the second occasion Agnes of God has reached Blu-ray this year arriving six months after the Infinity Entertainment Group released in the UK. I don't have that disc so I'm not certain if that transfer is the same one as Shout Select has used here. Like the framing for 84 Charing Cross Road also found in the Bancroft box set, this one is opened up to 1.78:1 from its native 1.85:1. (The 2002 US Columbia Tristar is 1.85:1 while the European SD editions are 1.78:1). It's presumably taken from a 2K scan and shows a lustrous amount of grain which is equally spread throughout the frame. Grain lovers will delight and I felt it was late September 1985 and I was seeing if for the first time in the cinema. Grain is eye-catching along the mahogany on drawers beneath the library shelf in #15. The image is also very clean artifact-wise as I noticed only a few white speckles. Shout has employed the MPEG-4 AVC encode and delivered a mean video bitrate of 36000 kbps.

Sven Nykvist, a deity among cinematographers, photographed Agnes of God with immaculate care and captured the light of winter to close the film (and he did shoot Bergman's Winter Light [1963]). There are long shots of doorways (e.g., Screenshot #5) where only natural light intrudes. I'm reminded of discussing such similar shots after a cinephile friend and I watched Bergman's Autumn Sonata (1978), which Nykvist was DP on too. Nykvist lenses an abundance of close shots and one can see the wrinkles on the bedridden nun with sharp clarity in #6. Nykvist's work was frequently lauded by film journalists. The golden halo on Martha's entrance into the barn in capture #12 is precisely how they remember it. Writing in the weekly periodical, Boston Phoenix, Scott Rosenberg observes that Nykvist's compositions "pass in a parade of autumnal browns and virginal whites."

Twelve scene selections accompany the 98-minute feature.

Agnes of God Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shout supplies a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo Surround (1632 kbps, 24-bit). The original lossless mix boosts excellent clarity for all the speaking parts. Enunciation of syllables and vowel sounds is both discernible and distinct. When the doves fly the coop, there is loud directional effects to the sides of the front speakers.

Whether one listens to the scores for Le mépris (1963) or A Little Romance (1979), there's no denying that Georges Delerue was one of the great romantics to write for the silver screen. For Agnes of God, he composed pieces featuring a celestial choir, perhaps to signify either the voices Agnes supposedly hears in her head or an angelic chorus in church. The Elmer Iseler Singers perform superbly on the soundtrack. Delerue also wrote swelling strings that reach a crescendo on the Blu-ray track. The impassioned, high-pitched violins are a powerful accompaniment. Interestingly, Delerue and his sound editors arranged the score into two partitioned symphonic suites for chorus and orchestra instead of giving specific names to the individual cues.

Optional English SDH can be activated on the spare menu or via remote.

Agnes of God Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There's not a single extra on this disc.

Agnes of God Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Agnes of God is anchored by three sterling female leads in spite of an inconsistent screenplay that isn't as dramatically effective in certain places as it should. I give the movie 3.5/5 but Sven Nykvist's cinematography earns a 5/5. (Why he didn't receive any awards or nominations for this film is unfathomable.) Shout Select's transfer does full justice to his compositions. I listen to George Delerue's score fairly often and the film wouldn't reach poignant moments without it. The music has a rich, deep, and rangy sound on the Blu-ray track. While Agnes of God isn't a great film, the performances, photography, and score all elevate it to me making a STRONG RECOMMENDATION.