Life After Movies

IN DANIEL PETRIE'S Resurrection, Ellen Burstyn plays Edna McCauley, a bona fide, clinically tested, laying-on-of-hands faith healer. Her power defies explanation; it may be God-given, it may involve the psychic channeling of electrical impulses. Edna herself doesn't know how the power comes to her. When pressed, she says simply, "I offer it to you in the name of love."

Resurrection risks offending orthodox believers and staunch rationalists alike and finding itself without an audience. Yet the movie manages to maintain its equanimity and effectively synthesize an agnostic faith in love, life, and life after life.

Edna's healing power develops after a disastrous automobile causes her to cross the brink of death. While on the operating table, she seems to hover over herself, watching the proceedings. Then she relives the crash. As the windshield shatters, geometeric patterns radiate in her field of vision. Bells chime. Light diffusing from a central source creates a tunnel. Shadowy forms of people she vaguely remembers seem to talk to her and guide her toward the light. In the distance a figure stands facing her, casually slinging a jacket over his shoulder. It's her husband, who died in the accident. He smiles reassuringly at her. Suddenly, she feels that she is being pulled back rapidly, hyperspacing. The motion stops. She opens her eyes. A blurry nurse adjusts an intravenous unit. Muffled announcements come over a P.A. "Welcome back," a voice says, and Edna sees a doctor standing at her bedside.

Edna's visionary dream is based on documented testimony. In his book Life After Life, Dr. Ralph Moody finds that such a pattern emerges from the statements of people who have glimpsed death and returned to life. Carefully staying within the realm of actual experience, the movie still generates a sense of the supernatural.

Edna first gets an inkling of her healing powers when she stops a hemophiliac child's nosebleed. Testing out her strength on herself, Edna overcomes severe nerve damage in her legs to walk unassisted. If that's you God, thank you. Or whatever great, wonderful power there is in the Universe, thank you," Edna exclaims broad-mindedly. The issue remains open. The fact is that Edna has a gift, and she uses it to heal people at gatherings in barns and assembly halls.

Meanwhile, Cal Cunningham (Sam Shepard), an unruly young man rebelling against an evangelical upbringing, aggressively courts Edna's love and, after several rebuffs, meets with success. Initially cynical about Edna's power, Cal witnesse miraculous recoveries that convince him Edna is on a divine mission--'You keep denyin' the Lord? you got to declare He's comin'. You are the living Christ. You are the Resurrection."

BUT EDNA'S POWERS fail her about 30 per cent of the time," which is to say, she's only human. Earthy, even. She swears, makes dirty jokes, and has a healthy sex drive. As Edna puts it-"I'm not the Holy Ghost and I'm hardly the Virgin Mary." Edna's father agrees. "You're nothin' but trash," he says, referring to her relationship with Cal.

Edna refuses to be bullied by her father's rigidly moralistic, chauvinistic attitude. She sticks to her guns and gets him to admit his narrowness. Edna fits in with the new wave of strong woman figures such as Gena Rowlands in Gloria and Mary Tyler Moore in Ordinary People.

Edna's character desentimentalizes a movie that tends to get a little too homey. After all, it takes place in Kansas, and there's no place like Kansas. The string-heavy score and schmaltzy touches--like the abandoned dog who becomes Edna's loyal companion--plus some drawn-out healing sequences, fall into the category of melodrama.

Ellen Burstyn is called upon to cover a physically and emotionally broad range of acting. While empathetically assuming the pain of an invalid she goes through an impressive series of facial and bodily contortions. Ordinarily possessed of a mild countenance with round, gentle features, her face can grow taut with anger or sadness.

Sam Shepard, better known as a playwright than as an actor, successfully portrays Cal's violent transition from skeptic to zealot. Shepard's brooding, understated intensity adds a dash of noir to the film.

John Lewis Carlino's script contains some bold dialogue, bordering on the risque in the love scenes. When Cal gets horny, he says to Edna--I got this big problem, I think you better lay your hands on it."

Carlino considers the movie an expression of the healing power of the love of human beings for one another. He stresses the human level and tries to bring the movie down to earth, so to speak. While the movie offers a hope of an afterlife, then, its message concerns life, in which, to paraphrase Schopenhauer, every illness gives a foretaste of death, every getting better again a foretaste of the resurrection.