For a completely non-religious person I seem to be entranced by movies which deal with the subject, at least in one particular aspect.  I’ve always been fascinated by supernatural occurences, and the world of religion is chock full of them.  One of these days I’ll have to write about the end-of-days scenario, a theme not unknown to the movies or to documentaries on The History Channel,  but today I’m thinking about miracles, mainly because the other day I saw again, for the first time in many years, a terrific movie from 1980 which I always liked but simply hadn’t seen for a while.  It’s 1980′s Resurrection, directed by Daniel Petrie, written by Lewis John Carlino, starring the great Ellen Burstyn as a woman who develops the ability to heal.

It’s a movie that sticks with you, mostly because of Burstyn’s many-layered performance.  She’s Edna Mae, a modern and sensual woman, happily married and living the good life in California, when a horrific traffic accident kills her husband and changes her life.  The now wheelchair-bound Edna returns to her small Midwest hometown, renewing bonds with her family, including her uptight father (about whom we later learn a pretty awful secret ), her extended family of cousins and townsfolk, her salt-of-the-earth grandmother, and eventually the local stud Cal, played by writer-actor Sam Shepard in his fourth movie role.   Edna’s Grandma Pearl is played by legendary stage actress Eva Le Gallienne, in one of her relatively rare movie and TV appearances. 

The rest of this post will have some spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the movie and you don’t like knowing what happens, you might not want to read beyond here.  Anyway, the turning point in Edna’s life was her near death, a sequence with “the light” and hazy people waiting for her, welcoming her – could this have been the first movie to depict what we have come to think of as the standard near-death experience?  In any case, it changes her in a way that is evident to Grandma Pearl, at least, and soon to Edna.  Her hands become hot, charged with an energy that can heal.  We see her gradually warm up to her newfound power by soothing a little girl with a nosebleed, healing her own shattered legs, and soon getting a reputation for her unusual gift which attracts crowds and attention, which she modestly deflects.  Burstyn has been quoted as saying she wanted to depict a real woman, a sensual woman, who just happens to find herself the object of religious fervor and awesome respect, and Edna is no prim and sexless saint.  She falls for handsome, motorcycle-riding bad boy Cal, a former HolyRoller who broke ties with his fanatical father.

Edna eventually attracts the attention of psychic researchers who engage her in a series of tests designed to scientifically measure her alleged powers.  There’s a totally compelling sequence where she is asked to try to heal a woman with severe muscular dystonia.  We see Edna’s healing routine, a complete empathetic tranformation which leaves her momentarily paralyzed and in agony as at the same time the woman regains her long-lost movement.   It leaves everybody speechless, including the audience watching the movie. 

Meanwhile, Edna’s boyfriend Cal is getting freaked out.  His Holy Roller upbringing is starting to pop through again, as he begins to spout religious talk and becomes annoyed that Edna hasn’t acknowledged God’s part in her healing ability.  Some of the townspeople also are disturbed by her lack of overt religiosity, but mostly it’s Cal who’s bothered.  The notion that she should be a holy woman, pure, and obviously not someone he should be sleeping with bothers him a lot, and he becomes impotent with her.  We also learn about the rift between Edna and her taciturn and cruel father — he even beats the family dog — and what made him that way, and what he did to Edna years before.  As he dies they come to an understanding, just in the nick of time, you might say.

The movie gets a little melodramatic here, culminating in a kind of crazy action sequence with Cal going nuts, grabbing a rifle, jumping on his motorcycle and zooming to put an end to Edna Mae’s blaspheming ways.  Obviously something had to happen to resolve the tension between Edna, Cal, the townspeople, and religion in general, and it does.  It’s a little out of sync with the tone of the rest of the movie, but it doesn’t mess it up, and it does lead to Edna’s break with her old life.

What really sticks with you about Resurrection is the end.  Edna Mae’s now living out in the desert, the proprietor of an idiosyncratic gas station/museum of oddities that she first encountered at the beginning of the movie when her father was driving her back to the midwest.  We remember the old man who ran it — Richard Farnsworth in a charming near-cameo — and we see that Edna has now found peace out here in solitude.  An RV drives up with a mom, a dad and a little boy with advanced cancer.  Maybe you can figure out what will happen, but it won’t change the impact.  It’s an incredible scene, with an offhand grace that will, dare I say, warm your heart.  It’s perfect.

I don’t know how somebody with religious faith would think about what happens in Resurrection, I only know that it’s a powerful movie with amazing performances, and I find it completely credible as it deals with incredible occurences.   Ellen Burstyn was nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award, and Eva LeGallienne for Best Supporting Actress.   Unfortunately neither of them won, and in fact Burstyn has said that part of the problem with Resurrection‘s poor box office was the Universal Studio’s conflict over which release to push for awards that year.  They also had Sissy Spacek in Coal Miner’s Daughter in their court, and went with it. 

Resurrection deserves to be remembered as a lovely piece of filmmaking, and I highly recommend that you seek it out.  You won’t be disappointed. 

Here’s the interesting title sequence, which features a hand motif with sort of Kirlian photography images.