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There is an HBO miniseries that opened the doors to the future and deserves to be remembered as one of the greatest achievements in the history of television.
“Angels in America”, a revolutionary piece in Tony Kushnerpremiered on Broadway in 1991 and explored the lives of New York characters in the midst of the AIDS crisis in the late 1980s. It quickly became a huge success and won numerous awards, including the Tony Awards and the Prize Pulitzer of Drama.
Like everything that is successful, a way of adapt to the screen. As it is a piece that lasts almost eight hours, condensing it all into one film would be impractical. The iconic Robert Altman he was involved in the project at one point but ended up abandoning it.
It was then that in an era where there was still a big gap between Television and Cinema that “Angels in America” was transformed into a miniseries of six episodes for the HBO.
In this way, the essence of the piece was allowed to not be sacrificed, with the help of a very significant budget, 60 million dollars.
At the helm of this project, the television network recruited a name that commanded respect in the industry, the veteran Mike Nicholswinner of the Oscar for best director for “The Graduate“. However, the level of names obtained for this project did not stop here, as Oscar winners Meryl Streep, Al Pacino It is Emma Thompson headed a cast that also included Patrick Wilson, Jeffrey Wright, Mary-Louise Parker, Justin Kirk, Ben Shenkman, James Cromwell It is Michael Gambon.
Critically acclaimed as one of the greatest miniseries in history, “Angels in America” was the first series to win all the awards in the TV category. Miniseries/Telefilm of the main ceremony of Emmys, accumulating a total of 11 statuettes. In the representation categories, Streep (Best actress), Pacino (Best Actor), Wright (Best Supporting Actor) and Louise-Parker (Best Supporting Actress) took the gold. Both Kushner who wrote and Nichols who directed were also recognized in their category.
At the moment, “Schitt’s Creek” It is “The Crown” They have already managed to repeat the feat in comedy and drama, respectively.
“Angels in America” became a benchmark for successful adaptations that remained faithful to the source material, marking a pivotal moment that demonstrated the effectiveness of the miniseries as a viable and equally prestigious option for telling a story. history with a length not so suitable for a traditional film. Its success paved the way for subsequent high-quality productions that also became award winners and marked the public as “Chernobyl” (HBO) or “The Queen’s Gambit” (Netflix).
Over the years, HBO has established its name with “The Sopranos“, “Six Feet Under”, “Game of Thrones” or more recently, “Succession”. “Angels in America” is also a title that deserves to be mentioned on this list and that should be remembered as a series that changed the future of HBO and the industry itself, helping to silence prejudice against television.
TRAILER | ANGELS IN AMERICA, THE IMPOSING HBO MINI SERIES
And you, have you seen this miniseries?
