American Cinematographer - December 2001 - 140

Beckoned by a
vision of her

Sharon's transformation in

a seedy motel
signified by an ever-brightening
light shining through red curtains in the
window behind her. To depict the Rapture
(when believers are "taken up" to

is

room

late husband,
Sharon (Mimi

Rogers) takes
her daughter
Mary (Kimberly

Heaven) at the end of the film, the film¬

Cullum) to the
desert to await

makers shot at

God's arrival in
The Rapture.

night in an isolated area
Angeles County; they placed
Rogers on a dolly seat, fired up a smoke
machine and slowly elevated the seat.
The Rapture was one of the first
films released by Fine Line Features, the
"specialty label" introduced by New Line
in 1990. Wary of the protests that had
greeted Martin Scorsese's The Last
Temptation of Christ three years earlier,
Fine Line screened the picture for Christ¬
ian theologians and laymen throughout
1991; they praised its serious treatment
of Los

T he Rapture is

included

of the most remark| able films ever to appear under the
1 banner of "independent film." Ironi¬
cally, when it was released 10 years ago,

conversations to unfold in

writer/director Michael Tolkin said he

manner.

one

convinced that

independent cinema
had become as unimaginative as bigbudget Hollywood fare. "After E. T. I felt a
complete break with entertainment, and
I was tired of independent cinema, too,"
he told The Village Voice. "All the
epiphanies were predictable."
was

Pumpkinhead, Patty Hearst and
King of New York. Most of The Rapture
plays in long, single takes that allow
In

a

natural

of faith's difficult terrain. Fine Line Presi¬

commentary on the
laserdisc of the film, Rogers and co-star

dent Ira Deutschman said he

David

horror film, a sort of Close Encounters of
the Religious Kind.

a

Duchovny (who plays Sharon's ill-

fated husband) praise the use of long
takes for allowing them to better interact
with each other. Tolkin says the strategy

Rapture

as an

The film

opened in October 1991
Angeles, New York and Atlanta.
Line's own Atlanta rep refused to

New

handle it and

cannot be said of The

the filmmakers often lacked the time to

refused to exhibit it. Los

Rapture. The picture follows Sharon
(Mimi Rogers), a restless and unhappy
information operator who whiles away
most evenings by cruising for couples
with the urbane swinger Vic (Patrick
Bauchau). Increasingly despondent,
Sharon begins questioning whether God
can assuage "the pain in my life." She
undergoes a religious conversion,
making a radical break with the life she

back and shoot close-ups.
The Rapture was shot over 30
days in and around Los Angeles. The

The

same

has known, and finds her newfound faith

tested

by trials worthy of Job himself.
The film culminates with the Apoca¬
lypse, signaled by Gabriel's horn and the
appearance of the Four Horsemen, and
Sharon's final reckoning yields an unpre¬
dictable epiphany indeed.
To make the picture, Tolkin, a
former journalist and first-time film¬
maker, teamed with cinematographer
Bojan Bazelli, whose eclectic resume
136 December 2001

The

in Los

practically motivated as well; the
ambitious film's short shoot meant that

was

saw

intellectual/theological

one

southern theater chain

daughter
(Kimberly Cullum) to await God's arrival

Angeles Times
praised the
picture for being "that most audacious of
cinematic ventures, a film of theological
ideas." J. Hoberman of The Village Voice
offered a backhanded compliment,
applauding it for "infecting the New York

in the film's final act. The

Film Festival with

go

most difficult location was the

where

Sharon

takes

realize its desert location
of

desert,

her

crew

was at

didn't

the foot

airport runway until they arrived at
Rogers recalls that all of the
desert scenes were shot between plane
takeoffs and landings. The film's most
horrific scene unfolds at magic hour, and
the filmmakers scrambled up a barren
hill with Rogers and Cullum to capture
the needed shots in just 12 minutes.
One of the production's biggest
challenges was portraying the fantastic
on a limited budget, but Bazelli and
Tolkin accomplished this feat both
artfully and simply. For example,
an

the site, and

film critic Kenneth Turan

a

welcome

case

of

insanity."
Audience responses to The
Rapture were polarized. Tolkin recalls on
the laserdisc that

the

some

viewers missed

picture's final twist because they

walked out with less than
He

muses,

a

"Sometimes

whether

minute to go.

I

wonder

working with the questions of
the moment is really what drama should
be doing, or whether that isn't the place
for journalism." In 1998, Tolkin helped
craft a very different doomsday scenario,
Deep Impact.
Rachael K. Bosley
-

FLFeaioctnuruefrst.esy
Phot
American Cinematographer - December 2001

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