Only Angels Have Wings
Growing up watching movies, I often found myself wanting to be transplanted into the world of the film itself; to be those characters, to take part in their adventures, to feel the passion of the relationships on screen as my own. As I’ve grown older and settled into finding steady comfort in my own life, I no longer have that experience - except in very rare circumstances. This film is one of those special occasions. From my first viewing through every subsequent time I revisit it, I want to join the milieu of this band.
The vibe of the environment is leisurely introduced through a commonality in nationalist alignment, which immediately elicits heaps of joy in Arthur for locating a collective, followed by fun-loving games over who will take Arthur on a date and who will risk his life in the air. The brash business meeting that transpires may be curt, but the engagement is playful, like a friend raising his eyebrows with a grin at his pal as if to say, “I know what you’re doing, c’mon get to work.” There is toughness but sweet affection behind the brash expectations. This is a code based on
action where people are expected to be moving, participating, taking risks, all to provide a positive net service, keep a business alive, and, most importantly, feel -and
be- alive.
The success of this results in elated bonding, while failure marks a permanent somber reality that nonetheless yields the exact same activity. At the start of the film, the philosophy seems to be that when a character dies, they weren’t good at their job, and therefore not in tune with their identity- but that doesn’t make their casualty necessary or life worthless. Instead we get the wise words, “What’s the good in feeling bad about something that couldn't be helped?” which is akin to the famous reading of [paraphrased] ‘everything is exactly the way it’s supposed to be because it’s the way it is.’ The back-and-forth of accountability is left there- what’s done is done. Let go, move on, mourn the dead through celebration of life. As someone who engages in a subculture of young people in recovery, funerals are a regular part of club-membership, and I cannot count the amount of times this kind of shrugging-off has occurred to my bewilderment, only for the commemoration of sadness to come bubbling up in private phone calls, specialized ceremonies, or simply expressed in each person’s own unique way- yet always meditated on in a group setting in addition to solitude. On the one hand, when it’s part of the game, people need to focus on their next step forward, their own recovery or their next flying mission, ‘focus on today,’ not tomorrow or yesterday, but what we’re grateful for in this moment right now, just like Grant and Arthur discuss the night of our initial pilot’s death. The idiosyncratic memorials to the dead through enjoying oneself in singing, laughing, eating and drinking in this club is a beautiful sublimation of positive-framed death. And yet, at the film’s end we do get a more solemn expression, which marks growth and unveils the true philosophy: That people matter, and that their luck that led to the status of death does not define their identity. Their love does. It always has. And therein lies the other side to this truth: the duality that grief, like love, is complex- and our individual experiences are necessary to have alone, just like shared moments are
crucial to unpack all life has to offer, the good and the bad.
In this world, the way to prove passion between people is through an exchange of diligence and collaboration. There is so much collective spirit here that each member’s will power is boosted higher than the average person, like a group of supermen who only attain their potential from one another’s unconditional support, the way it
actually works in real life. It’s no wonder that Grant refused to sacrifice this system of vibrant camaraderie for the chains of a partner (Rita) who wanted him to give up his freedom to live in the moment. This may be a dangerous job, but the highs of flying, living on the edge, and constantly flaunting agency on the move to the next opportunity to seize, are priceless. The stakes are high, but the dedication to action is rewarded with a reciprocal energy and membership to the best club in town. Life is what you put into it, and these men put their chips all-in, every day.
The production design always gives me a warm feeling of comfort, as if I belong and have lived in this shack myself for years. The limited sets allow each area to feel like home; from the few rooms they congregate in to the outside deck where they watch their friends attempt to complete missions while gambling with mortality. These spaces have an artificial stagey quality to them, just like the insides of the cockpits when flying, but Hawks manages to instill enough authentic tension in the action setpieces and develop his characters, their traits and passions, that each scene is gripping and earnest. Whether Grant is testing Mitchell and grounding him from the action that defines his identity (a form of execution in this way of life) or characters are in peril about to crash, heated arguments have the same intensity as the interaction between those on the ground connecting with those in the air. There is love there, the kind of love most filmmakers need direct physical contact to evoke, but Hawks has my heart racing with awe at the intimacy expressed as the men on the ground are watching their friends try to land. They keep cool heads on the outside, but internally tap into raw sensitivities more deeply, and frequently, than most people ever do.
The other theme that really comes alive in the second half is something as true today as it is in Hawks’ winners’ club: That true love is respecting your partner’s choices, allowing them to be who they are on their terms without trying to intervene and impose a will. This doesn’t work. It doesn’t lead to greater love but to restrictions, and resentment in the compromise of self. Now, I obviously believe that compromise is necessary for relationships to work, but Hawks dares to question where that line is- and the truth is that whatever ‘sacrifices’ are made need to be initiated
by the individual, not
for them. So the loving relationships in this film, platonic same-sex male relationships or heterosexual romantic ones, only exist as such due to a reciprocal respect of autonomy. In the midst of all of the dated gender politics, there are deep truths of strong relationships that are incredibly advanced for their time.
Even though all the characters develop in this narrative, Arthur’s character grows the most as she wrestles with how to manage the task of loving someone enough to focus on her own coping mechanisms rather than project her needs onto Grant. It’s a beautiful transformation, in all its messy stages of evolution, because she asks herself important philosophical questions around the murky waters of an emotional surge that drives her to dysregulation. She is finally able to join the club as she reaches a point of self-actualization where she can commit to coexisting in the club and tending to her emotions as mutually exclusive endeavors. Arthur accepts love on love’s terms like Grant does life and life’s terms, and her reveal of this, before professing it into words to ‘live in the present,’ is all in behavior. The flirtatious games with Grant are full of noticing, and taking the opportunities at, playful jabs and asking questions of interest, instead of worrying about the past or the future. Her presence is at ease, her posture pointed at Grant, full attention given to the task at hand: Falling in love. Of course, she continues to flip-flop without being able to sustain that nirvana- but that’s reality, and there is hope that she’ll continue to work at it, just as Grant and his company continue to work at coping with their own risks at mortality, each and every day.
While definitely unintentional, there are strokes of Eastern philosophies in this transient acceptance meshed with Hawks’ Western credo that blends independence and camaraderie. This is existentialism on fire. The ending returns us to ground zero, restoring the balance of order to the worldviews of Grant, and now Arthur, as Grant playfully makes himself vulnerable with the coin trick, and we get a series of final shots that saturate the screen with visual representations of the spirited reasons to live. Grant is smiling, taking off in a plane under imperfect weather conditions, and Arthur is watching him, love in its absolute form permeating through her entire body. The person on the ground is connected to the person in the air, more unified than most people are who can physically touch, as they accept and love one another while remaining independent in physical states and mental ones; focusing on themselves and one another as mutually exclusive acts, where identities are satisfied separately and together, isolated and intimate. The American Dream, where we can have our cake, eat it too, risk it all, and live it up, every day.
