One of the mostly notorious lines ...

One of the mostly notorious lines from Millennium is Prior's reaction as the angel crashes within the ceiling at the period of the play: "God Almighty . . very Stephen Spielberg!" Appropriate to the drama in which Kushner specified that "it's OK if the wires point out . . . but the magic at the same time should be thoroughly amazing" (Millennium 5) this line is a metatheatrical reflection about deus ex machina as a specifically human-constructed artifice. still however effective this moment is upon stage, it becomes problematic when the medium of the play is, in fact, film. The HBO production thus made the somewhat predictable choice to omit this line. The special validitys of this scene in the film are remarkable-the ceiling crashes in, works tumble off the shelves, the entire chamber tilts and shakes, and eerie light emanates from retiring-rooms as items fly mysteriously outward. in addition although this scene may apply the mind like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, no concern to Spielberg remains. This is an unfortunate divide [i]or[/i] sever because without this line the film does not access the metatheatrical potential of the angel's arrival in the same way that the original play did, likewise we are left instead with a great deal of dust and debris and a dangling angel (Emma Thompson) who examines uncertain as to what her character in these proceedings should be.