Liverpool Life Last night, at the behest of Pete and Sam (see above) I attended a private view for the latest group photographic exhibition at The Gallery on Stanhope Street in Liverpool (just near Novas and the Cains Brewery). I know, two in the same week. At this rate I’ll have a social life. It’s rather an exclusive venue a bit like the studio apartments that feature in New York films, with a nondescript façade whose doors opened to reveal a party happening in a brightly lit interior. During the week, you must ring a bell in order to gain entry.
It’s always nearly impossible to give thoughtful consideration to work in a private view setting, all the bumping and sorrys and oh I haven’t seen you in ages and trying not to spill your drink whilst eating too many of the snacks because you haven’t eaten for a while and you don’t want anyone to hear your tummy rumbling. But as well as Mr Carr's pictures (of course), I very much liked Claire Freeman’s sepia coloured pinhole photographs of silhouetted flora and fauna and Jen Allanson’s architectural lights reducing buildings to shapes and lights and colours.
Photographic Exhibition at The Gallery Liverpool.
Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
Then I have a strong suspicion that the first time I watched Tom Baxter step from the screen was at my friend Tris’s flat in the early nineties. It’s funny, I thought I could remember how I've seen nearly every film. I know that Strange Days was at Screen 3 at the old ABC in Leeds. Shakespeare In Love at the Showcase Cinema on the East Lancs Road. But it’s not until now that I’m in the thick of this project that I’m learning quite how ‘nearly’ my memory is. Incidentally I’m about the give away the ending. If you’ve not seen the film yet, look away now …
Now One of the results of my MA Screen Studies dissertation about the esoteric film genre of hyperlink cinema is that I’ve become quite attuned to spotting esoteric film genres in general, outside of the likes of westerns or romantic comedies. One of these days, I’ll get around to writing the great series for this blog in which I list the many that I’ve noticed and The Purple Rose of Cairo offers the opportunity for a pilot.
The Purple Rose of Cairo belongs to a genre of film and television about the “real” and “fictional” worlds colliding, often literary (Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Ship In A Bottle springs to mind in which Moriarty steps onto the Enterprise) but mainly cinematic. I don’t have a name for it yet – it’s not metafictional because most often the so-called “real world” characters internally still aren’t aware that they’re in a film.
There are essentially two subgenres. The rarest examples are those in which the so-called “real world” characters enter the fictional universe – Pleasantville or Star Tuned. The most common feature the fictional character stepping from one reality to another; Last Action Hero and Cairo are the key examples; sadly Enchanted doesn’t count since Giselle views her world as a fairy tale kingdom – it’s the audience that have to deal with the fact that kingdom happens to be animated.
As with all “syntactic” genres (that is genres defined by narrative structure rather than visual clues, which would be semantic), the stories generally follow the same trajectory:
I: Character bridges the gap between realities, one fictional
II: Interacts with the new reality and it has an impact, either on themselves or the new reality, or both.
III: The loss of innocence
IV: Film climax with a cataclysm of the two realities clashing with one another.
I realise that this fits Enchanted too. It’s a grey area. To an extent this structure fits any film with a fish out of water scenario. Capra’s films, especially. But the “loss of innocence” element is important because it shows the fictional characters being irrevocably changed by the experience, shaken from the narrow moorings of their creator into a wider consciousness.
It certainly fits The Purple Rose of Cairo:
I: Tom Baxter leaves the screen
II: Sweeps Cecilia off her feet, causes Gil to visit.
III: The brothel scene mostly. Arguably it’s what leads Tom to take Celia back into the picture, something he swore he’d never do as though he’s returning to the world he knows.
IV: The final confrontation between Tom and Gil over the affections of Cecilia.
It’s less dramatic than The Last Action Hero and Pleasantville and the film ends without anything really changing – Tom returns to the film, Cecilia to her mundane life, Gil to Hollywood – but the tropes are still the same. Of course without dozens more examples it doesn’t really add greater meaning to the films themselves other than to provide an element of verisimilitude in which we wait to see how this film will tackle each part of the story, which is one of the reasons we find some rom coms entertaining.
The film is also an example of Woody’s creative will. Famously as close to the favourite of his films (he rarely thinks that any of his films are any good and he never watches them once they’re completed) this text didn’t happen without something of a struggle Originally Michael Keaton was cast as Tom Baxter but after ten days filming – which on a film of this scale and with the rapidity of Woody’s shooting style is a lot – Woody decided he wasn’t right (too contemporary apparently though Jeff suggests something else in the below video) and recast the character.
Daniels is so perfect in the duel roles of actor and acted, both wide eyed innocents, it’s impossible to work out how Keaton might have played it, two years out from Mr Mom. But it’s impressive that Woody managed to convince the studio that he needed to junk what had already been shot and start again. But it’s not a film in which the wrong actor can be cut around, Daniels is in nearly every scene. Sadly, as with all of Woody’s films, the dvd’s a vanilla so we’re left to imagine what the Keaton scenes were like.
The evocation of the depression era is simple but not simplistic. Unlike Capra who was reflecting back his contemporary society in a hopeful way, Woody is reflecting on an ultimately hopeless landscape. As the unemployed clog the streets and fairgrounds sit silent, the movies are the escape from the trials of the real world and the film within a film is pure escapism of the kind churned out by old Hollywood. The climax is heartbreaking because Gil offered a golden opportunity for Cecilia to escape but she’s stuck with her abusive husband because society offers few opportunities.
In terms of career milestones, this is the first of his films to feature Diane Weist who would become a key member of ensemble in a small but significant role as a prostitute. It’s also arguably a rare occasion when there isn’t an avatar for Allen, a character not unlike him, even though he’s not in the film himself. And it was also the last of his films to be shot by Gordon Willis who had given all of his films their stylistic look since Annie Hall. Willis’s contribution cannot be overlooked and indeed though Carlo Di Palma would photograph almost all of Woody’s films through to Deconstructing Harry my impression is that the visual continuity is seamless.
I expect I’ll be set right on that very, very soon.
Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: Broadway Danny Rose (1984)
Then Another addition to the list of films watched in the Leeds Metropolitan University library. I remember being very impressed with the structure and it was one of the films which began the expansion of my understanding of what film was capable of and on reflection how generic the kinds of films I’d been a fan of actually were in terms of story.
Now And that structure is a useful reminder of how static some forms of filmmaking can be, especially the documentary. Though Broadway Danny Rose features a coterie of old school comedian’s chatting about a fictional “colleague”, it’s very surprising that this format hasn’t been used to tell a real life story as a variation of the talking heads employed in the likes of Man on Wire or Touching The Void.
Obviously it’s impossible sometimes to gather the participants together easily either because of geography or estrangement and as anyone who’s listened to some dvd commentaries gathering together old friends after many years will attest its difficult to keep old friends gathered together after many years on point. But it would be an interesting exercise to structure the reconstruction of an event with testimony offered from around a table.
We all know a Danny Rose, someone who almost only seems to exist in stories and might as well since he never seems to be invited to the kinds of gatherings where such stories are told. The presence of these comedians helps to authenticate him, as does the appearance of Milton Berle, Mr. Television, someone I was aware of enough to say, “Ooh, Milton Berle!” when he was first mentioned on screen. Not that I was able to then recognise Berle when he wandered onto the screen until someone pointed him out.
The director really enjoys revelling in the absurdist elements, the acts that Rose manages, like the glass player or the performing birds, and the sudden appearance of a superhero in the apparent wilderness. It’s very Fellini-like visually, with photographer Gordon Willis often filling the frame with the caricature-like faces of the mobster that are on Rose’s trail. New York is also once again shot in a very different, matter of fact, way, like The Front, not wanting to draw attention to itself.
Woody’s essentially playing an aggressively vivid version of his usual on-screen persona which at times strays very close to Mark Kermode’s impression of him, all nebbish gesturing and opening mouthed gaping. Mia’s an excellent foil and strikes a startling pose with her long legs and giant shades which cover half of her face transforming her into something of a vamp. We’re now well into the period when Allen was writing directly for her, challenging her, but the pixyish manifestation from Rosemary’s Baby has all but dissipated.
Video: German Girl Can Tell Star Wars Lego Figures Apart with Her Mouth
TV Apart from the obvious, it's quite comforting to know that somewhere in the world, You Bet is still being broadcast and presented by a timelord who's regenerated into Rod Hull dressed as Willy Wonka.
Anyone else think as the last one went in, "Oh that's easy..." then realise how specific her answer was?
Anyone else think as the last one went in, "Oh that's easy..." then realise how specific her answer was?
The List:
8. Picture In An Exhibition.
Life In the middle of all the excitement last week, I received word that one of my photographs had been selected to appear in an exhibition for the Liverpool Echo's flickr group. The private view was this evening. Well private(ish). It's in the atrium at the Echo building, a huge glass and metal structure that resembles habitation areas in the underrated Michael Bay actioner The Island. Here is my picture as presented by the Echo's design team:
We were given badges to wear, which helped to identify who else was part of the group. Unlike Twitter, flickrers tend to use their own photos to identify themselves or other bits and bobs rather than their faces so there was less of the "Oh it's you factor" from simply regarding someone in the eye as happens at other web based gatherings like the Twestival. I still felt like a bit of a charlatan. The rest of the show is filled with amazing images of the city by people for whom this is a hobby and a love. I'm really just a happy snapper.
It is an unexpected pleasure to have a picture in an exhibition. Even though I know this blog is available for anyone to read, it feels less exposed than that photograph open to scrutiny by anyone passing through. I expect if you're a full time artist or photographer it's something you get used to very quickly. Like most people I do have a kind of imaginary list of things to do in life. Mine has two columns, the likely and the unlikely. It's always nice to be able to cross something off the unlikely column.
We were given badges to wear, which helped to identify who else was part of the group. Unlike Twitter, flickrers tend to use their own photos to identify themselves or other bits and bobs rather than their faces so there was less of the "Oh it's you factor" from simply regarding someone in the eye as happens at other web based gatherings like the Twestival. I still felt like a bit of a charlatan. The rest of the show is filled with amazing images of the city by people for whom this is a hobby and a love. I'm really just a happy snapper.
It is an unexpected pleasure to have a picture in an exhibition. Even though I know this blog is available for anyone to read, it feels less exposed than that photograph open to scrutiny by anyone passing through. I expect if you're a full time artist or photographer it's something you get used to very quickly. Like most people I do have a kind of imaginary list of things to do in life. Mine has two columns, the likely and the unlikely. It's always nice to be able to cross something off the unlikely column.
Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: Zelig (1983)
Then Bought as part of the great HMV dvd splurge of 2004.
Now Though Woody frequently makes films with universal themes, few have quite the rolling pertinence of Zelig. The story of a man who lacks his own individuality, apparently appropriating the psychological and genetic make-up of the person standing next to him because he feels as though he needs to fit in, it speaks directly to everyone from the child in the playground who subsumes themselves in a chosen subculture in order to make friends to the office worker who doesn’t miss soap operas or watches the football so that they have something to talk with their colleagues about (even though they lack an interest in either). The film’s direct example of this is the indoctrination of the German people into fascism.
In the modern age, as I enunciated in my fearful essay about Things White People Like, we’re all Zeligs intellectually hoovering up different areas of culture, assuming trendy political tastes or dressing alike. The process isn’t as extreme as Leonard; if we stand next to a hipster on the bus we don’t automatically grow two day old stubble (or cropped hair if you’re a girl), start drinking lattes and reading MAKE on our iPad. It’s a more gradual process, and unlike the human chameleon’s malady, it’s contagious and we give it euphemisms like “being fashionable” or “ahead of the curve” (even though someone will have been at the front of that long chain, usually Ann Wintour or an advertising executive – assuming they’re different things).
It’s something Woody was very aware of. In the Bjorkman intervuiew he’s far more interested in this philosophical layer than the technical achievement of producing this entirely convincing mock documentary whose authenticity has grown with age. He briskly bats aside questions about what he and Gordon Willis did to the footage to make it look as broken and “re-discovered” (20s lenses, deliberate negative scratches) but then offers this long paragraph on his inspiration:
”I think it’s a personal train in everybody’s life. It began in Zelig’s life when he said that he read Moby Dick. And you often find this with many people. Somebody asks, “Have you read this or that?” and the other one says, “Yeah, yes, of course,” even if he hasn’t. Because they want to be liked and be part of the group. I wanted to make a comment with the film on the specific danger of abandoning one’s own true self, in an effort to be liked, not to make trouble, to fit in and where that leads one in life with every aspect and where that leads on a political level. It leads to utter conformity and utter submission to the will and requirements and needs of a strong personality.”Shot simultaneously with A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy it’s another expression of Mia’s range this closeted psychologist far removed from the corseted temptress who managed to seduce three different men in the country. But her presence is much stronger than Allen’s – Zelig exists largely through exposition and photographs and it’s a quiet victory that the director is able to create such a sympathetic fictional character without any of the usual fictional narrative tricks. He even employs a third person narrator. Imagine Forrest Gump without the framing bench device. This is risky stuff.
What increases legitimacy of the fiction is the participation of real figures mixed with amateur actors playing the older versions of Zelig et al in contemporary colour footage reflecting backwards. Lilian Gish was apparently shot but not used for some reason, but Susan Sontag is there, the feminist giant gamefully and convincingly offering some pop psychology about this fictional figure. But it was fifteen years after perhaps her most famous quote (every intellectual has one): "Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Balanchine ballets, et al. don't redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history." If ever there was a sentence requiring an update …
Oscars 2010 Results.
Film Here are the ratified results as confirmed by our adjudicator:
Actor in a supporting role6/23 or 38% Significantly the Avatar sweep I was predicting didn't take place. Congratulations to Kathryn Bigelow.
I said: Matt Damon in Invictus
Oscar said: Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds
Animated feature film
I said: The Princess and the Frog
Oscar said: Up
Music (original song)
I said: Take it All, from Nine by Maury Yeston
Oscar said: The Weary Kind, from Crazy Heart, by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett
Writing (original screenplay)
I said: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
Oscar said: The Hurt Locker (Mark Boal)
Short film (animated)
I said: A Matter of Loaf and Death
Oscar said: Logorama (Nicolas Schmerkin)
Documentary (short subject)
I said: The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant (Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert)
Oscar said: Music by Prudence (Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett)
Short film (live action)
I said: Miracle Fish
Oscar said: The New Tenants (Joachim Back and Tivi Magnusson)
Makeup
I said: Star Trek (Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow)
Oscar said: Star Trek (Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow)
Actress in a supporting role
I said: Maggie Gyllenhaal in Crazy Heart
Oscar said: Mo'Nique in Precious
Art direction
I said: Avatar (art direction: Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg; set decoration: Kim Sinclair)
Oscar said: Avatar (art direction: Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg; set decoration: Kim Sinclair)
Costume design
I said: Coco Before Chanel (Catherine Leterrier)
Oscar said: The Young Victoria (Sandy Powell)
Sound editing
I said: Avatar
Oscar said: The Hurt Locker
Sound mixing
I said: Avatar
Oscar said: The Hurt Locker
Cinematography
I said: Avatar (Mauro Fiore)
Oscar said: Avatar (Mauro Fiore)
Music (original score)
I said: Avatar (James Horner)
Oscar said: Up (Michael Giacchino)
Visual effects
I said: Avatar
Oscar said: Avatar
Documentary (feature)
I said: Burma VJ (Anders Østergaard and Lise Lense-Møller)
Oscar said: The Cove (Louie Psihoyos and Fisher Stevens)
Film editing
I said: Avatar (Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua and James Cameron)
Oscar said: The Hurt Locker (Bob Murawski and Chris Innis)
Foreign language film
I said: The Milk of Sorrow (Claudia Llosa, Peru)
Oscar said: The Secret in Their Eyes (Juan Jose Campanella, Argentina)
Actor in a leading role
I said: Morgan Freeman in Invictus
Oscar said: Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart
Actress in a leading role
I said: Carey Mulligan in An Education
Oscar said: Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side
Directing
I said: The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow)
Oscar said: The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow)
Best picture
I said: The Hurt Locker
Oscar said: The Hurt Locker
Irony Again.
Life The saga/soap opera/something that happened of my televisions has moved on again. The 32” Toshiba, the one which I bought at Richer Sound last Monday, developed a fault. Several faults in fact:
- On the night I bought it, I switched between an AV channel and ordinary television. The sound from the first played over the other. Which was a bit disconcerting if thematically interesting because one was broadcasting a documentary about Africa and the other Deal of No Deal. But I assumed it was just first night jitters until ...
- A weird creaking noise whenever the television was turned over twenty on the volume control.
- The television visibly vibrated whenever anything bassy happened which was almost all the time because my parents watch acronym drama a lot (CSI, NCIS).
- It took ages to changing channels, sometimes waiting ten seconds before providing a new picture.
- The EPG failed pretty much all of the time, often only suggesting programmes on other channels.
- By the end of the week the signal would cut out altogether for long stretches, notably last night for ten minutes.
I decided to cut my losses. I took the television back to the shop this morning. I explained all of this to the gentleman behind the counter and asked for a refund.
I received the refund.
My parents are again watching their 26” Grundig television. They’re very happy. Mum said: “That other one was just too big ...”
- On the night I bought it, I switched between an AV channel and ordinary television. The sound from the first played over the other. Which was a bit disconcerting if thematically interesting because one was broadcasting a documentary about Africa and the other Deal of No Deal. But I assumed it was just first night jitters until ...
- A weird creaking noise whenever the television was turned over twenty on the volume control.
- The television visibly vibrated whenever anything bassy happened which was almost all the time because my parents watch acronym drama a lot (CSI, NCIS).
- It took ages to changing channels, sometimes waiting ten seconds before providing a new picture.
- The EPG failed pretty much all of the time, often only suggesting programmes on other channels.
- By the end of the week the signal would cut out altogether for long stretches, notably last night for ten minutes.
I decided to cut my losses. I took the television back to the shop this morning. I explained all of this to the gentleman behind the counter and asked for a refund.
I received the refund.
My parents are again watching their 26” Grundig television. They’re very happy. Mum said: “That other one was just too big ...”
Trigger's Broom Again.
Music We haven't docked at this port for quite some time, but it's late and I'm keeping myself distracted from the Oscars not being on terrestrial television again.
(1) Sweet 7 has been greeted by predictably lukewarm reviews, most noting the fact that there's a massive variance between having the "Sugababes" name plastered on the front in comparison to the content and the prevalence of Autotune. Sadly (at least for my anti-Murdoch stance) The Time's one-star opus best captures the mood:
(2) Rich Pelley interviewed 4.0 for The Guardian's Guide's One Last Thing ... page and asked them that question:
(3) And of course, there's Mutya's application to gain copyright on the band name. 4.0 for their part are saying that it's unlikely to succeed because Universal have ownership of the name but CMU Music say they've done some legwork and found no copyright record in the UK or European trademark offices.
The wikipedia has this to say on the subject of where the name came from in the first place:
Here's the application at the intellectual property office. It ties up everything that's been done in the name of the Sugababes on any media ever and it looks to me as though Mutya or her management or someone connected has bothered to go and check up on the copyright of the name, noticed that there wasn't one and put the papers in, naming Siobhan and Keisha too. Good show.
Finally, here's Czechoslovakian singer Tereza Kerndlová-Zhášíš rendering Run For Cover in her native language:
(1) Sweet 7 has been greeted by predictably lukewarm reviews, most noting the fact that there's a massive variance between having the "Sugababes" name plastered on the front in comparison to the content and the prevalence of Autotune. Sadly (at least for my anti-Murdoch stance) The Time's one-star opus best captures the mood:
"Sugababes in 2010 are a pale, karaoke imitation of the glory days. Regrettably, if miraculously, the latest line-up remained the same as we went to press."Youch. 4.0 have apparently been seen singing One Touch material on tour which offers a curious fascination though I can't imagine it's much more authentic than No Way Sis covering I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing.
(2) Rich Pelley interviewed 4.0 for The Guardian's Guide's One Last Thing ... page and asked them that question:
If you buy a broom, then you replace the handle, then you replace the brush, is it the same broom?As Geoffrey Wheeler might say on Winner Takes All, "We have a difference of opinion here, Jimmy", with Heidi and Amelle falling into the trap and Jade cottoning on slightly but ultimately failing to grasp the poignancy that in this case, the broom isn't doing the same job.
All: No!
Heidi: Cos it's got a different handle and a different head!
Amelle: So it's definitely a different broom!
Jade: You might change the handle and brush, but it's still a broom! It does the same job!
(3) And of course, there's Mutya's application to gain copyright on the band name. 4.0 for their part are saying that it's unlikely to succeed because Universal have ownership of the name but CMU Music say they've done some legwork and found no copyright record in the UK or European trademark offices.
The wikipedia has this to say on the subject of where the name came from in the first place:
"Their name originates from Buchanan and Buena's school nickname, Sugar baby, dubbed by Tom as The Sugababies during the recording of the album. When the group members were aged fourteen, London Records offered them a record contract, and their name was tweaked to the more mature Sugababes."Which I'd imagine will all be mentioned in court, though I'm surprised also that London Records didn't list the name either when they were promoting the band. Just before they dropped them.
Here's the application at the intellectual property office. It ties up everything that's been done in the name of the Sugababes on any media ever and it looks to me as though Mutya or her management or someone connected has bothered to go and check up on the copyright of the name, noticed that there wasn't one and put the papers in, naming Siobhan and Keisha too. Good show.
Finally, here's Czechoslovakian singer Tereza Kerndlová-Zhášíš rendering Run For Cover in her native language:
Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982)
Then Back before Lovefilm entered my life to show me the light, I was terribly excited when a Blockbuster Video opened on Edge Lane in Liverpool in the late nineties, so much so that I’d catch a bus from the city centre after work to hire a couple of videos and thence another bus from there home, a trip of at least an hour and a half. The selection seemed wider than the little shop on Allerton Road, far more “World” and “Independent” cinema, bigger back catalogue. It’s from this august selection I procured A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy on VHS overnight.
Now Not one of my favourite Woody Allen films, I’d never quite been able to put my finger on exactly why A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy doesn’t quite work. All of the elements are available. A Shakespearean connection. The music of Mendelssohn beguilingly drifting across honey hewed settings. Mia at her most attractive, her angular face resembling a Klimpt painting, before she spent much of the rest of the decade playing doudy housewives and the put-upon. Woody, with his funny inventions. The downfall of an intellectual because despite his brain he’s still ruled by his pants. Some farce.
Watching the film again on dvd, even on my relatively large screen in a darkened room, one reason suggested itself to me. There is a certain group of films, not as many as you’d think, that don’t work on television, in the home, even on dvd. One3 example is Pulp Fiction. The best experience I had with Tarantino’s postmodern throwback was on the opening night in a Hyde Park Picture House in Leeds packed with students laughing along with the film. Every occasion since then has felt slightly stale somehow. Similarly the best experience I had with Tarkovsky’s film Stalker was sitting on the floor of a seminar room at university with my classmates watching it from under coats and duvets.
A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy must be one of those films. It’s nothing to do with the technology; it’s to do with the atmosphere of cinema. This is the sort of film that works best projected onto a giant screen, hopefully in one of those dilapidated old independent cinemas with the smell of a thousand similar night captured in the chairs and carpet, and with an audience of like minded people laughing at the jokes, falling silent for the moments of magic realism as the dream-catcher or whatever it is, does its work. Laughing together when Tony Roberts and José Ferrer bump into each other as they wait for each other’s partner by the brook. I missed that.
Watching All Of Woody Allen’s Films In Order: Prehistory
Now, obviously by concentrating on the films, I've neglected to mention Woody's long career before Clive Donner made a mess of What's New Pussycat. Luckily, the WFMU's excellent Beware of the Blog has a new article covering that whole era from the records to the television appearances and writing through to Men in Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story:
"Allen had his first Ed Sullivan appearance in 1962. He would appear regularly but had an amusing dust up with the famous host in 1966. During the afternoon rehearsal, Sullivan, notorious for his stone faced reactions and stonewalling of certain comedic material, shot down one of Allen's bits. Woody had been fooling around during his run through, not wanting to waste his act on a small crowd of distracted crew members and the tough crowd of Ed Sullivan. At one point during his piece he inserted the phrase "orgasmic insurance," which he had not actually planned on saying during the broadcast. Sullivan stopped the rehearsal and gave Allen a tongue lashing. The host of America's most popular variety show turned red and flustered, "It's an attitude like yours that is responsible for young men burning their draft cards!"Here's a random clip from UK television recorded a couple of years later:
Plug!: The Duke of York Brighton's 100th birthday project
Film Like most buildings, cinemas have a social history quite apart from the films it has hosted. I know a couple of you live in Brighton, and know The Duke of York very well, so this press release is for you:
The hunt is on... UK's oldest cinema kick-starts centenary celebrations
Brighton's Duke of York's theatre launches its centenary celebrations with a quest for the best movie memorabilia.
A nationwide hunt to find the quirkiest memories from the last century of the UK's oldest cinema has been launched in honour of its 100th birthday.
The Duke of York's theatre, located in Brighton, East Sussex, celebrates 100 years of continuous film screening on 22 September this year.
The Duke of York's Community Archive Project aims to amass 100 sound or film clips of memories, one for each of the 100 years of its operation, and build a physical archive of social snapshots from across the past century with ticket stubs, film posters press clippings and old photographs.
As one of the top independent arts cinemas in the UK, the Duke of York's cinema has seen more than 25 million audience members through its doors over the past years.
Famous patrons of the picture house include music and film artist Nick Cave and actor, director and screenwriter Paddy Considine. Visitors to the cinema have included filmmakers Mike Leigh, Ken Loach, the Coen Brothers and Michael Moore.
Frank Gray, Director of Screen Archive South East and the University of Brighton, comments: "For me, the Duke of York's represents a very important home for cultural cinema. Unlike most cinemas that only focus on the new, the popular and the American, the Dukes represents that other place; the place where you see films from the rest of the world as well as archive films and work made by artists. As such, it serves as a real beacon for cultural cinema. This is what I value and treasure."
The search for the best movie memorabilia will be launched with a night of "Show and Tell" on Thursday 18 March at the Brighton Jubilee Library. Cinema fanatics are encouraged to don the black and white striped tights in honour of the Duke of York's famous stripy-legged statue.
The Duke of York's Community Archive Project, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, is seeking an army of volunteers to help gather as many memories as possible in advance of the theatre's birthday. Those interested in volunteering for the project should call 01273 641 947 or email info@dukeofyorkscinema.co.uk.
In addition to the launch evening, a website has been created in honour of the Centenary to give people the opportunity to upload their thoughts and images. Visitors to the site, www.dukeofyorkscinema.co.uk, will have the chance to contribute to a film forum and post their experiences.
People wishing to contribute memorabilia or volunteer memories should contact 01273 641 947 or email info@dukeofyorkscinema.co.uk.
miniblog archive
Irony.
Life I had planned to write about Michael Moore’s new film Capitalism: A Love Story this evening (short review – he’s right), but instead I’m going to tell you a story. It’s a bit baroque, there are eddys and gaps and there isn’t a middle, ending or beginning, and isn't really about anything, there's no moral, but it was it is and here it is.
Since the beginning of the last decade, my main television, that is the one which I’ve done most of my television film watching, has been a 26” wide-screen CRT Beko. It worked doggedly, tirelessly, far longer than you would expect a modern television to, outliving its own remote control and analogue broadcasts in the Granada region.
Recently it was beginning to show its age, the sound lacking the old punch, the edges of the images shimmering slightly, with some exciting ghosting depending on what time of day it was turned on. But since I’m generally of the opinion that if something isn’t quite broken it’s not worth replacing, I let it splutter on for a few more months.
I was attached to it, sentimental even. Silly.
Even more recently I began looking about on-line for a new flatscreen television. I couldn’t really afford it and it went against all my principles but in this consumerist society even the least consumerist of us can get an itch. That’s what led me to buy a notebook with my Christmas money.
Eventually, my itch localised itself on this Toshiba 32” HD LCD television at Richer Sound. I had the page saved in my favourites and I’d look at it now and then, the tiny cartoon angel and devil that Tex Avery et al suppose sit on our shoulders in these moments of indecision, fighting each other for supremacy.
“Buy” said the devil. “You don’t need one” said the angel. For weeks more they argued, and all the while I’d look at that page, working out the logistics of how I was going to pay for it, where I would find the £329 price tag. Eventually the finances clicked into place and on Sunday, the devil skewered the angel with his fork and I took the decision to buy.
On Monday, early, my Dad and I turned up at the shop to collect the television (having phoned ahead to check that they have them in stock). After some further prevaricating over the fact that there was no cooling off period, no refunds (it’s important you remember this) and whether an LG television which was in stock and the same price would be a better purchase – I decided to stick with my first choice, paid the money and brought it home.
Monday was spent plumbing the thing in, trying out the usually dvds (Lord of the Rings, Firefly) and watching Woody Allen’s Zelig (a review of that coming soon too). The sound wasn’t great, but the picture quality from an up-scaled dvd seemed miraculous, not really worse than CRT just different, apparently clearer the further you sat away from it.
As is the way of these things, the poor Beko was out of the door within minutes, the tube technology which had served me (and us) so well over the years, consigned to history. And so it was that I began to view my flatscreen future, knowing that it wouldn’t be too long before the itch began again and I’d be the owner of a blu-ray player to go underneath.
On Tuesday, yesterday, I went to Manchester. With that certain story in the media, I decided to get out of the house since I knew that I’d otherwise spend the whole day in front of the computer watching the drama unfold (in case you’re not a regular reader of my twitter feed, I tend to become rather, um, passionate about these kinds of things).
I bought some Mother’s Day presents. Also, Joanna Newsom’s first two albums. Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist on dvd. Watched the aforementioned documentary about the end of civilisation as we know it – or what felt like it. Watched an emotionally over extended man nearly being arrested at the station for bawling at a ticket inspector.
At home, I set about cooking some sausages for tea. Meanwhile I checked my email. One in particular caught my attention. It began …
The emailer had been sent my details by a publicity company. The only problem (if you can call this kind of nice surprise a problem) was I didn’t really remember entering a competition for clothes. I checked through the rest of the correspondence, which was appended to the bottom of the email and I realised quite quickly that it was this competition, run by Shortlist magazine.
It was run in association with the dvd release of The Firm, the recent remake Alan Clarke’s film about football hooliganism, this time starring Doctor Who’s Camille Coduri amongst others. It’s set in the 80s, hence the tracksuits in primary colours. Very quickly I realised why I’d entered the competition.
As well as the clothes, also on offer was a 42” television and dvd player. Favouring a complex strategy, I’d also entered a couple of competitions, more as a joke than anything. These contests are passed around discussion boards online quite a lot so there are thousands of entrants.
The big shiny gold forefinger was never likely to point in my direction but I what was the harm? Except, the big shiny gold forefinger had pointed in my direction and the clothes were in the post. But it wasn’t clear whether I had won the television. It seemed like three different prizes to me. I think can already see where this is going.
This morning there was a card in our postbox. From a dispatch company. “We tried to deliver two parcels but no one was in. Here’s a dispatch number. We’ll try again tomorrow.” I had nothing else on order. It could have been a different competition. I’d had no notification …
When you look at 42” televisions in department stores, they don’t look that big. Perhaps its because you’re standing quite a long way away from them, or you’re diverting your eyes from whichever horrendous film is being used to showcase its charms, usually directed by Michael Bay.
When you look at a 42” television in your own room, it’s massive. It’s a behemoth. Monolithic. Even if your room is designed, like mine, so that no single element takes precedence, even during its repose, your eyes are drawn to its anonymous black surfaces because you can’t quite believe that someone designed a piece of plastic that big to show moving pictures.
So, having on Monday gone out and treated myself to the 32” flat-screen television I coveted but didn’t really need, just two days later, I now also have another one. Oh, indeed, the irony. My inability to make a decision had led me to toss a coin on Sunday. The coin told me to wait. That's what probably I gave in.
I'm terribly excited about this new new possession, but it's tempered with the fact that if I hadn't given in the itch, I might have been even more thrilled or surprised. As I said, there isn't really a moral to this story, if it's even a story, other than platitudes like whatever happens, happens. Life is strange.
Unable to get a refund, I’ve given the 32” to my parents on extended loan. They had a 26” before which is now in their bedroom through necessity. And this 42” LG refugee from a Kubrick film sits in my room almost as big as some of the screens in the old 051 cinema.
And the dvd player turned out to be a blu-ray player. I have one those now too.
Its been a busy three days.
Since the beginning of the last decade, my main television, that is the one which I’ve done most of my television film watching, has been a 26” wide-screen CRT Beko. It worked doggedly, tirelessly, far longer than you would expect a modern television to, outliving its own remote control and analogue broadcasts in the Granada region.
Recently it was beginning to show its age, the sound lacking the old punch, the edges of the images shimmering slightly, with some exciting ghosting depending on what time of day it was turned on. But since I’m generally of the opinion that if something isn’t quite broken it’s not worth replacing, I let it splutter on for a few more months.
I was attached to it, sentimental even. Silly.
Even more recently I began looking about on-line for a new flatscreen television. I couldn’t really afford it and it went against all my principles but in this consumerist society even the least consumerist of us can get an itch. That’s what led me to buy a notebook with my Christmas money.
Eventually, my itch localised itself on this Toshiba 32” HD LCD television at Richer Sound. I had the page saved in my favourites and I’d look at it now and then, the tiny cartoon angel and devil that Tex Avery et al suppose sit on our shoulders in these moments of indecision, fighting each other for supremacy.
“Buy” said the devil. “You don’t need one” said the angel. For weeks more they argued, and all the while I’d look at that page, working out the logistics of how I was going to pay for it, where I would find the £329 price tag. Eventually the finances clicked into place and on Sunday, the devil skewered the angel with his fork and I took the decision to buy.
On Monday, early, my Dad and I turned up at the shop to collect the television (having phoned ahead to check that they have them in stock). After some further prevaricating over the fact that there was no cooling off period, no refunds (it’s important you remember this) and whether an LG television which was in stock and the same price would be a better purchase – I decided to stick with my first choice, paid the money and brought it home.
Monday was spent plumbing the thing in, trying out the usually dvds (Lord of the Rings, Firefly) and watching Woody Allen’s Zelig (a review of that coming soon too). The sound wasn’t great, but the picture quality from an up-scaled dvd seemed miraculous, not really worse than CRT just different, apparently clearer the further you sat away from it.
As is the way of these things, the poor Beko was out of the door within minutes, the tube technology which had served me (and us) so well over the years, consigned to history. And so it was that I began to view my flatscreen future, knowing that it wouldn’t be too long before the itch began again and I’d be the owner of a blu-ray player to go underneath.
On Tuesday, yesterday, I went to Manchester. With that certain story in the media, I decided to get out of the house since I knew that I’d otherwise spend the whole day in front of the computer watching the drama unfold (in case you’re not a regular reader of my twitter feed, I tend to become rather, um, passionate about these kinds of things).
I bought some Mother’s Day presents. Also, Joanna Newsom’s first two albums. Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist on dvd. Watched the aforementioned documentary about the end of civilisation as we know it – or what felt like it. Watched an emotionally over extended man nearly being arrested at the station for bawling at a ticket inspector.
At home, I set about cooking some sausages for tea. Meanwhile I checked my email. One in particular caught my attention. It began …
Hi stuartOne of my addictions is online competitions. It’s something constructive to do whilst listening to podcasts as well as listening and sometimes, just sometimes, I might win a dvd. It transpired I’d won £500’s worth of clothing at 80s Retro Classics. Lots of tracksuits, trainers. There was a nice bag, shoes. Lovely.
I have been passed your details as the winner re-below …
The emailer had been sent my details by a publicity company. The only problem (if you can call this kind of nice surprise a problem) was I didn’t really remember entering a competition for clothes. I checked through the rest of the correspondence, which was appended to the bottom of the email and I realised quite quickly that it was this competition, run by Shortlist magazine.
It was run in association with the dvd release of The Firm, the recent remake Alan Clarke’s film about football hooliganism, this time starring Doctor Who’s Camille Coduri amongst others. It’s set in the 80s, hence the tracksuits in primary colours. Very quickly I realised why I’d entered the competition.
As well as the clothes, also on offer was a 42” television and dvd player. Favouring a complex strategy, I’d also entered a couple of competitions, more as a joke than anything. These contests are passed around discussion boards online quite a lot so there are thousands of entrants.
The big shiny gold forefinger was never likely to point in my direction but I what was the harm? Except, the big shiny gold forefinger had pointed in my direction and the clothes were in the post. But it wasn’t clear whether I had won the television. It seemed like three different prizes to me. I think can already see where this is going.
This morning there was a card in our postbox. From a dispatch company. “We tried to deliver two parcels but no one was in. Here’s a dispatch number. We’ll try again tomorrow.” I had nothing else on order. It could have been a different competition. I’d had no notification …
When you look at 42” televisions in department stores, they don’t look that big. Perhaps its because you’re standing quite a long way away from them, or you’re diverting your eyes from whichever horrendous film is being used to showcase its charms, usually directed by Michael Bay.
When you look at a 42” television in your own room, it’s massive. It’s a behemoth. Monolithic. Even if your room is designed, like mine, so that no single element takes precedence, even during its repose, your eyes are drawn to its anonymous black surfaces because you can’t quite believe that someone designed a piece of plastic that big to show moving pictures.
So, having on Monday gone out and treated myself to the 32” flat-screen television I coveted but didn’t really need, just two days later, I now also have another one. Oh, indeed, the irony. My inability to make a decision had led me to toss a coin on Sunday. The coin told me to wait. That's what probably I gave in.
I'm terribly excited about this new new possession, but it's tempered with the fact that if I hadn't given in the itch, I might have been even more thrilled or surprised. As I said, there isn't really a moral to this story, if it's even a story, other than platitudes like whatever happens, happens. Life is strange.
Unable to get a refund, I’ve given the 32” to my parents on extended loan. They had a 26” before which is now in their bedroom through necessity. And this 42” LG refugee from a Kubrick film sits in my room almost as big as some of the screens in the old 051 cinema.
And the dvd player turned out to be a blu-ray player. I have one those now too.
Its been a busy three days.
Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: Stardust Memories (1980)
Then Stardust Memories had a profound effect on me when I first watched it in the library at Leeds Metropolitan University in 1995, especially the opening scene. Apart from the implication that we’re all on the wrong train and the party always seems to be happening elsewhere, there’s the moment when a young Sharon Stone blows a kiss to the camera. I’ve since realised that there isn’t a Sharon Stone film that I don’t like. Yes, even The Specialist. And Basic Instinct 2. And that other one you’re thinking of.
Now
Stuart Ian Burns
MA Screen Studies
Dissertation
Research Outline
“How has Woody Allen’s interest in the 'metafictional style' developed across his autobiographical films to accommodate changes in content and context?”
[When I was preparing my MA dissertation at university, I made life difficult for myself by choosing one topic, researching and writing a proposal, then throwing it out and deciding to do something else, researching and writing another proposal the following week. The resulting dissertation was about Hyperlink Cinema. The first proposal was about Woody Allen, and more specifically the metafictional aspects of his films. Here it is … warts and all …]
Introduction
“Since Allen is popularly considered to be one of the most explicitly autobiographical film-makers of his generation, the scrutiny of his films for insights to their creator has intensified since the scandal of his split from long term lover Mia Farrow and his marriage to her stepdaughter, Soon Yi.” (Jones, 2003)
This quote, which appeared as part of a profile of the director Woody Allen for the BBC News website demonstrates incisively the public perception that assumes that the narratives of the director’s films include or are directly influenced by incidents in the director’s own life. This is even the case within critical analysis.
Allen often refutes these claims. But throughout his career the director has employed various filmmaking techniques and narrative structures which cannot help but to increase this impression. The most conspicuous of these is the ‘metanarrative’ or ‘metafictional’ style (Pogel, 1987:133). In her seminal work on the subject, Metafiction (1988), Patricia Waugh defines this as ‘a term given to fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artefact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality’ (Waugh, 1988:2).
Although these concepts have generally been applied to prose, various facets of this style appear in many of his films if the scope is widened to encompass the use of the mise-en-scene and sound as well as writing. Such elements would include the use of a narrator, and often an ‘unreliable narrator’, a description first developed by Wayne C. Booth in The Rhetoric of Fiction (1961) as a way of distinguishing the truthfulness of some fictions in relation to how the story is described. Equally present is a protagonist (often played by himself) who is clearly meant to be a personal embodiment within the narrative and in a close approximation of Mikhail Bakhtin’s Diagolism he comments on his own creative and filmmaking ability as well as letting other characters argue or disagree with him (Stam, 1989:197).
This dissertation will examine how aspects of metafiction have been employed within those films of Woody Allen’s career that suggestively have an autobiographical content and also exhibit a similar style. The romantic comedy, Annie Hall (1977) is reputed to be the most personally evocative – it pursues ‘more serious substantial themes while giving vent to the personal complexes that hitherto he’d aired only to live audience as a stand-up comedian’ (Cowie, 1996:10) and is arguable to most clearly metafictional in its use of voiceover, flashbacks, addresses to camera, fantasy sequences and post-modernism. Stardust Memories (1980) is an excursion into his own filmmaking career and techniques that also ‘forces viewers to be engaged spectators – to be aware of the film as construction and to become conscious of audiences’ participation in creating their film experiences’ (Pogel, 1987:133). Although less critically respected than much of the director’s work, Deconstruction Harry (1997) nevertheless utilises a fluid combination of the approaches seen in these earlier films in the story of a novelist thinly fictionalising incidents from his own life some of which are portrayed in fantasy sequences and moments in which the character is addressed by the fictional constructs themselves.
The primary difficulty in approaching the subject of Woody Allen is that a vast range of critical writing has already been published in relation to his career. An initial survey of the literature suggests that although metafiction as a concept is mentioned, with a few notable exceptions (for example in the writing of Michael Dunne), this methodology does not appear to have been explored in very great detail. It is also apparent that the writing in general concentrates more on Allen’s earlier work with less emphasis on those films which have appeared in later decades. This project would seek to redress the balance, contextualising Deconstructing Harry within the same critical terms as Annie Hall and Stardust Memories. Comparisons can be sought between all of these films but the direct similarities in technique between them would not appear to have been uncovered; the unreliable narrator within Deconstructing Harry for example, being an area that would profit from further investigation.
In all of these films the director addresses his audience directly to a greater or lesser extent and this is the reason that they are thought of as being autobiographical. It would also be worth investigating to what degree Woody Allen is using metafiction to deflect attention away from the detail of his own life by presenting a seemingly plausible substitute. Gerald Prince suggests that ‘metanarrative signs may lead us by indirection to a valid reading of a particular text. For it may happen that, instead of acting as aids to a proper decoding they constitute an obstacle to it’ (Prince, 1995:67). Could Deconstructing Harry be an attempt to confirm the expectations of his audience, that his films are a thinly veiled fictionalisation of his own life, even though that which has been presented on screen is entirely fictional?
Chapter Outline
Chapter One
Introduce the key writers and theorists regarding metafictonal narrative techniques including unreliable narration; relate those to a wider film studies context with reference to films in which they have been employed.
Chapter Two
A textual analysis of the films in consideration, describing how Allen is applying the structures of metafiction, with emphasis on writing, editing, mise-en-scene, narrative, music and characterisation, comparing and contrasting how these have changed depending upon the subject matter.
Chapter Three
A reception study into the impact of the films, publicly, critically and within the wider filmmaking community. This will include a discussion of how clearly they are perceived to be autobiographic or whether the director has successfully created a fiction to deflect the audience from the real truth.
Timetable of Research and Writing
February – May 2006
Critical reading on subject and textual analysis. Includes survey of writing on metafiction investigating texts which have already applied the concept to other forms of cinema and viewing of related films. This will include a visit to the British Film Institute’s archive.
May – July 2006
Writing of first draft of dissertation in consultation with tutor.
July – August 2006
Polishing of the dissertation, including extra research were necessary
Sources
Filmography
Annie Hall. 1977. Production: Rollins-Joffe Productions. 93 mins. Directed by Woody Allen.
Stardust Memories. 1980. Production: Jean Rollins-Joffe Productions, United Artists. 91 mins. Directed by Woody Allen.
Deconstructing Harry. 1997. Production: Jean Doumanian Productions, Sweetland Films. 96 mins. Directed by Woody Allen.
Bibliography
Booth, Wayne C. 1961. The Rhetoric of Fiction. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Bjorkman, Stig. 2004. Woody Allen on Woody Allen: In conversation with Stig Bjorkman. Faber and Faber, London.
Cowie, Peter. 1996. Annie Hall: BFI Film Classics. BFI Publishing, London.
Curry, Renee R. 1996. Perspectives on Woody Allen. Prentice Hall International, London.
Deleyto, C. 1995. The Narrator And The Narrative - The Evolution Of Allen. Woody Film Comedies. In. Film Criticism 19:2 Winter.
Dresser, David Desser and Lester D Friedman. 2004. American Jewish Filmmakers. University of Illinois Press, Illinois.
Dunne, Michael. 1987. Stardust Memories, The Purple Rose of Cairo, and the Tradition of Metafiction. In. Film Criticism 12:1.
Dunne, Michael. 1991. Metaleptical Hijinks in Woody Allen's Stardust Memories. In. Literature/Film Quarterly. 19:2 April.
Fell, John L. 1974. Film and the Narrative Tradition. University of Oklahoma Press, Oklahoma.
Girgus, Sam B. 2002. The films of Woody Allen: 2nd Edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Jones, Chris. 2003. Woody Allen: French kissing in the USA. BBC News. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk/2000/newsmakers/2987484.stm. Accessed on 14 February 2006.
King, Kimball. 2001. Woody Allen: A Casebook. Routledge, London.
Lee, Sander H. 2002. 18 Woody Allen Films Analyzed: Anguish, God and Existentialism. McFarland & Company, North Carolina.
Polhemus, Robert M. 2003. Screen Memories in Dickens and Woody Allen. In. Dickens on screen. Edited by John Glavin. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Prince, Gerald. 1995. Metanarrative Signs. In Metafiction. Edited and Introduced by Mark Currie. Longman Group Limited, Essex.
Propp, Vladimir. 1969. Morphology of the folk tale: 2nd ed. revised and edited with a preface by Louise A. Wagner. University of Texas Press, Texas.
Rubin-Dorsky, Jeffrey. 2003. Woody Allen after the fall: literary gold from amoral alchemy. In. Shofar, 22:1 Fall.
Schickel, Richard. 2004. Woody Allen: A Life In Pictures. Ivan R Dee, Inc., Chicago
Stam, Robert. 1989. Subversive Pleasures: Bakhtin, Cultural Criticism and Film. The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
Thomson, David. 1998. Shoot the actor. In. Film Comment 34:2 March.
Turner, Graeme. Film as Social Practice. Second Edition. Routledge, London.
Various. 1998. Deconstructing Woody - A Critical Symposium on Woody Allen. In.
Cinéaste 23:3 , April.
Wagg, Stephen. 1998. Because I Tell A Joke or Two: Comedy, Politics and Social Difference. Routledge, London.
Waugh, Patricia. 1988. Metafiction : the theory and practice of self-conscious fiction. Routledge, London.
Archive
British Film Institute:
Press books, promotional materials, screenplays, archival review and journalistic materials.
World Wide Web
Film Index International:
http://fii.chadwyck.co.uk/
The Internet Movie Database:
http://www.imdb.com/
Woody Allen: A Bibliography of Materials in the UC Berkeley Library: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/woodyallen.html
Now
Stuart Ian Burns
MA Screen Studies
Dissertation
Research Outline
“How has Woody Allen’s interest in the 'metafictional style' developed across his autobiographical films to accommodate changes in content and context?”
[When I was preparing my MA dissertation at university, I made life difficult for myself by choosing one topic, researching and writing a proposal, then throwing it out and deciding to do something else, researching and writing another proposal the following week. The resulting dissertation was about Hyperlink Cinema. The first proposal was about Woody Allen, and more specifically the metafictional aspects of his films. Here it is … warts and all …]
Introduction
“Since Allen is popularly considered to be one of the most explicitly autobiographical film-makers of his generation, the scrutiny of his films for insights to their creator has intensified since the scandal of his split from long term lover Mia Farrow and his marriage to her stepdaughter, Soon Yi.” (Jones, 2003)
This quote, which appeared as part of a profile of the director Woody Allen for the BBC News website demonstrates incisively the public perception that assumes that the narratives of the director’s films include or are directly influenced by incidents in the director’s own life. This is even the case within critical analysis.
Allen often refutes these claims. But throughout his career the director has employed various filmmaking techniques and narrative structures which cannot help but to increase this impression. The most conspicuous of these is the ‘metanarrative’ or ‘metafictional’ style (Pogel, 1987:133). In her seminal work on the subject, Metafiction (1988), Patricia Waugh defines this as ‘a term given to fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artefact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality’ (Waugh, 1988:2).
Although these concepts have generally been applied to prose, various facets of this style appear in many of his films if the scope is widened to encompass the use of the mise-en-scene and sound as well as writing. Such elements would include the use of a narrator, and often an ‘unreliable narrator’, a description first developed by Wayne C. Booth in The Rhetoric of Fiction (1961) as a way of distinguishing the truthfulness of some fictions in relation to how the story is described. Equally present is a protagonist (often played by himself) who is clearly meant to be a personal embodiment within the narrative and in a close approximation of Mikhail Bakhtin’s Diagolism he comments on his own creative and filmmaking ability as well as letting other characters argue or disagree with him (Stam, 1989:197).
This dissertation will examine how aspects of metafiction have been employed within those films of Woody Allen’s career that suggestively have an autobiographical content and also exhibit a similar style. The romantic comedy, Annie Hall (1977) is reputed to be the most personally evocative – it pursues ‘more serious substantial themes while giving vent to the personal complexes that hitherto he’d aired only to live audience as a stand-up comedian’ (Cowie, 1996:10) and is arguable to most clearly metafictional in its use of voiceover, flashbacks, addresses to camera, fantasy sequences and post-modernism. Stardust Memories (1980) is an excursion into his own filmmaking career and techniques that also ‘forces viewers to be engaged spectators – to be aware of the film as construction and to become conscious of audiences’ participation in creating their film experiences’ (Pogel, 1987:133). Although less critically respected than much of the director’s work, Deconstruction Harry (1997) nevertheless utilises a fluid combination of the approaches seen in these earlier films in the story of a novelist thinly fictionalising incidents from his own life some of which are portrayed in fantasy sequences and moments in which the character is addressed by the fictional constructs themselves.
The primary difficulty in approaching the subject of Woody Allen is that a vast range of critical writing has already been published in relation to his career. An initial survey of the literature suggests that although metafiction as a concept is mentioned, with a few notable exceptions (for example in the writing of Michael Dunne), this methodology does not appear to have been explored in very great detail. It is also apparent that the writing in general concentrates more on Allen’s earlier work with less emphasis on those films which have appeared in later decades. This project would seek to redress the balance, contextualising Deconstructing Harry within the same critical terms as Annie Hall and Stardust Memories. Comparisons can be sought between all of these films but the direct similarities in technique between them would not appear to have been uncovered; the unreliable narrator within Deconstructing Harry for example, being an area that would profit from further investigation.
In all of these films the director addresses his audience directly to a greater or lesser extent and this is the reason that they are thought of as being autobiographical. It would also be worth investigating to what degree Woody Allen is using metafiction to deflect attention away from the detail of his own life by presenting a seemingly plausible substitute. Gerald Prince suggests that ‘metanarrative signs may lead us by indirection to a valid reading of a particular text. For it may happen that, instead of acting as aids to a proper decoding they constitute an obstacle to it’ (Prince, 1995:67). Could Deconstructing Harry be an attempt to confirm the expectations of his audience, that his films are a thinly veiled fictionalisation of his own life, even though that which has been presented on screen is entirely fictional?
Chapter Outline
Chapter One
Introduce the key writers and theorists regarding metafictonal narrative techniques including unreliable narration; relate those to a wider film studies context with reference to films in which they have been employed.
Chapter Two
A textual analysis of the films in consideration, describing how Allen is applying the structures of metafiction, with emphasis on writing, editing, mise-en-scene, narrative, music and characterisation, comparing and contrasting how these have changed depending upon the subject matter.
Chapter Three
A reception study into the impact of the films, publicly, critically and within the wider filmmaking community. This will include a discussion of how clearly they are perceived to be autobiographic or whether the director has successfully created a fiction to deflect the audience from the real truth.
Timetable of Research and Writing
February – May 2006
Critical reading on subject and textual analysis. Includes survey of writing on metafiction investigating texts which have already applied the concept to other forms of cinema and viewing of related films. This will include a visit to the British Film Institute’s archive.
May – July 2006
Writing of first draft of dissertation in consultation with tutor.
July – August 2006
Polishing of the dissertation, including extra research were necessary
Sources
Filmography
Annie Hall. 1977. Production: Rollins-Joffe Productions. 93 mins. Directed by Woody Allen.
Stardust Memories. 1980. Production: Jean Rollins-Joffe Productions, United Artists. 91 mins. Directed by Woody Allen.
Deconstructing Harry. 1997. Production: Jean Doumanian Productions, Sweetland Films. 96 mins. Directed by Woody Allen.
Bibliography
Booth, Wayne C. 1961. The Rhetoric of Fiction. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Bjorkman, Stig. 2004. Woody Allen on Woody Allen: In conversation with Stig Bjorkman. Faber and Faber, London.
Cowie, Peter. 1996. Annie Hall: BFI Film Classics. BFI Publishing, London.
Curry, Renee R. 1996. Perspectives on Woody Allen. Prentice Hall International, London.
Deleyto, C. 1995. The Narrator And The Narrative - The Evolution Of Allen. Woody Film Comedies. In. Film Criticism 19:2 Winter.
Dresser, David Desser and Lester D Friedman. 2004. American Jewish Filmmakers. University of Illinois Press, Illinois.
Dunne, Michael. 1987. Stardust Memories, The Purple Rose of Cairo, and the Tradition of Metafiction. In. Film Criticism 12:1.
Dunne, Michael. 1991. Metaleptical Hijinks in Woody Allen's Stardust Memories. In. Literature/Film Quarterly. 19:2 April.
Fell, John L. 1974. Film and the Narrative Tradition. University of Oklahoma Press, Oklahoma.
Girgus, Sam B. 2002. The films of Woody Allen: 2nd Edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Jones, Chris. 2003. Woody Allen: French kissing in the USA. BBC News. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk/2000/newsmakers/2987484.stm. Accessed on 14 February 2006.
King, Kimball. 2001. Woody Allen: A Casebook. Routledge, London.
Lee, Sander H. 2002. 18 Woody Allen Films Analyzed: Anguish, God and Existentialism. McFarland & Company, North Carolina.
Polhemus, Robert M. 2003. Screen Memories in Dickens and Woody Allen. In. Dickens on screen. Edited by John Glavin. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Prince, Gerald. 1995. Metanarrative Signs. In Metafiction. Edited and Introduced by Mark Currie. Longman Group Limited, Essex.
Propp, Vladimir. 1969. Morphology of the folk tale: 2nd ed. revised and edited with a preface by Louise A. Wagner. University of Texas Press, Texas.
Rubin-Dorsky, Jeffrey. 2003. Woody Allen after the fall: literary gold from amoral alchemy. In. Shofar, 22:1 Fall.
Schickel, Richard. 2004. Woody Allen: A Life In Pictures. Ivan R Dee, Inc., Chicago
Stam, Robert. 1989. Subversive Pleasures: Bakhtin, Cultural Criticism and Film. The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
Thomson, David. 1998. Shoot the actor. In. Film Comment 34:2 March.
Turner, Graeme. Film as Social Practice. Second Edition. Routledge, London.
Various. 1998. Deconstructing Woody - A Critical Symposium on Woody Allen. In.
Cinéaste 23:3 , April.
Wagg, Stephen. 1998. Because I Tell A Joke or Two: Comedy, Politics and Social Difference. Routledge, London.
Waugh, Patricia. 1988. Metafiction : the theory and practice of self-conscious fiction. Routledge, London.
Archive
British Film Institute:
Press books, promotional materials, screenplays, archival review and journalistic materials.
World Wide Web
Film Index International:
http://fii.chadwyck.co.uk/
The Internet Movie Database:
http://www.imdb.com/
Woody Allen: A Bibliography of Materials in the UC Berkeley Library: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/woodyallen.html
Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: Manhattan (1979)
Then Manhattan is another film I’ve lived with for so long that it’s difficult for me remember when I first clapped eyes on it, though I like to think it was during Channel 4’s Christmas in New York season in the early nineties, when they were still my favourite television channel and would have seasons like Christmas in New York. My impression is that it was also part of their early experiments with showing films in the widescreen format on broadcast television along with 2001: A Space Odyssey. Which means my first experience was as a small black and white strip across the tiny 14” Matsui portable in my bedroom. Which was still enough to lead me to have the film’s poster on my wall for the next ten years.
Now Though my connection to Manhattan is something approaching devotional it’s quite some time since I sat down to watch the film from opening to closing. At some point, I found myself in a reticence loop, in which, as I grew older I didn’t want to see the film again in case it wasn’t the unimpeachable masterpiece the younger version of me supposed it was. Farewell My Concubine is also a favourite film but I’ve only seen that once, on its original release, because I know that with all the world cinema I’ve seen in the interim, the chances are that there will be elements that I’m not quite as enamoured with, that it won't be as good as the version I have in my head.
But I’m very pleased to report, after passing through again late the other night, that Manhattan remains a remarkable piece of work, visually arresting and beautiful acted and despite its short running time a monumental piece of filmmaking. I can still, to paraphrase somewhat, “idolise it out of all proportion”. From the opening montage sequence investigating the highlights of the city’s landscape and people through to Muriel Hemingway's final reminder “You have to have a little faith in people”, not one section is out of place, not one moment rings untrue.
Of course it’s fantasy, of course it glosses over the problems of any real metropolis, reducing Manhattan to people kissing against architecture and tourist spots to a Gershwin soundtrack, increasing transcontinental, intercontinental and transatlantic travel and a run on vinyl Rhapsody in Blue recordings in the process. But Woody’s trick is to take a relatively simple story of a love triangle (quadrangle) then use Gordon Willis’s photography to paint it in epic terms. In that way it reminds me of a Victorian painting, lush and painterly compositions employed at the service of some fairly obvious melodrama. Robert Hopper too, I suppose.
And Willis’s bold black and white photography is the star. Those opening shots could have been ripped from a photo spread in Time Magazine were they not moving but at no point is he content to let the characters simply sit in rooms expressing their feelings. The first semi-date between Allen and Diane Keaton mostly happens in a planetarium were they’re reduced to silhouettes punctuated by starlight. As with much of his work, quite properly the photography reflects the inner turmoil of the characters even in films that are ostensibly comedies. We can see the progress of Allen’s growing lack of self confidence his the way his apartments are shot changes.
Initially we see Allen and Mariel Hemmingway snuggling up together in bed in extreme longshot in a cavernous apartment, his progress from a winding staircase to the sleeping area beautifully rendered in pools of light as though he’s stepping into her glow. Later, after he quits his job and has to move into what amounts to a bedsit, the camera and so we can barely fit into the room with them, his confidence broken by the dirty water and random noise of his neighbours, the whole thing shot in ugly, bland grey light all subtlety destroyed.
The appearance of Meryl Streep initially seems fairly incongruous and an example of Allen casting outside of his usual repertory of actors. In fact, she was already a veteran of New York's Public Theater (I would have loved to have seen her Isabella in Measure for Measure) and it’s more another example, like Walken, of Allen selecting an actor very early in their career and somehow manage to give them the kind of role which would define that career. Amazing to think this was the same year as Kramer vs. Kramer. Disappointing to note that neither of these films would even be financed at the cinema now.
This was also the final Woody Allen film for Diane Keaton, bar the Radio Days cameo until 1993’s Manhattan Murder Mystery. I’m sure there’s a biography somewhere that enunciates in great detail the reasons why their working relationship broke down, perhaps mentioning Warren Beatty a lot, but in terms of what’s up there on the screen the idiotic part of my brain which likes to trade in tittle-tattle and pop psychology wonders if it’s one of the reasons that Woody didn’t feature a relationship for himself on such an even keel many times during the eighties, even in the Mia films.
He told Stig Bjorkman that once Manhattan was completed, he wanted to stop the studio releasing the film, and has said elsewhere he even considered destroying the print. That would have been an utter tragedy and with due respect to him, an act of cultural vandalism. Artists are the worst judges of their own work, and Woody it seems is usually wrong. We’ll talk some more about this when I reach September (the film, not the month you’ll be pleased to know). Never mind other people, he should have had a little faith in himself.
Now Though my connection to Manhattan is something approaching devotional it’s quite some time since I sat down to watch the film from opening to closing. At some point, I found myself in a reticence loop, in which, as I grew older I didn’t want to see the film again in case it wasn’t the unimpeachable masterpiece the younger version of me supposed it was. Farewell My Concubine is also a favourite film but I’ve only seen that once, on its original release, because I know that with all the world cinema I’ve seen in the interim, the chances are that there will be elements that I’m not quite as enamoured with, that it won't be as good as the version I have in my head.
But I’m very pleased to report, after passing through again late the other night, that Manhattan remains a remarkable piece of work, visually arresting and beautiful acted and despite its short running time a monumental piece of filmmaking. I can still, to paraphrase somewhat, “idolise it out of all proportion”. From the opening montage sequence investigating the highlights of the city’s landscape and people through to Muriel Hemingway's final reminder “You have to have a little faith in people”, not one section is out of place, not one moment rings untrue.
Of course it’s fantasy, of course it glosses over the problems of any real metropolis, reducing Manhattan to people kissing against architecture and tourist spots to a Gershwin soundtrack, increasing transcontinental, intercontinental and transatlantic travel and a run on vinyl Rhapsody in Blue recordings in the process. But Woody’s trick is to take a relatively simple story of a love triangle (quadrangle) then use Gordon Willis’s photography to paint it in epic terms. In that way it reminds me of a Victorian painting, lush and painterly compositions employed at the service of some fairly obvious melodrama. Robert Hopper too, I suppose.
And Willis’s bold black and white photography is the star. Those opening shots could have been ripped from a photo spread in Time Magazine were they not moving but at no point is he content to let the characters simply sit in rooms expressing their feelings. The first semi-date between Allen and Diane Keaton mostly happens in a planetarium were they’re reduced to silhouettes punctuated by starlight. As with much of his work, quite properly the photography reflects the inner turmoil of the characters even in films that are ostensibly comedies. We can see the progress of Allen’s growing lack of self confidence his the way his apartments are shot changes.
Initially we see Allen and Mariel Hemmingway snuggling up together in bed in extreme longshot in a cavernous apartment, his progress from a winding staircase to the sleeping area beautifully rendered in pools of light as though he’s stepping into her glow. Later, after he quits his job and has to move into what amounts to a bedsit, the camera and so we can barely fit into the room with them, his confidence broken by the dirty water and random noise of his neighbours, the whole thing shot in ugly, bland grey light all subtlety destroyed.
The appearance of Meryl Streep initially seems fairly incongruous and an example of Allen casting outside of his usual repertory of actors. In fact, she was already a veteran of New York's Public Theater (I would have loved to have seen her Isabella in Measure for Measure) and it’s more another example, like Walken, of Allen selecting an actor very early in their career and somehow manage to give them the kind of role which would define that career. Amazing to think this was the same year as Kramer vs. Kramer. Disappointing to note that neither of these films would even be financed at the cinema now.
This was also the final Woody Allen film for Diane Keaton, bar the Radio Days cameo until 1993’s Manhattan Murder Mystery. I’m sure there’s a biography somewhere that enunciates in great detail the reasons why their working relationship broke down, perhaps mentioning Warren Beatty a lot, but in terms of what’s up there on the screen the idiotic part of my brain which likes to trade in tittle-tattle and pop psychology wonders if it’s one of the reasons that Woody didn’t feature a relationship for himself on such an even keel many times during the eighties, even in the Mia films.
He told Stig Bjorkman that once Manhattan was completed, he wanted to stop the studio releasing the film, and has said elsewhere he even considered destroying the print. That would have been an utter tragedy and with due respect to him, an act of cultural vandalism. Artists are the worst judges of their own work, and Woody it seems is usually wrong. We’ll talk some more about this when I reach September (the film, not the month you’ll be pleased to know). Never mind other people, he should have had a little faith in himself.
Tip boxes for newspapers.
Newspapers I've just posted this idea to CurryBet Martin's feedback post about The Observer:
"How about a tip box?
Many blogs offers the ability to voluntarily pay the blogger or website for the content -- there'll be a Paypal button and you can send jkottke or the Wikipedia a fiver for offering some entertainment or knowledge or both.
Why doesn't The Guardian try something similar? Or how about a voluntary subscription by direct debit set by the reader? I've you've enjoyed this post by Charlie Brooker, how about helping to pay his salary?
Often I'll buy a copy of the paper if I'm out and about but it'll sit unopened because I've read the content online. But I really don't mind spending the money because I know that one won't necessarily exist much longer without the other.
I'd gladly set up a DD to pay ten pounds or whatever a month to cover the days I don't go near the newsagents but want to pass on a donation."
Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: Interiors (1978)
Then As an alternative to my usually foggy memory as when exactly I watched some of these films, I can confidently tell you that I first view Interiors on the 22nd March 2004 because I noted it down ready for this blog's end of year review in which I listed everything seen on television and in film (and something things listened to) during the preceding twelve months. It was on the same day as a BBC World Service documentary about the world wide web, Two Weeks Notice and Shadows & Fog. I’ve subsequently said some very nasty things about that whole endeavour, but on reflection it’s a fascinating snapshot of my tastes from then. They haven’t changed much at all.
Now In hindsight it’s easy to see that Interiors was the expression of a auteur wanting to communicate his ideas through a different tone, the rest of the decade bringing a stream of relatively sophisticated comedies. But after Annie Hall, audiences and critics might have suspected this was actually an unwelcome change of direction, that Woody had moved on to a completely different phase in his career. If Manhattan had already been mentioned in Variety, reader might have had a clue about the tone. As Allen tells Bjorkman:
The editing is stately, Willis’s photography claustrophobic and when characters are granted leave to smile, perhaps after seeing a remarkable card trick, it’s undercut by a disapproving glance from across the room. This late 70s audience was also expected to accept the serious version of Diana Keaton in the Woody Allen universe after Annie Hall had apparently encapsulated and defined her screen presence. From what I can see, only Roger Ebert was willing to accept this short detour for what it was.
The trailer can't have helped either ...
... which is to some extent counter-productive. When we here that Gene Shalit of NBCtv calls it "A masterpiece. It ranks with the finest films ever made. A work of art. You must see it" we're expecting something fairly majestic. Cut to two people in a room wining at each other. To an extent that undoubtedly prepares the audience, explains to them this isn't typical Woody Allen nonsense, but in this and the rest of the quotes there an over extension, an increase in expectation that no film could deliver on.
Despite that the film, both in style and content would go one to influence a range of filmmakers from Whit Stillman to Noah Baumbach, with everything from Barcelona to The Squid and the Whale revisiting the lives of these kinds of pseudo-intellectuals that Woody characterises as “Ozymandia Melancholic”, figures on the cusp of realising that art doesn’t save you. Again in the Bjorkman interview he notes:
Since you’re the kind of pseudo-intellectual who watches serious Woody Allen films inspired by Chekhov and O’Neill and thought yourself clever enough to laugh at all the jokes in Annie Hall, up until this point you’ve identified with these characters and you wince along with them. But then at the dinner table as the conversation turns to matters of state and academia you realise that they’re being hopelessly impolite and you begin to question your own feelings of superiority towards “this woman”.
Then when the youngest sister plants the final blow “She’s a vulgarian” you’re wincing for a completely different reason and you're given an opportunity to look at yourself, and your arrogant superiority, in a different light.
Now In hindsight it’s easy to see that Interiors was the expression of a auteur wanting to communicate his ideas through a different tone, the rest of the decade bringing a stream of relatively sophisticated comedies. But after Annie Hall, audiences and critics might have suspected this was actually an unwelcome change of direction, that Woody had moved on to a completely different phase in his career. If Manhattan had already been mentioned in Variety, reader might have had a clue about the tone. As Allen tells Bjorkman:
“people were so shocked and so disappointed with me that I broke my contract with them […] and particularly with this kind of drama […] they felt there was a solemnity to it, which I like in films. […] And then let’s not forget this was the first time I did a drama, so my lack of experience and skills didn’t help me […] There were people who accused me of bad faith.”Perhaps if he’d offered them something with a certain amount of levity – to an extent Hannah And Her Sisters is the same thing with more jokes (three sisters, emotional trauma, Sam Waterson) – the audience might have been more forgiving. But from the opening moments in which Waterson’s work is interrupted by his mother-in-law’s interior decorating meltdown – the kind of polite cruelty that was the cornerstone of Ozu’s work is plastered across the walls of every scene.
The editing is stately, Willis’s photography claustrophobic and when characters are granted leave to smile, perhaps after seeing a remarkable card trick, it’s undercut by a disapproving glance from across the room. This late 70s audience was also expected to accept the serious version of Diana Keaton in the Woody Allen universe after Annie Hall had apparently encapsulated and defined her screen presence. From what I can see, only Roger Ebert was willing to accept this short detour for what it was.
The trailer can't have helped either ...
... which is to some extent counter-productive. When we here that Gene Shalit of NBCtv calls it "A masterpiece. It ranks with the finest films ever made. A work of art. You must see it" we're expecting something fairly majestic. Cut to two people in a room wining at each other. To an extent that undoubtedly prepares the audience, explains to them this isn't typical Woody Allen nonsense, but in this and the rest of the quotes there an over extension, an increase in expectation that no film could deliver on.
Despite that the film, both in style and content would go one to influence a range of filmmakers from Whit Stillman to Noah Baumbach, with everything from Barcelona to The Squid and the Whale revisiting the lives of these kinds of pseudo-intellectuals that Woody characterises as “Ozymandia Melancholic”, figures on the cusp of realising that art doesn’t save you. Again in the Bjorkman interview he notes:
“art to me has always been entertainment for intellectuals, Mozart or Rembrandt of Shakespeare are entertainers on a very high level. It’s a level that brings a great sense of excitement, stimulation and fulfilment to people who are sensitive and cultivated but it doesn’t save the artist.”The key scene occurs when the father presents his new wife to his daughters and their significant others. Their mother, a giant matriarch has been reduced to a confused emotional cripple with suicidal tendencies and been replaced by a woman who to them seems uneducated. She’s already talked about international travel but can’t articulate what she’s seen and says things like “once you’ve seen one church …” and does nothing to measure up to the person their father has cast aside.
Since you’re the kind of pseudo-intellectual who watches serious Woody Allen films inspired by Chekhov and O’Neill and thought yourself clever enough to laugh at all the jokes in Annie Hall, up until this point you’ve identified with these characters and you wince along with them. But then at the dinner table as the conversation turns to matters of state and academia you realise that they’re being hopelessly impolite and you begin to question your own feelings of superiority towards “this woman”.
Then when the youngest sister plants the final blow “She’s a vulgarian” you’re wincing for a completely different reason and you're given an opportunity to look at yourself, and your arrogant superiority, in a different light.
Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: Annie Hall (1977)
Then Like Sleeper, I’ve seen Annie Hall so many times our first acquaintance has dipped out of my memory. My suspicion is that it was, like so many of these early Allens, at Leeds Metropolitan University, presumably from one of the library’s off air recordings, because I subsequently used clips of the film to punctuate a video documentary I made about Leeds for a Practical Presentation Skills module (particularly the scene in the foyer of the cinema before a screening of Bergman’s Persona when Annie turns up late and “Max” won’t go in because it’s already begun even though he’ll “only miss the titles and they’re in Swedish”). The fact that I can quote the scene in those brackets demonstrates why the idea of the first time I’ve seen the film is rather a mute point.
Now In his interview with Stig Bjorkman, Woody describes his motivation for making Annie Hall thus:
Previously I suggested that watching these films in order was like seeing an embryo develop into something more recognisable. Actually on reflection these early pictures are like a symphony with Annie Hall as the completing crescendo. From Take The Money And Run we have the anarchic approach to continuity, from Bananas the post-modernity of pulling in real people, Alvy is arguably a close cousin in temperament to Allen from Play It Again, Sam and there’s the surrealism of Sex*, Sleeper and the philosophical underpinnings of Love & Death, capped off with the New York sensibilities of The Front. There's some wonderfully perceptive material here about the style.
How much of this is down to his collaborator Marshall Brickman is open to conjecture. I’ve speculated previously that Brickman (fittingly considering his surname) pulls the structure of these collaborations together and certainly Annie Hall has the strongest story of any of the previous Allen authored films.
It’s also extremely participatory, expecting the audience to be able to follow the ins and outs of a relationship with they’re often selecting the beats often ignored in other films, such as the division of possessions after a break up and dissatisfaction of the post-relationship one night stand demonstrated in the simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking repetition of the lobster scene where Alvy realises that he’ll never recreate the chemistry he had with Annie.
Apparently some of that was to do with the original cut of the film reaching two and a half hours and a lot of subplots and other material being cut out, including more fantasy sequences, but I think the point stands. We're trusted to fill in the gaps.
The result is a film which has been strip-mined for homages and references across the years and influenced dozens of romantic comedies and still does. From Jack Black saying “Those who can teach…” in School of Rock to Danny Baker appropriating “Boy if only life were like this” as his radio catchphrase, as with the best of classic films it has seeped into culture. What is Family Guy if not an extension of the moment when Annie turns into the Wicked Queen from Snow White over and over again? The young Woody confronting his sexuality even turns up again near the beginning of Cameron Crowe’s Singles (“Spam!” “Uuuuh!”) Arguably it also defined the careers of Christopher Walken and Jeff Goldblum, both of whom would spend the rest of their lives playing versions of these characters:
My favourite scene this time around was the other foyer scene in which Alvy is forced to listen to the pop academia of the man standing in the queue behind him critiquing Fellini. Partly it's because I know I’ve been on both sides of that event but mostly because before I took a module about Science in Entertainment Media on my post-graduate film course I didn’t know who Marshall McLuhan was. So when Woody wheels the scholar out to defend his work I finally understood what the director was trying to do here and the significance of his choice of academic. Annie Hall is a film which risks alienating its audience by sometimes expecting even rewarding it for having a post-graduate education. How gloriously pretentious! More please.
Now In his interview with Stig Bjorkman, Woody describes his motivation for making Annie Hall thus:
“I really feel it was a major turning point for me. I had the courage to abandon … just clowning around and the safety of complete broad comedy. I said to myself, ‘I think I will try and make some deeper film and not be as funny in the same way. And maybe there will be other values that will emerge, that will be interesting or nourshing for the audience. And it worked out well.”It certainly did, with the film attracting six Oscar nominations, winning five (beating Star Wars, which was, for the benefit of younger readers that year’s Avatar) -- best picture, best director, best screenplay and best actress for Diane Keaton. Woody lost out in the acting category to Richard Dreyfuss in The Goodbye Girl. Arguably it was his career high – there would be further nominations and awards (Hannah and Her Sister was nominated for best picture in 1989), but never again would he attract both critical and popular support in quite that same way.
Previously I suggested that watching these films in order was like seeing an embryo develop into something more recognisable. Actually on reflection these early pictures are like a symphony with Annie Hall as the completing crescendo. From Take The Money And Run we have the anarchic approach to continuity, from Bananas the post-modernity of pulling in real people, Alvy is arguably a close cousin in temperament to Allen from Play It Again, Sam and there’s the surrealism of Sex*, Sleeper and the philosophical underpinnings of Love & Death, capped off with the New York sensibilities of The Front. There's some wonderfully perceptive material here about the style.
How much of this is down to his collaborator Marshall Brickman is open to conjecture. I’ve speculated previously that Brickman (fittingly considering his surname) pulls the structure of these collaborations together and certainly Annie Hall has the strongest story of any of the previous Allen authored films.
It’s also extremely participatory, expecting the audience to be able to follow the ins and outs of a relationship with they’re often selecting the beats often ignored in other films, such as the division of possessions after a break up and dissatisfaction of the post-relationship one night stand demonstrated in the simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking repetition of the lobster scene where Alvy realises that he’ll never recreate the chemistry he had with Annie.
Apparently some of that was to do with the original cut of the film reaching two and a half hours and a lot of subplots and other material being cut out, including more fantasy sequences, but I think the point stands. We're trusted to fill in the gaps.
The result is a film which has been strip-mined for homages and references across the years and influenced dozens of romantic comedies and still does. From Jack Black saying “Those who can teach…” in School of Rock to Danny Baker appropriating “Boy if only life were like this” as his radio catchphrase, as with the best of classic films it has seeped into culture. What is Family Guy if not an extension of the moment when Annie turns into the Wicked Queen from Snow White over and over again? The young Woody confronting his sexuality even turns up again near the beginning of Cameron Crowe’s Singles (“Spam!” “Uuuuh!”) Arguably it also defined the careers of Christopher Walken and Jeff Goldblum, both of whom would spend the rest of their lives playing versions of these characters:
My favourite scene this time around was the other foyer scene in which Alvy is forced to listen to the pop academia of the man standing in the queue behind him critiquing Fellini. Partly it's because I know I’ve been on both sides of that event but mostly because before I took a module about Science in Entertainment Media on my post-graduate film course I didn’t know who Marshall McLuhan was. So when Woody wheels the scholar out to defend his work I finally understood what the director was trying to do here and the significance of his choice of academic. Annie Hall is a film which risks alienating its audience by sometimes expecting even rewarding it for having a post-graduate education. How gloriously pretentious! More please.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)