IT’S COMPLICATED: The Film Babble Blog Review

IT’S COMPLICATED
(Dir. Nancy Meyers, 2009)

A recent New York Times Magazine profile of the writer/director of this film opened with this set-up: “Nancy Meyers makes movies set in beautifully appointed, but not opulent, houses about attractive, but not perfect looking, people in which the, unintentionally seductive, middle-aged woman always triumphs.” That pretty much nails Meyers’ formula especially her previous work SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE which had Diane Keaton in the “unintentionally seductive middle-aged woman” role now inhabited by Meryl Streep. What’s nice to report is that the formula fits this film much better as it’s a much sharper minded work with less contrived instances of broad comedy.

A bubbly giddy Streep is Myers’ plucky protagonist – she’s been divorced for a decade from the, of course, charming Alec Baldwin, but can muster civility in his presence even when he’s accompanied with his young wife (Lake Bell). Streep runs a bustling bakery and has her business life in order, but her friends (Rita Wilson, Mary Kay Place, and Alexandra Wentworth who all act like giggling school girls) all think her love life needs help. Conveniently a nice, also divorced, architect she hires for an addition to her home played by Steve Martin might make for a promising suitor. What’s not convenient is that Streep has just started an affair with her ex-husband Baldwin.

Baldwin wants to get back together but Streep is filled with doubt – giddy doubt. The giddiness is infectious as the couple hides their fling from their offspring – Hunter Parrish (Weeds), Zoe Gazan, and Caitlin Fitzgerald. John Krasinski (The Office – USA) as Fitzgerald’s husband to be, happens to catch sight of the offending party at a hotel and that sitcom-ish detail almost derails the delivery, but the film still breezes along quite convincingly.

Like a witty stage production, the one-liners and earnest declarations of the characters will be what stays with appropriate audiences. By appropriate I don’t just mean the middle-aged woman market – there is much for most men or women who’ve been around the block a few times to relate to and be amused by. When Streep describes herself as “the kind of person who makes fun of people who get plastic surgery” as she consults a surgeon and later stops in front of a mirror asking out loud: “Is that what I look like?” it’s extremely endearing. She’s one of the biggest movie stars on the planet yet we can sympathize with her aging insecurities like she’s our next door neighbor. Her smiling eyes along with Baldwin’s longing stares and Martin’s sad squinting are warming visages of world weary actors who are still at the top of their game.

“Wow. So that’s how grown-ups talk.” Streep says after Martin puts his feelings on the table when the complications implied by the title come to light, and for the most part that is true of the film. Sure, some predictable comic conventions (like the Krasinski subplot) were inevitable in this scenario, but Meyers has played them well here with restrained pay-offs and the ending pulls off a pleasant plausibility. IT’S COMPLICATED is affectionately drawn and a better than average rom com – for appropriate audiences that is.

Oh yeah – Happy New Year’s from Film Babble Blog!

More later…

10 Slapped Actresses

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“Sometimes fake fights turn out bad,

Sometimes, actresses get slapped.

Some nights, makin’ it look real might end up with someone hurt.

Some nights, it’s just entertainment,

and, some other nights, it’s real.”

These lines from the track “Slapped Actress” from the latest album (“Stay Positive” VAGRANT 2008) by New York rawkers The Hold Steady call upon the neo-realism of the films of the independent film innovator John Cassevettes. Written and sung by feisty front-man Craig Finn, who was influenced by watching a friend’s Cassevettes DVD box set, the song shines a theater spot-light on the hazy line between art and real life.

For those of you unfamiliar with the song here is a live clip from YouTube (albeit crudely recorded, but you should know how that goes) of The Hold Steady performing it live.

Since the impact of a slap in the face can not be easily faked and such a dramatic device is so effective yet so still such a common place cliché (think soap operas) I thought it would be somewhat insightful to look at the case studies of:

10 Slapped Actresses

1. Gena Rowlands in OPENING NIGHT

(Dir. John Cassavetes, 1977)

The Hold Steady’s “Slapped Actress” directly references all the principles of this film: “We are the actors. The cameras are rollin’. I’ll be Ben Gazzara, you’ll be Gena Rowlands” and “We’re the directors – our hands will hold steady. I’ll be John Cassavettes—let me know when you’re ready.” Finn in an interview with Uncut Magazine elaborated: “I was really taken by the scene where Cassavetes wants to slap Gena Rowlands, and he says, ‘If I don’t really slap you, it won’t look real for the performance.’ And she says ‘It’s a play, why would you have to actually slap me, that’s the whole point.’ That kinda connected with the way I think people are preoccupied with my relationship with the characters I write about. I’ve always said no one really cares whether Quentin Tarantino kills people or does karate but for a songwriter there’s this question of a perceived honesty, that your songs are the story of your life.”

“Performances were scripted, but delivery was not” says Wikipedia on the films of Cassavetes. A slap is one of the potent forms of delivery, so to speak. Rowlands after protesting is told by Manny (Gazzara): “It’s a tradition. Actresses get slapped. It’s mandatory you get hit.” Rowlands does eventually get hit but as convoluted as it may be it’s on her own weird terms. Rowland’s Myrtle goes through the motions of a dying diva later commnented on by The Hold Steady’s sing-along concluding chorus which says of this brand of “perceived honesty”: “we make our own movies, we make our own movies…”

2. Faye Dunaway in CHINATOWN (Dir. Roman Polanski, 1971) (Major Spolier!) “She’s my daughter [slap]…my sister [slap]…She’s my daughter [slap]…my sister [slap]…my daughter [slap]. She’s my sister and my daughter!” Dunaway gets multiple slaps from Jack Nicholson as not so hard nosed (he had his nose sliced by the knife of Polanski playing a small time hood) detective Jake Gittes who had no possible patience left. According to the IMDb: “After several takes that never looked quite right, Dunaway told Nicholson to actually slap her. He did, and the scene made it into the movie.” Dunaway got her slap happy revenge years later in MOMMIE DEAREST playing Joan Crawford – who I’ll get to later.

3. Diane Keaton in THE GODFATHER PART II (Dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)

In arguably one of the most powerful confrontation scenes between a husband and a wife in cinema history, Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) reacts violently upon being told Kay (Keaton) not only wants a divorce but that she had an abortion because she feels this “Sicilian thing” must end. This sends him over the line in what looks incredibly like the real thing – his incensed slap sends her reeling back onto a hotel sofa. No quotes from Keaton on whether it was authentic but this passage from Deborah C. Micthell’s biography “Diane Keaton: Artist And Icon” is pretty noteworthy: “When her parents saw Godfather II in Los Angeles, the audience applauded when Michael slapped Kay in the confrontation scene. She (Keaton) defensively explained: ‘he was a horrible character…I say to Hell with those people who applaud. My parents were with me.’” Watch the scene on YouTube here and see if you would applaud.

4. Charlize Theron in HANCOCK

(Dir.Peter Berg, 2008)

This is from a mediocre summer superhero-with-a-twist Will Smith vehicle, mind you – but to be fair I liked the first half of said film with the slap appearing to perfectly divide it. Theron went on the record: “He tried to fake slap me one time, but the fake one just didn’t happen. We’re still debating this one. I think he just hit me! But Will claims I leaned into his hand and that’s how it happened. I was so shocked! I was like, ‘He just slapped me!’” Then to another source she said: “But he said, ‘I did not slap you. I had my hand there and you turned into it’” Theron, however, insisted that the incident did not sour their relationship. “We’re just like kids, it’s so much fun. He’s not a woman beater!” she said. Whatever the case, the Will Smith bitch slap will no doubt echo through out the ages…

4. Michelle Pfeifer in WOLF (Dir. Mike Nichols, 1994) This was another incident that inspired this post – recently Christopher Plummer revealed in his new memoir (“In Spite Of Myself”) : “I had to lose my temper and slap [Michelle] in the face . . . Gazing into those deep, limpid eyes of hers, I was so hypnotized, my expertise at faking a slap utterly deserted me and I let her have it with full barrels.” He lamented that it was: “one of the worst days of my life.” Again I believe, Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer, should just take comfort in the “sometimes actresses get slapped” clause.

5. Brigitte Bardot in CONTEMPT

(Dir. Jean-Luc Godard, 1963) I recently saw this again, for the first time on the big screen, and I had forgotten about the slap Michelle Piccoli lays on Brigitte Bardot’s face during their lengthy domestic argument. The sequence which takes place at their flat is a painful but compelling series of break-ups and make-ups with the slap coming midway as Phillip Locate in the New York Times noted: “In any film today, a man slapping a woman would end the scene, but in Contempt we keep watching the sequence for 25 more minutes, as the adjustments to that slap are digested.” It is indeed startling how Bardot brushes off the abuse, to her character Camille it seems like just yet another daily indignity.

6. Marisa Tomei in

IN THE BEDROOM (Dir. Todd Field, 2001) File this under “when actresses slap other actresses”. In what Roger Ebert called “the most violent and shocking moment in a violent film” Sissy Spacek slaps a hysterical Marisa Tomei. According to IMDb: “There were 15 takes of Sissy Spacek slapping Marisa Tomei. The final version of the film used the first take.” Looks like Tomei sure was a trooper in the “slapped actress” department there!

7. Anne Baxter in ALL ABOUT EVE (Dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950)

Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Academy Award winning screenplay describes the action between Addison (George Sanders and Eve (Anne Baxter) as follows:

She smiles. Then she chuckles, then laughs. A mistake.

Addison slaps her sharply across the face.

Actually there are many comparable slaps from movies from this era and it’s a quick cold one but it’s a personal favorite because I (and I’m sure many audiences) so wanted to slap Eve throughout the whole movie. Incidentally there was a little known semi-remake called SLAP HER…SHE’S FRENCH (Dir. Melanie Mayron, 2002).

8. Shirley Maclaine in

THE APARTMENT

(Dir. Billy Wilder, 1960)

As Dr. Dreyfuss, Jack Kruschen really strikes Maclaine’s face exactly as written in Wilder’s and I.A.L. Diamond’s screenplay (also an Academy Award winning script):

With his free hand, Dr. Dreyfuss slaps Fran viciously across the face. Bud winces. Dreyfuss, still holding Fran by the hair, takes a box of ammonia ampules out of his bag. He crushes one of the ampules in his hand, passes it under her nose. Fran tries to turn her head away. Dreyfuss slaps her again, hard, crushes another ampule, repeats the process.

So it goes for reviving a heartbroken woman from a Christmas eve suicide attempt, huh?

9. Joan Crawford in WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?

(Dir. Robert Aldrich, 1962) Bette Davis and Joan Crawford famously did not get along so there is absolutely no doubt this slap is real. Apparently mere slaps were the least of their worries according to Wikipedia: “During a scene after Blanche makes a desperate attempt to call Jane’s doctor, Blanche is kicked around by Jane. In reality, Crawford had several broken ribs from the scene, as Davis had really kicked her.” Crawford also felt pretty symbolically slapped later when she wasn’t nominated for an Oscar for the film while Davis was.

10. Lee Bryant in AIRPLANE! (Dirs. Jim Abrams & Jerry Zucker, 1980) Thought I’d end on a comical note with definitely the fakest slaps not just on this list but possibly in movie history. As frightened passenger Mrs. Hammen (but probably better referred to as “hysterical woman”), Bryant starts freaking out: “I can’t stand it anymore…I’ve got to get out of here!” A stewardress tries to restrain her then another passenger takes over, then Dr. Rumack (Leslie Nielson) all repeating “calm down, get a hold of yourself!” Soon enough just about everybody on board is lining up to slap (or worse) the troubled traveler. Watch the clip here.

There are hundreds, if not thousands more slapped actresses out there but that’s my top ten and I’m sticking with it. Of course, there are many slapped actors as well but I was keeping with The Hold Steady song that inspired the post. Still may do a “slapped actors” post someday – so stay tuned.

More later…

Time For A Re-Appraisal – GODFATHER PART III Is The Best Of The Series

This is definitely NOT my contribution to the BIZARRO BLOG-A-THON (June 23-25th) hosted by LazyEyeTheater or EnergeticEyeTheater or whatever:

We all can admit now that both GODFATHER PART I & PART II were just overrated populist mock epics that got overwhelming acclaim because of early 70’s pop politics and they got Oscars because producer Robert Evans scored a deal with the Devil that would make Joseph Kennedy proud. The series was only redeemed when GODFATHER PART III arrived in 1990. It featured re-casting of the highest order and a script that out has Mario Puzo out-Shakespeare-ing Shakespeare mounting in a grand sweeping sense of neccessary closure. When we last saw Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) it was the late 50’s and he was left all alone by those who once loved him sitting on a bench at his Lake Tahoe estate – with dead eyes and a cold withdrawn demeanor. If you’re like me, and I know I am, you’d want to see more of the decline of this guy, right?

Made to order, GODFATHER III picks up 20 years later as Michael tries to finally go legit with a deal with the Vatican, harasses his ex-wife, destroys his children’s dreams (or maybe just his children), and ends up yet again on a bench now much older and still alone but this time we get to see him die! Yep, all necessary events that solidify once and all Michael Corleone into the classic character we all love and make us completely forget the first 2 films.Michael’s snazzy new look – the spiky bleached hair-do and more stylish attire show that the man has gotten hipper – see how he puts down Sinatra stand-in Johnny Fontane (Al Martino) with this crack: “I’m just gonna go into the kitchen and listen to some Tony Bennett records.” Snap! His voice is gravely to the extreme and his arm motions are more flailing – while the old Michael was stoic and subtle, new Michael is in your face with his bug eyes and exclaimations: “Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in!”

Then there’s the case of the recasting of one of the main members of Michael’s posse – previously D-lister Robert DuVall barely registered as lawyer Tom Hagen so it’s a major improvement to bring in the grand gentleman actor George Hamilton to be the consigilere. Hamilton, with his ultra-tan and slick lovable posing, alone provides a gravitas that the early entries were sorely missing. It only gets better – when Winona Ryder was too ill to participate, director and co-writer Francis Ford Coppola drafted his daughter Sophia to take on the role of Michael’s daughter Mary. Sophia Coppola’s performance was originally derided but in recent years it has been re-evaluated to be considered one of the best in all cinema. Her death scene (sorry Spoilers!) when she realizes after a few seconds that she has been shot and says “Dad?” in an unaffected blank manner is as heartbreaking as it gets. I get choked up just blogging about it.

It’s well known that Joe Mantegna as a Armani suitted John Gotti-esque competitor of the Corleone’s parlayed his role into the beloved long-running character Fat Tony on The Simpsons but how many know that Andy Garcia parlayed his role into playing a bunch of other likewise thug but still charming parts in a bunch of other notable films I’m too lazy to look up right now. Oh, wait – the OCEAN’S 11 movies – see, pretty much the same type guy, right? We’ve got GODFATHER III to thank for that. The involving plot with the Pope dying and a montage of murders, which the other GODFATHER films concluding murder montages hold nothing on, also rule. Diane Keaton returns as Kay to do some more much needed finger waging at Pacino and reportedly they resumed the set romance they had during the first 2 flicks – good for them. For comic relief we’ve got Don Novello who while he never says anything funny is still amusing to see because we can say ‘hey it’s Father Guido Sarducci!’ So disregard what everyone says about I and II being ‘all that’ and savour this saga statement that is up there with SON OF THE PINK PANTHER, LICENCE TO KILL, STAR TREK V, and THE PHANTOM MENACE as being the undeniable best of their respective series. Just when you think you’re out, GODFATHER III pulls you back in – again and again.

More later…

What’s Up With Woody? Case In Point – CASSANDRA’S DREAM

It used to be that a new Woody Allen movie opening was an event. In the summer of 1989 the North Carolina Museum Of Art in Raleigh had a Woody Allen film festival. Every Friday night a different Woody Allen film was shown in chronological order and I went to nearly every one (I missed HANNAH AND HER SISTERS but had seen it already if I remember correctly). It was timed to lead up to the release of CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS that fall. Throughout the 90’s Woody Allen movies played at many theaters in the Triangle area, mostly arthouses but some multiplex action too, so it was a bit of a sobering slap to have his latest film be the first one in my lifetime to not play in my hometown of Chapel Hill. I grew up with Allen’s films – my parents told me that they took me to see SLEEPER at the Plaza theater (now an empty lot) when I was four years old but I don’t remember the experience. Of course not, right? I’ve seen the movie many times since then so it really doesn’t matter. Despite the declining quality of his recent work I’m pulling for the Woodman – I believe he can still pull a great movie out of his ass one day. Sorry to say this one, newly released on DVD, ain’t it:

CASSANDRA’S DREAM (Dir. Woody Allen, 2007)

There is a scene early on in Woody Allen’s 38th film as director in which the protagonists (Ewan MacGregor and Colin Farrell) in the middle of a discussion in a garage leave the shot while the camera stays still. While the dialogue of their tense talk is still audible they exit into a back room for a few moments then reappear with no breaks; no cuts. It is notable because it is one of the only times, apart from the standard white on black opening credits that is, that this British brothers gone bad thriller feels like an actual Woody Allen movie. As it goes on with the questionable character of their Uncle played by Tom Wilkinson, fresh from his crazily sane (or sanity-driven insanity) turn in MICHAEL CLAYTON, showing up with a out to the brothers’ financial worries, a few unmistakable Woody Allen themes pop up – jealousy and greed to be exact. A murder movie in the mold of Allen’s last hit MATCH POINT is the order of the day but since I was in the minority that was unfavorable to that first foray into British societal class crime, I am even less forgiving to this unmoving neo-noir creeper caper.

Comparisons are inevitable to BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD, Sydney Lumet’s thriller also involving corrupt money-mad brothers doomed to fail in matters of finance and family; but this can’t really be considered a copy-cat because production of it was well underway years before that film was forged and it certainly doesn’t have anything in common with its narrative structure. Still it doesn’t bode well that that fine film would so definitively overshadow Allen’s incredibly self-conscious effort to make such an uncharacteristic and cold morality play as this. MacGregor and Farrell put in solid performances that show signs of rehearsing and multiple-take re-focusing but the material they have to work with feels like it came from pages of a first draft with the repetition fat uncut.

Wilkinson energizes the few sweaty desperate scenes he’s in but he acts as if he has secrets he’s not willing to share with the brothers, the audience, and even the movie. The female characters don’t make much of a mark either – as gorgeous as Hayley Atwell, Sally Hawkins, and Ashley Madekwe are they are just decorations on a boy’s club class project. CASSANDRA’S DREAM, named after a boat the brothers name after a race winning dog at the tracks that doesn’t really have much of a consequence to the movie’s themes, is unfortunately another movie misstep for Woody Allen. In trying to make a movie so unlike any other from his canon he ended up with a film so indistinct that it is instantly forgettable.

Whew! Next Time I’ll Tell you what I really think. This August comes yet another Woody Allen film – VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA which as a Spanish murder movie (that’s just going by the trailer) doesn’t look like a very characteristic work either. The oft repeated line from STARDUST MEMORIES (and real life) was that of his movies folks prefered “the early funny ones” well I’m going to start calling all his filmography before the last decade – “the early good ones”. So for the blogosphere film geek record here’s my list of my top 10 favorites of the early good ones:

Film Babble Blog’s Top 10 Woody Allen Films

1. CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS (1989) As the title pretty much states this is a serious drama with a comic subplot. Martin Landau plays a wealthy ophthalmologist whose massive guilt over murdering his mistress (Angelica Huston) puts him in existential turmoil. In the subplot Woody Allen plays a struggling documentary film maker in a bad marriage who pines for a PBS producer (Mia Farrow) while he has to do a fluff piece portrait of a man he despises – a corporate TV bigwig played by a perfectly smarmy Alan Alda. A top notch screenplay filled with great lines like: “Comedy is tragedy plus time” and “Show business is, is dog-eat-dog. It’s worse than dog-eat-dog. It’s dog-doesn’t-return-other-dog’s-phone-calls.”

2. MANHATTAN (1979) Shot in widescreen black and white with a Gershwin score and again a magnificent script this a rich rewarding movie over and over. Relationships, digs at shallow popular culture, pithy party repartee, heart breaking partings, and so on – Allen captures New York in the “Me Decade” like nobody else could. The great cast (Diane Keaton, Michael Murphy, Mariel Hemmingway, Meryl Streep) all inhabit the material beautifully. Of course again, there are the great one-liners: “My analyst warned me, but you were so beautiful I got another analyst.”

3. ANNIE HALL (1977) Allen’s most popular movie (it won the Best Picture Oscar) is an obvious but crucial choice because it signified a new direction and style after years of silly (but still terrific) comedies. Diane Keaton (who won Best Actress) as the title character and Woody as, well, Woody (actually his comedian character’s name is Alvy Singer) do their crazy chemistry thing over an almost surreal mix of 4th wall breakage, childhood memory revisionism, overlapping comic dialogue, and even animation. “If life was only like this!”Allen says directly to the camera at one hilarious point and yes, I often wish it was.

4. HUSBANDS AND WIVES (1992) Hard to separate this from the real-life break-up of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow but this take on Bergman’s SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE has a lot more going for it than what is now dated gossip. The late great Sydney Pollack, in what is definitely his best performance, and Judy Davis announce their divorce to Allen and Farrow, before their planned dinner out together mind you, and the two couples struggle through crises caught on a shaky cam with odd cuts and a docudrama style. Juliette Lewis as a writing student of Allen says: “Life doesn’t imitate art – it imitates bad TV”; in this film though, art does a pretty good impression of awkward desperate living.

5. HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (1986) Smack dab in the middle of the Reagan era and Woody’s Mia Farrow era as well, this is another sweet blend of comedy and drama. A large cracking cast including Diane Wiest, Barbara Hershey, Michael Caine (who won an Oscar for it), Sam Waterson, and Carrie Fisher keep the proceedings lively but Allen on the verge of suicide and getting rejuvenated by a chance midnight moviehouse showing of the Marx Brothers’ DUCK SOUP is why this movie makes the list.

6. THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (1985) At the movie theater I work at part time one of my co-workers, who has worked at theaters for over 20 years, often remarks that this is his favorite Woody Allen film. Fitting for a projectionist to love a movie that largely takes place in an old 30’s movie palace. One of Allen’s best premises, a character (Jeff Daniels) in the movie within a movie of the title walks off the screen and into the real world of the depression because he falls in love with a woman (Mia Farrow) in the audience. Farrow sighs: “I just met a wonderful new man. He’s fictional but you can’t have everything.”

7. ZELIG (1983) Looking a lot like I am stuck on 80’s Woody Allen, huh? A mockumentary (I don’t care if Christopher Guest hates the term) about a human chameleon played by Allen who can change his form or ethnicity depending on the company he keeps. Through the movie magic of editing and insertion Zelig finds himself rubbing shoulders with key players in early 20th century history – Hitler, Herbert Hoover, Calvin Coolidge, Babe Ruth, Charlie Chaplin, and James Cagney are among those who convincingly appear in archival footage. Forget the forgery that was FORREST GUMP, and relish ZELIG.

8. LOVE AND DEATH (1975)Woody’s War and Peace! Much headier than the comedies that made his name this was the most ambitious of his early career – an epic period piece with battle scenes and much Foreign film influence but the silliness and rapid-fire jokes ranks this as one of his all time funniest films. Another great pairing with Diane Keaton and yes, another great script. One of many hilarious one-liners: “There are worse things in life than death. If you’ve ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman, you know what I’m talking about.”

9. DECONSTRUCTING HARRY (1997) The last great Woody Allen movie IMHO. It is different terrain with vulgarity, profanity, and depravity and that’s just what comes out of scorned lover Judy Davis’s mouth! Woody Allen plays Harry Block, rumored to be based on author Philip Roth, who takes everyone’s suffering and turns it into literary gold, as his ex-wife says. His creations catch up with him and he takes a look back at his parasitic existence with help from a large cast featuring Robin Williams, Billy Crystal (as the Devil!), Richard Benjamin, Demi Moore, Tobey McQuire, and a clever cameo by Mariel Hemmingway. Maybe the most acerbic and divisive film of Allen’s career.

10. TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN (1969) I have a soft spot for this one because it is the first Woody Allen movie I remember seeing as a kid on television. Maybe one of the first mockumentaries it tells the story of Virgil, a petty thief who goes from heist to the slammer again and again. Essentially a series of sketches filled with patented one-liners and sight gags, it remains one of my favorites of his early funny ones because of the sheer amount of material that works. I saw it again recently on TCM and it still holds up. Virgil on meeting his wife (Janet Margolin) for the first time: “After fifteen minutes I wanted to marry her, and after half an hour I completely gave up the idea of stealing her purse.”

Okay! Now, there are a number of other Woody Allen films I love and recommend as well (like BULLETS OVER BROADWAY, RADIO DAYS, and SLEEPER) but that’s my top ten. Maybe this’ll encourage some young novice film geek to put some of the Woodman’s work in their NetFlix queue.

More later…

Ingmar Bergman – The Woody Allen Angle

Isaac (Woody Allen) : “Bergman? Bergman’s the only genius in cinema today, I think.”
Yale (Michael Murphy) : (To Mary) “He’s a big Bergman fan.”
Mary (Diane Keaton) : (To Isaac) “God, you’re so the opposite. You write that fabulous television show. It’s so funny and his view is so Scandinavian.”
– MANHATTAN (Dir. Woody Allen, 1979)

Nearly every tribute to the late great Ingmar Bergman (July 14, 1918-July 30, 2007) notes his huge influence on Woody Allen. Allen’s 1988 quote that Bergman was “probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera” is being heavily circulated right now. Roger Ebert quoted the line in his fine In Memory article and said that Allen has “made some films in deliberate imitation of Bergman.” So lets take a look at some of those films and see just what elements whether they be thematic, technical, personal, or personnel that Woody Allen has “borrowed” from the movie master:

LOVE AND DEATH (1975): The first Allen film to overtly reference Bergman mainly in its use of the Grim Reaper, who oddly appears draped in white not the deathly black that Bengt Ekerot wore in THE SEVENTH SEAL (1957). Set in the Napoleanic era and despite being a satire of Russian literature (Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and the films of Eisenstein) the Bergman steals are what makes the thing tick. The intense overlapping close-ups are taken from PERSONA (1966) and this strained but extremely funny Diane Keaton monologue reeks of Ingmar existentialism given a tongue-in-cheek approach:

“To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy, one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you’re getting this down.”

ANNIE HALL (1977): Allen’s most popular film commercially and winner of the Academy Award for best picture has relatively few touches taken from the Swedish director – a few WILD STRAWBERRIES-like returns to childhood memories and some leftover PERSONA-like shots but it is amusing that the film that Alvy (Allen) refuses to miss the beginning of because of Annie’s (Diane Keaton) tardiness was Bergman’s FACE TO FACE (1976).

INTERIORS (1978): The Woodman’s first drama (also his first film as director that he does not appear as an actor in) owes a lot and I mean A LOT to Bergman. The term “Bergmanesque” was coined by Richard Schickel (TIME Magazine) for this film and Vincent Canby of the New York Times wrote:

“It’s almost as if Mr. Allen had set out to make someone else’s movie, say a film in the manner of Mr. Bergman, without having any grasp of the material, or first-hand, gut feelings about the characters. They seem like other people’s characters, known only through other people’s art.”

The story is about three sisters (Diane Keaton, Mary Beth Hurt, Kristin Griffith) their suicidal mother (Geradine Page) their father (E.G. Marshall) who has a blustery new spouse (Maureen Stapleton) and all of their misery. Again the close-ups – like that shot above (also used as the poster picture) with the contemplative looks out the beach house window – definitively pay homage to the Bergman aesthetic : “For me, the human face is the most important subject of the cinema.”

MANHATTAN (1979): For the lines at the top of this post alone this film should be noted but also because Allen met Bergman during the shooting. According to John Baxter’s Woody Allen : A Biography (Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1998) Bergman reporatory member Liv Ullmann (and longtime companion – while she was not one of Bergman’s 5 wives she did produce one of his children) hooked up the meeting and Allen was surprised at how knowledgeable the Swedish director was of the Jewish comedian’s one-liners and film work. Shortly Before MANHATTAN opened to rapturous acclaim Allen screened Bergman’s THE SEVENTH SEAL and CRIES AND WHISPERS (1972) one afternoon and confided to friend Eric Lax “I see his films and I wonder what I’m doing.” He needn’t have worried – he was doing just fine.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S SEX COMEDY (1982) : Obviously Shakespeare inspired but Wikipedia says “The plot revolves around a weekend party bringing together six people, loosely based on Ingmar Bergman’s SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT (1955)“. The working title of the film was even “Summer Nights” but Allen has denied this connection repeatedly saying that SMILES was one of his least favorite Bergman films. Well A MIDSUMMER’S NIGHT’S SEX COMEDY is one of my least favorite Allen films so let’s move on…

HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (1986): Truly the one notable Bergman connection here is the appearance of Bergman reparatory company member Max von Sydow who plays Frederick – a reclusive pretentious artist who has this incredible speech after channel flipping one night:

“You see the whole culture. Nazis, deodorant salesmen, wrestlers, beauty contests, a talk show. Can you imagine the level of a mind that watches wrestling? But the worst are the fundamentalist preachers. Third grade con men telling the poor suckers that watch them that they speak with Jesus, and to please send in money. Money, money, money! If Jesus came back and saw what’s going on in his name, he’d never stop throwing up.”

SEPTEMBER (1987): Allen’s first all and out drama since INTERIORS and again one which he does not appear (again I quote Wikipedia) is “a remake of AUTUMN SONATA” but then we get that [citation needed] red-flag and know not to trust everything we read. It has been a while since I’ve seen it so I can’t really comment – I just remember extended sequences of Mia Farrow weeping among family and an ex and a potential lover in another beach house like INTERIORS in yet another off season.

ANOTHER WOMAN (1988): Longtime Bergman cinematographer Sven Nykvist (1922-2006) works on Allen’s third straight drama. It concerns Gena Rowlands as a professor working on a philosophy book who becomes obsessed with eavesdropping on the sessions of therapy patients which she can hear through a vent in her office. This allows for lots of opportunities for introspection about depression aided by Nykvist’s visual mastery in one of Allen’s most under-rated and worthwhile films. Nykvist would work as Director of Photography for three more Allen movies. While filming ANOTHER WOMAN Allen told an interviewer:

“Bergman likes to rehearse. But the reverse is better for me. It’s part of our temperaments. He’s a great artist and (laughs) I’m not.”

CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS (1989): With its title, the eye of Nykvist, and through its exploration of a “Godless universe” we are almost completely submerged in Bergman at his bleak darkest territory here. Almost completely that is – because Allen’s failed film maker subplot is the exception (the Misdemeanors of the title) but thematically and aesthetically we are witnessing a work made from a Bergman blueprint. Wealthy Ophthalmologist Judah (Martin Landau) suffers from existential guilt of universal proportions after having his unstable mistress (Anjelica Huston) murdered by his Mafioso brother (Jerry Orbach). He visits his childhood home and mentally interjects himself into a memory of a family dinner – yep, WILD STRAWBERRIES again. The best combination of comedy and drama Allen has ever created – it’s my personal favorite of his films.

HUSBANDS AND WIVES (1992): Right off the bat this film owes a conceptual copyright to Bergman’s SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE. It takes the mock documentary style and introduces us to 2 married couples on the brink of divorce. The first couple – Gabe (Allen) and Judy (Farrow) seem content at first but tensions are mounting especially when told that their friends – the second couple Jack and Sally (Sydney Pollack and Judy Davis) are having a supposedly amicable split-up. We follow each character through flirtations, infidelities, and temper tantrums that recall the canvass of SCENES but Allen has his own stylistic touches on display in the handheld shakiness and the odd edits. The night that Allen and Farrow (who were breaking up in real life) separate they reminisce about watching an old classic movie on TV late one night – what movie you ask? WILD STRAWBERRIES! Which also has more than a little to do with:

DECONSTRUCTING HARRY (1997): The fractured yet still sturdy structure here is definitely stolen from STRAWBERRIES – a noted academic setting out to receive an honorary award from his old university revisits major life situations and memories of lovers past. Also throw in the premise that Allen’s author character disguises his private life and lovers as the lives of the fictitious characters he writes. It has been said that that element comes from author Philip Roth – evidenced in the name Harry Block (made me think of writer’s block) but it also should be pointed out that the name of Max von Sydow’s character in THE SEVENTH SEAL was Antonius Block. It’s also been written that an artist manipulating real life for his art angle is in Bergman’s THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY (1961) but I honestly can’t vouch for that.

Okay, that’s enough Bergman-Allen for now. I’ll conclude by saying that Allen’s next film after HARRY was CELEBRITY which again utilized Nykvist but Allen’s films to the current day (labeled by critic Richard Schickel as “the later funny ones”) have been fairly bereft of Bergman influence. They’ve also been guilty of an absence of quality but that’s another blog entry.

This post is of course dedicated to Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) R.I.P.

More later…