(USA 1986 105m) DVD1/2
E.E.Cummings, page 112
p Robert Greenhut d/w Woody Allen ph Carlo di Palma ed Susan E.Morse m various art Stuart Wurtzel
Woody Allen (Mickey Sachs), Mia Farrow (Hannah), Michael Caine (Elliot), Dianne Wiest (Holly), Carrie Fisher (April), Barbara Hershey (Lee), Lloyd Nolan (Evan), Maureen O’Sullivan (Norma), Max Von Sydow (Frederick), Daniel Stern (Dusty), Sam Waterston (David Tolchin), Tony Roberts, Julie Kavner, J.T.Walsh, John Turturro,
As soon as one sees those plain white credits on a black background accompanied by instrumental versions of old ditties we know we’re back in Woody territory. To be honest, his directly previous run of films, from A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy through Zelig, Broadway Danny Rose and The Purple Rose of Cairo were quite underwhelming. But perhaps they were necessary steps on the way to this, his third – and to date last – masterpiece, seven years after his second, Manhattan. Like all his best films, it’s a homage and love letter to so many things, a nod to everything from Bergman to Chekhov, and a billet doux to his beloved Manhattan. Its intricate, delicately plotted narrative is worthy of Dickens, let alone Chekhov, but its depiction of a close-knit family and their overlapping love affairs is quite delicious, if faintly incestuous when analysed in full. A film summed up perfectly by Barry Norman as “not exactly a comedy, but a very funny drama.”
Around thanksgiving time a family gathers together. Hannah is the talented ex-actress daughter of Evan and Norma, the former the patient husband to a self-absorbed alcoholic wife. Hannah is married to Elliot, a successful financial adviser, who in turn is becoming obsessed with Hannah’s sister Lee. Hannah’s ex-husband Mickey is a supreme hypochondriac who still visits Hannah to see their children, but has problems finding a partner. Finally there’s Holly, a neurotic drug addict who also struggles to hold onto a man and who has stifled ambitions to be a writer.
It’s probably fair to say that Allen never again so successfully managed such an eclectic cast, in which the entire ensemble is note perfect. Before we even come onto the leads, what about Von Sydow’s cynical, self-obsessed artist, Waterston’s opera-loving architect, O’Sullivan (Farrow’s real-life mother) as the lush matron, Nolan as her long-suffering husband, Marge Simpson herself – Julie Kavner – as Allen’s assistant, and Fisher’s pretentious friend who’ll do anything to impress a man? To which we must add Farrow, a martyr figure to end them all who doesn’t realise her own seeming infallibility. All her family members appreciate her being the rock on which their lives are built, but who resent it at the same time; her seeming to need so little in return for giving them so much. It’s certainly her best performance in Woody’s films. She is matched by another Woody favourite Wiest, in her first of two Oscar-winning turns for the Woodster, hysterical in certain scenes with Holly (think of her snorting up in a classy Manhattan nightspot and Allen’s retorting “do you carry a kilo around in your pocket?”). Allen himself is not too much to the fore, staying rather on the fringes, but for all his trademark hypochondria, Mickey is one of his more genuine characters, personified in his eager listening to Wiest’s reading of her written piece and ensuing praise. Somehow, though, it’s Caine you remember most, this bumbling delusional fool, realising the impossibility of his affair with his sister-in-law (“easy, you’re a financial adviser, it doesn’t look good for you to swoon”), his tongue-tied attempts at being casual in the book store (“I read a poem of you and though of his”). Add to this di Palma’s lovely almost picture-card shots of Manhattan and Morse’s memorable montages set to the tunes of Kern, Porter and Rodgers and Hart and you are in dreamland. How is it possible not to love a film where, after a hysterical aborted suicide, Allen rushes into a movie theatre and puts the world in its rational context after watching Duck Soup? Or one which gives Nolan the chance to play ‘Isn’t it Romantic?’ as his last moment on film (he died before its release)? “We all had a terrific time” reads the first caption. Indeed we did and always will.
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I’m sure by now everyone knows I don’t agree that Woody’s had so few masterpieces… but I certainly do agree that this is one of them, and one of his absolute greatest films. It’s such a warm, expansive film, with all this room to follow these different stories and characters — a very generous film from Woody, who allows the entire ensemble cast to develop and shine. Diane Wiest, always phenomenal, is perhaps at her best here, at least until her very different role channeling Norma Desmond in Bullets Over Broadway. And the great Max Von Sydow is too often overlooked, delivering a perfect deadpan parody of the Bergman-esque suffering artist side of Woody’s character.
Very well-written, succinct assessment of this film. The 80s are actually my favorite period from Allen and I too am a big fan of this one. Yes, Mickey is the typical Woody Allen character, but as you say, he somehow comes across as very genuine. This one will certainly be on my list… how high, though, I haven’t decided.
I wouldn’t call this a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but it certainly is a classic. Di Palma’s cinematography here is fine, but it doesn’t really hold a candle to the days Allen enjoyed with Gordon Willis. There’s more realism, less fantasy here than in “Manhattan” (the only movie that outdoes this kind of idealized depiction of a city is probably Jeunet’s “Amelie”, with its squeaky-clean Paris scrubbed clean of all graffiti and underbelly), but there’s a pedestrian quality to it that I find a little underwhelming. From this movie on, most of Allen’s movies look like they’re shot for television– thanks to Waterson’s presence, this could easily be mistaken for any given episode of “Law & Order” at first glance. And after a while, I find it hard to buy the cynical Upper West Side optimism that Allen entertains throughout– his character being put off suicide by watching “Duck Soup” is only slightly less ridiculous than Mia Farrow’s romance with the celuloid Jeff Bridges in “The Purple Rose of Cairo”. Granted, his handling of interweaving characters and storylines with deft acting and writing is what elevates this picture, making it one of only a handful of Woody Allen movies that anybody ever need own. I still feel like he’s less a filmmaker and more an author who stages iffy adaptations of his own novels, but it’ll do in a pinch.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: you CAN NOT SAY THAT about the man who put Annie Hall and Manhattan on celluloid! I don’t care if every other one of his films was shot and edited in pedestrian fashion (and many were, though not as many as you seem to think). Those two alone ensure that he will remain a “filmmaker” for all time.
I can think of a few Allen films that are shot in a “pedestrian” way, but if you ask me, most of his work, up through most of the 90s at least, could hardly be called that. I mean, besides the established films that everyone loves, this is a director who gave us the autumnal golden glow of the blackout scene in September, one of his most beautifully made films, and the magical musical pastiche of Everyone Says I Love You, which ends with that haunting long-shot of a dance that defies gravity and reality alike. I feel like whenever people say Woody is more of a writer than a real filmmaker they’re just repeating a critical consensus rather than really responding to the films themselves, which are mostly so alive with style and wit that they’re always very much cinematic rather than purely literary.
“Everybody Says I Love You” is a terrible fit for my own personal tastes– old-fashioned musicals are pretty much sleeping pills for me– so while the Julia Roberts dance sequence may prove a highlight, it doesn’t do much for the rest of the film it’s trapped in. And “September” is one of those Woody Allen movies I’m not entirely sure if I’ve actually seen– as I’ve said before, many of them just blend together to me, and I can’t really tell them apart, autumnal glow or not. The cinematic elements you talk about here can certainly prove effective, but at the end of the day they’re just occasional flourishes, and they don’t amount to much for me. The real meat of Allen’s filmmaking rests in his ability with the written word, so yes, I would call him more of a literary talent. If he’d published just about any one of the stories of his post-“Hannah” projects as novels rather than movies, they’d have made about the same impact, in the long run.
Wait– Was it Julia Roberts, or Goldie Hawn? Or somebody else, maybe? Eh. I’d check online, but I don’t really give a damn. I only care enough to throw this out there, in case I got it wrong. That sums up how I feel about that movie. Conscientious indifference.
I am especially with Ed on EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU, which as opposed to Bob conforms to my taste. But it’s a magical piece of fimmaking that makes wonderous use of an old standard “I’m Through With Love.”
It was Goldie Hawn, Bob, in that final dance I was referring to. I’m not generally a big musical guy myself but I really (mostly) enjoyed Allen’s tribute to the form.
And, again, I cited just two examples of Allen’s visual filmmaking talents; I’m not going to post a lengthy defense of his visual skill here, especially since I’ve already written so much about him, so suffice it to say I’d hardly dismiss the visuals in his films as “occasional flourishes.” He may be a writer, but that doesn’t mean that, in his best work anyway, he’s indifferent to the power of the image.
Of course he isn’t indifferent. But I think there’s a subtle, subconscious truth being raised by him in “Hollywood Ending”, where he plays a director who goes blind in the middle of shooting a film. He knows the power of the image, but it’s not a power he has explicit command or mastery of, as he does with the written word.
But Bob, would you agree that in his chamber dramas, where the written word is really the essence, that the technical issues, including compositional choices are far less vital?
Yes, but not entirely effective as films, for me. Bergman did far more with his own, and Allen missed the mark whenever he tried to imitate the Swedish master. Plenty of directors have done visual wonders with the seemingly static prospect of chamber dramas, but Allen isn’t really one of them.
I’m talking about his work AFTER “Annie Hall” and “Manhattan”, not his whole body of work itself. Sorry, but I see a step down in quality from his Gordon Willis phase to Carlo Di Palma. Sven Nykvist did some good work for him on a couple of pictures, but even then, it’s not up to the standard Willis set before. He hasn’t made a truly bad film since “Hannah and Her Sisters” (well, maybe “Small Time Crooks”. And “Curse of the Jade Scorpion”) but he hasn’t made a truly classic one, either. Allen’s spent the last twenty-odd years coasting on auto-pilot, recycling the same stock situations and characters with largely the same repetoire casts up until his tourist-films in London and Madrid. Sure, he’s a filmmaker to be admired, but in the time I’ve been an adult moviegoer, he’s yet to make a film that’s really worth my time doing to the theater for.
I agree that Allen is an extraordinary literary talent, but I also believe he deserves a lot more credit as a visual artist. “September” tries a little too hard to match Bergman at his own game, but it’s still a beautiful, underrated film that I hope people eventually revisit even if Allen was disappointed with it himself (he doesn’t like “Manhattan” either). I disagree that all of his post “Hannah” work looks like it’s shot for tv. Some of it, yes, like the handheld work in “Husbands and Wives”, is similar to what you see on tv these days (as is the bland presentation of “Cassandra’s Dream”), but consider the beautiful 70s-esque photography in “Celebrity” or the stunning “Shadows and Fog”, which I believe is a misunderstood classic and easily one of my favorite Allen films. There’s also “Sweet and Lowdown”, another great film. Actually I love most of his ’90s work.
I’m with you on “Shadows and Fog”, and maybe “Celebrity” as well. Allen works very well in black & white, no matter who he has as a cinematographer. Therefore I really don’t understand why he shoots in color so often, since he’s so ill-suited to it.
Oh God, Bob I wouldn’t go as far as to say he’s “ill-suited” for color, even if his black and white work has been outstanding. Color is the medium that is widely-embraced, and I couldn’t see his slapstick work, and films like MATCH POINT, BULLETS OVER BROADWAY and DECONSTRUCTING HARRY, even HANNAH in black and white. Of course with Allan, compositional concerns are secondary to writing.
Do you think it really matters to Allen that color is more widely accepted by audiences? I could easily see a number of the films you mentioned filmed in black & white, especially “Hannah and Her Sisters”. It’s an aesthetic choice that pushes him to be more creative with his visuals than he ever bothers when he shoots in full color. I’m not a fan of his wordy-slapstick fare like “Bullets Over Broadway” or “Deconstructing Harry”, or really most of his comedies, when you get right down to it. As Fish attests, he’s at his best when he’s making “funny dramas”, instead. Maybe I just find his particular blend of Marx Bros. humor and self-conscious intellectualism a little grating and wearisome when it isn’t attached to a story and characters I can emotionally connect to.
“Hannah” is the best example of his work as a dramatist, and while I’m going to insist I don’t find anything especially cinematic going on here, I’ll concede that you don’t always need impressive images to make an impressive film. Just don’t tell me he’s as talented visually as he is literarily, because frankly, I can’t see it.
DECONSTRUCTING HARRY was an audacious work. But I think Allen deliberately makes a “statement” when he opts to go the B & W route. These days it’s ALL color, unless there is that rare instance where something specific is being presented.
“Deconstructing Harry” is actually one of his weakest efforts for me– a hodge-podge collection of uneven short-films strung together by a rather flimsy and unconvincing bildungsroman frame-story. The sequence in Hell with Billy Crystal is especially embarassing to watch. Not my cup of tea.
You can make a cinematic film even if the dialogue and writing is the primary feature. I believe his best films, “Hannah” included, are very cinematic in the way the visuals subtly convey the tone and emotion of the characters. Allen settled on an aesthetic choice at some point in the 80s, to shoot a lot of long, drawn-out takes in wide shots so his scenes can breathe and flow. It not only allows the audience to feel like they’re in the room with the characters, but it’s one of the main reasons his New York films are so atmospheric to me. It’s one thing to say you’re making “a New York film”, it’s another to fully capture the tone, pace, energy, attitude and beauty of a location. With the exception of maybe Martin Scorsese, no other recent filmmaker has captured New York, particularly Manhattan, with that much immediacy. He knows how to shoot his city, and it makes those movies particularly cinematic to me because of it. That’s a skill. Compare his work to other writer/directors who are mainly considered literary talents – people like James L. Brooks or even the great Paul Mazursky. I’d say Mazursky’s best films, which I love dearly, still don’t capture the same visual beauty seen in Allen’s best.
Well Ari, all I can say to this last super-insightful and fecond submission is this:
Congratulations.
A very Bergmanesque screen-cap; ironic since for some reason I thought Sven had shot this (we’re on a first-name basis, you see). An excellent picture, one of Woody’s best, but I recall the ending as a bit pat and self-satisfied for me, another step away from the more poignantly unresolved (with a trace of smug) Manhattan, which was in itself a step away from the perfectly bittersweet aftertaste of Annie Hall (oh, that long shot from inside the cafe with Keaton singing “Seems Like Old Times” on the soundtrack). But perhaps this has much to do with my own sensibilities, in life as much as in movies…
I like musicals, but have this personal trait of only liking quality musicals with actors who can sing. The Allen wasn’t and didn’t.
If your nose stood out any further you’d give Pinocchio some competition.
No, but if it had to cross swords with you it’d be a dagger compared to your bastardsword, you old porkie factory. What has giving an opinion – and a correct one, oh Mr DREAMGIRLS IS A MASTERPIECE – to do with truth.
I said DREAMGIRLS was a VERY GOOD MUSICAL, not a MASTERPIECE!!!! WEST SIDE STORY is a MASTERPIECE!! 85% of the critics loved the film, so please find a new punching bag.
Well, when you stop saying I hate musicals, I’ll stop hitting the punchbag, though your trying to avoid being hit is rather like a man climbing into a field with an angry bull, dressed in bright red, and shouting “here, boy!” He doesn’t need any further encouragement and your arguments subliminally bellow PLEASE HIT ME!
Coming from your place, yes. From mine, no.
Some interesting comments here, but I have already discussed with Ed that I think Allen’s 80s output was patchy and Bob I don’t think I’ll ever agree with on anything. Hannah is the one 1980s Allen films that belongs with the best of its decade, the others sadly do not.
It sounds like we agree more on Allen than you think, Fish.
Yes, Allan, Bob and you agree on more than you may believe.
However you are sadly putting aside CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS, which John Greco rightly notes below is also an Allan masterwork. For me it’s one of his greatest.
I think Fish is spot-on with Allen’s track-record, actually– “Annie Hall”, “Manhattan” and “Hannah” are the man’s essentials, and nothing else he’s done really comes close, even the jokey Kafka-esque “Shadows and Fog” or docu-ridiculous “Zelig”, which I love. I’m glad that, with his European fare, he’s finally stopped repeating himself ad-infinitum with the same recycled characters, neuroses and schtick over and over again. I even think he may have another classic or two left in him, but I wouldn’t put good money on it.
Bob: Apart from CRIMES and EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU (the latter I know you don’t care for much) you are ommiting a vital film in his pantheon, STARDUST MEMORIES.
Nah, since Hannah nothing comes close to greatness and Stardust Memories I always found second or even third string Allen. I may not like his 80s output, but I’d take even BDR or TPROC over SM.
Everyone Says I Love You was embarrassing. In the years since HAW only Sweet and Lowdown and VCB have been even half decent, Match Point had two good leads but not the remotest clue about London or British life and the rest, let’s not even go there. To be honest, I wish Allen would have retired at 64 like Bergman did, that would have meant SAL was his last film. Bergman ne’er made another great film after Fanny but at least his Saraband or The Image Makers or even In the Footseps of Clowns were better than anything Allen managed in the 21st century.
Actually, I find that film rather repellant. It strikes me as nothing more than a shameless rip-off of Fellini’s work, especially “8 1/2”, and perhaps one of his most self-servingly autobiographical works, no matter how much he denies it.
No let’s NOT go there. You have dedicated your life towards disparaging the musical form. That tells me nothing about greatness or worth it just tells me that Allan Fish of Cumbria, Arch Duke of the Realm, hates musicals. Take a look at the critical concensus EVERYONE recveived. You may be surprised.
And I call on all Woody Allen fans to come here and take Allan of Cumbria on for what he just said about STARDUST MEMORIES, one of the Woodman’s greatest films!!!
Fish is insulting “Stardust Memories”? Hell, I’d say his giving it undue credit by putting it in Allen’s second or third tier of movies. It’s scraping the bottom, for me. I’d much rather watch “What’s New, Tiger Lilly?” than see Woody Allen in Fellini-mode.
Well Bob, as I’ve said I respect your opinions greatly, but with this insightful, whimsical film, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
No doubt. It should prove easier than getting Allan and I to agree to agree, apparently.
Aye, you are right there my friend! Ha!
I’m still in a daze after that big screen viewing of Ray’s IN A LONELY PLACE last night at the FF. I know you are not a huge fan of that film, but audience involvement in some of the caustic humor made it a special experience this time arounf.
Not a huge fan? I would’ve gone to see it if it weren’t for money, at the moment. I’m saving my cinema-going opportunities for films I haven’t already seen on television, at the moment. Is “Bigger Than Life” still playing?
Bob, all you had to do was show up there. I would have handled the tickets!!!
BIGGER THAN LIFE is gone.
But tonight I will be going over with Lucille yet again to see two of the great masterpieces of British noir, and two of the great films, period:
The Fallen Idol
Brighton Rock
That’s very generous, Sam. Unfortunately, I have that occasionally stubborn streak in my blood that Joyce’s Deasy called the proudest boast of an Englishman: “I paid my way”. I’ll be there for “Odd Man Out”, though.
Aye, ODD MAN OUT will be having a nine-day run I believe. I’ll be there too.
For me, Allen is one of the greats and while I agree with Sam when he says, “with Allan, compositional concerns are secondary to writing.” Yet “Manhattan” is beautifully photographed.
I have always found something extraordinary in his dialogue even if the film itself is uneven. To this day, a new Woody Allen film an event. Maybe it’s my New York sensibilities that make it so. I never tire looking at Hannah, Annie Hall Manhattan, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Bullets Over Broadway, Broadway Danny Rose and many others. Even Play it Again, Sam, though directed by Herbert Ross is clearly a Woody Allen film.
Has anyone read any of his short story collections, Getting Even, Without Feathers and Side Effects?
Allan – a good piece and though I don’t agree with the “last masterpiece” line (Crimes and Misdemeanors anyone?), I enjoyed reading.
Indeed John, on CRIMES, as I stated above.
I also agree that this is not his last masterpiece, because as you state he would still make Crimes and Misdemeanors.
And anyone else here a fan of Radio Days? I love that movie and it’s likely to be in my Top 10 for the 80s.
RADIO DAYS has many fans Dave. I am not it’s biggets fan, but it’s still in many ways a fine nostalgic evocation. I do believe that Ed Howard and Movie Man are big fans of it.
“Radio Days” is probably in my top 5 Allen films. Hmmm, let me think about that.
I’d list my favorites as:
1. Manhattan
2. Annie Hall
3. Hannah and Her Sisters
4. Radio Days
5.
whoops…
okay, again:
1. Manhattan
2. Annie Hall
3. Hannah and Her Sisters
4. Radio Days
5. Husbands and Wives
6. Shadows and Fog
7. Crimes and Misdemeanors
8. Broadway Danny Rose
9. Sweet and Lowdown
10. Bullets Over Broadway
Ha! I thought the blank 5 spot was intentional. Suggestive that you hadn’t quite made up your mind yet.
My top 5 would go something like this (although I admit I still have more Woody I need to catch up on):
1. Crimes and Misdemeanors
2. Radio Days
3. Hannah and Her Sisters
4. Annie Hall
5. Manhattan
Great lists here Dave, Ari……..well I’v eentered mine several times at other threads at other times. But seems I always stand behind “Manhattan,” “Crimes,” “Annie Hall”, “Everyone says I love You” and “Stardust memories,” though the early slapstick titles and “Match Point” particularly of the recent films still floats my boat.
While not his best film (I’ll part ways with Mr. Fish here, siting CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS), its definately ONE of his best. The economy of the directing combined with flashy but subtle camera work that plants small bombs of intensity under the viewer is electrifying. The sequence where the sisters argue at a table in a chic Manhattan restaurant, the camera circling tighter and tigher, is a autueristic gem. From the performances (Max Von Sydow is stoicly funny, Mia Farrow is terrific-still liked her best in BROADWAY DANNY ROSE), the chrackerjack dialoque (Allen’s trademark) to the brilliant use of jazz classics to underline the whole thing, HANNAH is a triumph. They talk about Woody emmulating Bergman all the time. Here’s his FANNY AND ALEXANDER. A warm essay on family and the twists of life.
Yep, Dennis we have had a number of most interesting discussion on CRIMES and have always seen eye to eye on it.
John, I have read all his books. My favorite was a story in SIDE EFFECTS about Lincoln wanting to open up with a jike before he barrels into the Gettysburg address. His stand up comedy albums are available on CD. I dare say he’s up there with Richard Pryor, Freddie Prinze and Robin Williams. His one-lines roll off his tongue like rapid machine-gun fire and he details each story he tells so completely that you believe everything till he hits you with the punch and reveals its all bullshit. I’ll take his intellectual comedy over ANY other comic in history.
Needless to say, getting back to Allan of Cumbria’s review (to differentiate him from the director being discussed) I can hardly agree with his curt dismissal of ZELIG, PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO and BROADWAY DANNY ROSE. These are vintage Allen titles.
RADIO DAYS is his answer to Fellini’s AMARCORD, a film that he said in interview moved him profoundly. I don’t know why there have been major nay-sayers against the film, its a sweet series of vignettes that add creedence to his asides in earlier woirks pertaining to his childhood and inspirations. The period detail is spot on as well as the performances from every member in his ensemble. The jockying between his actual life stories and the suppositions of the radio shows and personalities is perfect. I always felt RADIO DAYS was also the film that started off with his best opening. The Burglars answering the questions on NAME THAT TUNE, only to have their winnings delivered to the ransacked house was absolutely charming and hysterical. Its a perfect fusion of Allens ingenuity as a comic and the warmest recesses of his heart. Danny Aiello and Mia Farrow practically steal the show in their sequence together.
Always extra interesting to read these threads. It seems, to me anyway, that Woody Allen never ceases to get big responses here. Whether we love him or hate him we can’t seem to get enough of him. Allans review for MANHATTAN sparked off major fireworks several weeks back. Can we all just admit now that he’s easdily one of the major players in film-making in the last four decades?
Yes, he most definitely IS.
I also cannot, as Allan has, dismiss the other works in this film-makers canon from this particular decade. He shows amazing growth through the eighties as well as his ability to experiment with different visual styles (ZELIG immediately comes to mind). The eighties also houses BROADWAY DANNY ROSE, which I have felt significant for two reasons: It allows Allen, for the first time, to tell a completely linear A to Z comic story (it also allows him to work with myth as well-as illustrated by the comedians in the CARNAGIE DELI telling legendary Danny Rose tales) and it also contains, in my mind, Woody’s personal best performance. Mia Farrow, as well, I feel gives her finest turn as the gum-cracking Mafia slut (she’s almost unrecognizable in the chest high capri slacks, bouffont hair-do and Dolce/Gabbana sunglasses). Its a film I feel he WANTED to make to get raucously funny again and spin, visually, the same kind of tales he told in nightclubs as a stand-up. The film is his personal farewell to his youth.
Indeed Dennis, you make many great points there.
Hi! Allan, Sam Juliano, Tony, (Tony’s name was intentionally missing from my comments about director Alfred Hitchcock on the other thread.) and WitD readers…
Allan, What a very interesting review of a film that I recently watched for the first time and found it to be quite interesting, but I don’t think that I would watch this film again.
As a matter fact, I have only watched all of his (Woody Allan) films at least the films that I have listed below only once…with the exception of Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993) which I watched for the first time two years ago…and subsequently, several more time.
By the way, he have a 3 box set over there on Amazon.com which personally, I would never invest in, but I ‘am quite sure that he have a lot of fans of his films (especially, film students) that would invest in his films.
The Following Woody Allan Films That I Have Viewed Only Once……I don’t mean to sound as if I don’t like actor Woody Allan’s films…I guess that they are okay, but when I use the words only once that usually “translate” into never again…I’am sooo sorry!
The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001)
(aka Im Bann des Jade Skorpions)
**Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993)
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
Broadway Danny Rose (1984)
Manhattan (1979)
Annie Hall (1977)
Sleeper (1973)
Play It Again, Sam (1972)
(aka Aspirins for Three)
Take the Money and Run (1969)
DeeDee 😉
Thanks again for this wonderful post Dee Dee! Well, point is you have seen all of these. Once is enough. The best Woodman films of course are deserving of multiple views. I have all of his films on DVD and can copy any and all at anything, in case you are interested. Many great titles there in your list.
I’ve watched “Hannah and Her Sisters” many times, and every time I marvel at Michael Caine’s performance as Elliott. He looks and comports himself like a stodgy, boringly conventional businessman and family man–quite stout, with thick glasses, conservative trenchcoat–and then we gradually see that beneath that humdrum exterior beats a wildly passionate, yearning heart. He’s obsessed, over his head in love with Lee (Barbara Hershey), and inspite of his fear of exposure, he can’t keep from pursuing her like a frantically lovesick 15-year old. He can’t keep his middle-aged body from bolting at a breakneck pace down a maze of streets to “accidentally” run into her; he can’t keep from ogling her arrogant painter/lover’s nude drawings of her; he even becomes empathetic about what would please her, giving her the c.c.cummings book, with its special poem and the poignant line about her–“Only the rain/has such small hands.” His obsession with their affair makes him turn cold and hostile toward his wife (Mia Farrow)–and we see his shame at that very hostility, because he knows how unfair it is. Caine doesn’t strike a false note throughout this very complex emotional landscape, beginning to end, and he does so much of this fine work with his eyes–through the thick glasses!–and slight movements of his body. He’s extraordinary!
Ah, Margaret, fabulous comment here as usual. I am a huge fan of Michael Caine myself–he’s a consumate actor who intelligently transcribes his material into full-bodied characters, where he uses (as you astutely observe) his eyes and body movements. I believe he won an Oscar for this performance (not that this means anything of course) but he has worked a few times for Allan, and he’s always delivered, navigating that emotional landscape. I loved his performance as the lead in THE QUIET AMERICAN, and even as the doctor in the sentimental THE CIDER HOUSE RULES, he’s hard to resist.
Michael Caine’s performance is one of the only two things I like about “The Cider House Rules”. The other is Charlize Theron’s Brigitte Bardot moment.
Bob, very good point with Theron, who was actually very good in the film. It’s easy for many to dismiss the film and call it syrupy and mawkish, but it was based on one of John Irving’s best novels, which I read, and which Irving himself adapted. It’s one of Hallstrom’s best films, methinks.
Sam Juliano said, “I have all of his films on DVD and can copy any and all at anything, in case you are interested. Many great titles there in your list.”
Hi! Sam Juliano,
If it is no problem can you just send me a copy of Woody Allan’s 1993 film the Manhattan Murder Mystery.
Because I have watched his other films only “once” and for me that is enough!.
…Sam, I ‘am just kidding around with you, about the “once is enough,” but not when it comes to you, sending me a copy of his 1993 film Manhattan Murder Mystery.
Thanks,
DeeDee 😉
Absolutely, Dee Dee. I will include that with a few others, which you need to have.
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