An Education

An Education tells the story of sixteen year old Jenny, who is on track to attend Oxford in 1961. In fact, her father makes sure that all her actions will progress her in that direction. She need not practice the cello because it already counts as her interest/hobby, but she cannot stop going to youth orchestra because she must demonstrate that she is a "joiner inner." When she meets David he is perfectly polite and charming and the two soon begin a relationship despite his 20 years on her. He not only charms Jenny, but her parents too, with his charming smile and easy lies. He's clearly an experienced liar and strange man (going after such a young girl), but it's difficult not to like him. He allows Jenny to experience jazz clubs, fancy restaurants, Paris, and more excitement than her private school allows.

Naturally the relationship introduces Jenny to all kinds of new experiences. Eventually not all these experiences are so fun anymore and Jenny must determine how to continue living her life, but the whole affair leaves her with an education in life, glamour, love, and responsibility.

I was initially drawn to this film because the screenplay was written by Nick Hornby (my favorite author who is responsible for such books-turned-movies as About a Boy and High Fidelity). The film is based on a memoir by Lynn Barber, but his witty voice certainly shines through. Actress Carey Mulligan's performance as Jenny carries this film. She is sparkling and naive without appearing dumb or flighty. It's hard not to see Audrey Hepburn in her performance. The film has that particularly English flair for being enchanting and disheartening at once. It's about the journey and learning the hard way, but even for all the pain of the lesson there is still a lot of sparkle to the experience.

The part of the film that struck me the most was Jenny's parents' willingness to buy into David's influence on her life. They are just as naive as Jenny, which is an interesting twist to the traditional story of the young girl swayed by the influential older man. The only voice against David is Jenny's school (Emma Thompson plays the school principle in a few lovely scenes), which argues for her need to continue on in her book education instead of throwing away her options for a man. Also, the other girl who makes up a foursome with Jenny, David, and David's business partner is a delightfully stereotypical hedonist. She's fairly simple and materialistic but beautiful and sophisticated. She provides great comic relief and an interesting foil to Jenny.

All together I found the film lovely. It's enjoyable and thought provoking, but understated. It did not strike me as remarkable but left me quietly satisfied.

Another Woman

Woody Allen's chamber dramas are not my favorite. Even before Allen's typical black and white titles play, this film opens with Marion narrating about her own life. As the camera moves around the New York apartment she uses as a writing studio she explains who she is as if she's reading a "What I did Last Summer" essay. She talks about turning 50 and her family and her writing aspirations, and the narration comes in both the present and the past tense, as if she's remembering the story after living it.

Her writing studio is located so that she can hear a psychologist's sessions through an air vent, which she has no interest in until she hears a woman she connects with who is very sad. She becomes almost obsessed with this woman and even follows her. Somewhere during this time she realizes that the idea she has of herself is incorrect, and she begins a journey of self-discovery--recognizing the failure of her marriage, her resentment over denying the lover of her life, and a realization that her first husband did not die accidentally, but rather committed suicide.

Marion's life, and the film, are highly artistic. She decides what she wants it to be like and choses to believe it as so. Her only glimpse of redemption comes through reading a passage in a book that she learns in a dream may have been based on her. The art of the film can put Marion in the situation to overhear the therapy sessions and reclaim her life, but life only brings these moments by chance if at all, but the art is still imperfect.

Bullets Over Broadway

Woody Allen takes on the roaring twenties.

John Cusack plays David Shayne, a playwright who claims the upmost fidelity to his art. In order to get his play financed he must turn to a mobster who insists on casting his talentless girlfriend, Olive, in a role, and the compromises only begin there. The lead is played by Helen Sinclair, who is completely self-absorbed and always dramatic. She manipulates Shayne into bulking up her role to suit her ambitions and soon begins an affair with him. The leading man cannot stop eating and puts on an unbelievable amount of weight as the play progresses.

It is Olive's bodyguard, Cheech, who has the talent, however, and his rewrites to the play bring Shayne increased praise and success, but Cheech actually believes in the integrity of art above morality, which leads to its own set of conflicts. A cast full of these and other colorful characters makes the movie entertaining and quickly paced. More exciting than Allen's dramas, this comedy still deals with his typical preoccupations about moral absolutes and the intersection between art and life. The two characters committed to art, Cheech and Sinclair, do not encourage sincere emotion, however, they silence it, but Cheech also calls for art to have a scope expanding beyond the opening and closing curtains of the play--art must point back to life to be successful.

Husbands and Wives

I wish I had the DVD case to post some excerpts from the blurb on the back about this movie, but I believe it ended with calling Husbands and Wives a "comic valentine." I hope whoever wrote that was bitter and alone and just wanted to see happy couples try to watch the film and completely tear their relationships apart over it. Woody Allen almost never writes happy couples, and this is no exception.

Sally and Jack announce to their friends Judy and Gabe that they are separating. They're both very cordial and claim it's just to try things out, but of course Jack is already secretly dating an aerobics instructor who actually lets him watch movies unlike his frigid wife. Judy is totally shaken by the separation and it sparks serious insecurities about her and Gabe's relationship, which is already her second marriage. Sally begins dating one of Judy's coworkers who Judy is attracted to, and Gabe starts up an emotional relationship with one of his students. Everyone is looking for something else and unwilling to be honest with themselves about their motives and faults.

Allen gets experimental with his camera in this film employing a handheld camera to capture the frenzy and claustrophobia of the situation and setting the camera as an uninformed participant, guessing where the action will go next. The film is framed as a pseudo documentary, it plays very much like current reality TV with characters speaking in a confessional form to an unnamed camera. This format points out the performative nature of life and seems to ask when we are the most ourselves and when we are acting, because the interviews that should be the most honest and truthful often appear the most staged.

The movie is interesting, but very depressing. According to this film there is very little hope for change and we are bound to keep on repeating our mistakes and settling for "whatever works."

Hannah and Her Sisters

Told over the course of three Thanksgiving dinners, this movie tells the story of three sisters. Hannah's husband, Elliot, has an extended affair with one of her sisters, Lee, who had spent many years living with an antisocial former professor of hers. Allen plays his typical neurotic character. Though he is Hannah's ex-husband most of his story of hypochondria and ultimate renewal of meaning through the humor of the Marx Brothers stands outside of the more coherent familial plot, though involvement with Hannah's youngest sister, heroine-addict and struggling actress Holly, brings him back into the main story.

The film presents an uncharacteristically positive outlook on the world for Woody Allen, which may imply more irony than the film suggests inherently. Though the subject matter is serious, most major conflicts are skirted with a bit of humor. It is difficult, however, to ignore the overlap between the actions of the film and Mia Farrow and Allen's off-screen romance, particularly when Farrow suspected Allen of being attracted to her sister.

Stardust Memories

(See my comments on 8 1/2)...

Stardust Memories is Woody Allen's version of Fellini's classic 8 1/2. Allen takes his interest in the relationship between art and life to a new level in an adaptation of another film that poses a director, played by Allen, struggling to make a film while being bombarded with demands and criticisms from every side. Filmmaker Sandy Bates is in the process of making a new movie, and not much else is clear. It is not clear what is part of "reality" and what belongs in Bates's film. Bates juggles the many women in his life the same way he juggles the people trying to find out about his film, but ultimately art cannot save its maker.

The film is one giant circus of confusion. The clearly bracketed excerpts from Bates's earlier funny movies would be a good grounding element--at leas it's clear what they are--if it weren't for the blurred lines between Bates and Allen himself. They could just as easily be scenes from one of Allen's earlier films. It has it's funny moments, but all together it is just a different directors point of view on 8 1/2.

Manhattan

The film opens on two couples together at Elaine's Cafe in New York. Yale and his wife are the typical married couple, but Isaac is with his high schooler girlfriend, Tracy, who is twenty five years his junior. Yale begins an affair with a woman named Mary who Isaac does not initially get along with, but he quickly begins dating her when she and Yale cool things off.

Everyone in this movie sets up their own rules and refuses to live by them. They make moral judgements but refuse to live them out in their own lives if they don't like the implications of doing so. Only the youngster, Tracy, seems able to see things in a larger context, but even she is a confusing character dating a much older man with apparently serious intentions. There seems to be an overarching ethical law governing the characters, but they only adhere by degrees.

The film is famous for its opening montage of the city in black and white to a Gershwin soundtrack. It's stunning. Allen turns life into something more beautiful than reality without bothering the disguise the artifice of the process. The characters are all corrupted, but the city remains gorgeous. Art and truth do not necessarily come together in this film.

Interiors

Interiors is an homage to Ingmar Bergman. The story, if there is one, is of three daughters dealing with their highly structured mother and much looser father as he starts a new marriage. Pearl, the step-mother, introduces color and life into a family almost entirely stifled by art and order. Eve, the mother, imposes her artistic rules on her family and their lives, but none of the daughters is artistically successful.

Though less oppressive than a Bergman film, Interiors is still tough to watch. In my opinion, Allen may appreciate the highly artistic form of the European art film, but he excels in the intersection of comedy and drama. Even Pearl is not enough life for this film. I typically want films to be open to not only different interpretations, but also different experiences. Interiors has no other level. If you do not enjoy the artistic style and heavy-handed subject matter then there is little to redeem the film.

Play It Again, Sam

***Disclaimer: I've taken a blogging hiatus in order to survive my last college semester with a 21 credit hour course load. I will be back to blogging regularly in a week or so. Today however, I'm using it as a nice way to review for my Auteurs final exam tomorrow, so I hope you all enjoy the flood of Woody Allen entries***

In this adaptation of his Broadway play, Woody Allen plays, confusingly enough, Allan Felix, a man surrounded by films and movie posters who is much more comfortable in the filmic world than the real one. The film opens with the famous ending scene of Casablanca, and a Humphrey Bogart character shows up throughout the film as Allan's mentor.

Allan's friends try to set him up on dates, but he is just too clumsy and awkward. Bogie tries to give him hip lines to try on the ladies, but Allan can't pull off that kind of detached charm. Allan is also plagued by a fantasy version of an old girlfriend who undoes all the confidence boosting Bogie works for. When Allan realizes he is in love with his married friend he has to decide what Bogie would do and chose between finding love and being the better man.

For it's simple and predictable plot Play It Again, Sam is a funny movie. It lacks a lot of the deeper challenging preoccupations of Allen's later films, but manages to convey the inability of life to escape the vast influences of movies and updates the conflict for a less dramatic story.