The Filmcake

September 6th – September 12th

Sleeper – Didn’t get around to watching Everything You Always… and didn’t make it to Noble Theatre for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. But I did manage to watch Woody Allen’s 1973 comedy film Sleeper. This one was more along the lines of the slapdash comedy of Bananas. The gag-a-second style is great at keeping the laughs coming. And this one was full of the funny. But I guess when it comes down to it, I’m not that huge of a comedy fan. Sure I like to laugh. But all things equal, I generally prefer the dramatic to the comedic. So, I certainly prefer the more dramatic work of Allen.

In a comment to a previous post, Sarah mentioned the Bechdel Test. I, like a lot of people, just learned of this test recently while listening to NPR. A movie is said to pass the test if:

1. There are two or more female characters,
2. They talk to each other,
3. About something other than a man.

The test sprung out of a 1985 Dykes to Watch Out For comic strip by Alison Bechdel.  According to Bechdel, the rule should instead be called Ripley’s Rule in honor of Sigourney Weaver’s role in Alien.

Obviously the rule is just a shorthand. It doesn’t aim to completely dismiss all those movies that fail its test. But it does point at the bigger issue of Hollywood seemingly being most interested in male gazing over all other POVs. While I don’t think you can use the rule to condemn a particular movie, I do think it can be used to point out the misogyny of cinema more broadly.

I’ll certainly keep the rule in mind, at least in the short term, to see which movies I watch pass the test and which of them fail. I’ll let you know what I find…

Evan Derrick offers up excellent advice on 10 Ways To Become a Better Film Critic. The first thing I got from his post was that I needed to immediately add a book to my reading list–American Movie Critics: From Silents Until Now edited by Phillip Lopate. The other thing that really struck me was the suggestion: “3. Develop an Appreciation For All the Arts.” I particularly like this Nathan Lee quote he pulled from RottenTomatoes.com:

I’m reading all the time, but I can learn more about the movies I’m seeing this week from reading a great 19th century novel than I can from whatever XYZ critic has to say this week about whatever. I think another problem with movie writing is that it’s insular, especially Internet writing. It’s so narrow and insular and just about movies, and I think to be a really good writer and film critic you need a range. You need to know what’s going on in painting, you need to know what’s going on in music, you need to read books, and get laid, and go to restaurants, you know what I mean? A lot of movie writing is very impassioned but it’s very limited, very narrow. And I think good critics can put movies into a larger cultural and social perspective.

This sort of reminded me of the scene in Manhattan (which I just watched for the first time last night) where Isaac (Woody Allen) is sitting on the couch naming off all of the things he thinks make life worthwhile:

Groucho Marx, to name one thing… uh… um… and Willie Mays… and um… the 2nd movement of the ‘Jupiter’ Symphony… and um… Louis Armstrong, recording of ‘Potato Head Blues’… um… Swedish movies, naturally… Sentimental Education by Flaubert… uh… Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra… um… those incredible apples and pears by Cezanne… uh… the crabs at Sam Wo’s… uh… Tracy’s face….

Sharing Woody Allen’s view of a godless universe, I think these things are incredibly important. These things (my list would be different of course) make the universe beautiful. They are things bigger than one’s self to which we must submit in awe. In a way, they’re all we have. And I wholeheartedly agree that this sort of multi-dimensional passion not only allows you to better describe the world you see (as a film critic) but also to just have eyes that are more open.

For some time, I’ve put thought into the movies I watch as well as thought into their selection. I know this sounds obvious. But after working at a video store in my college days, I know that many people put thought into neither. More recently, I’ve been putting this sort of thought into what I read. I’ve always been a reader, but over the years I started reading less and less. I’d read newspapers regularly but I sort of stopped reading other stuff. In the last couple of years, I have not only reignited my reading habit but taken it even further (reading better and more diversely…I still have a long way to go). And, I have to say that I’m still surprised when I read something so wonderful. I feel so lucky. Then a couple of months ago I saw The Impressionists exhibit at the Kimbell Art Museum in Ft. Worth. For the first time, art wasn’t just something I should appreciate. It was something that I loved. It was as if I’d learned a new language and could decipher things that before were only gibberish. The world seems so much more beautiful than it did just a few years ago.

I say all of this because I do think movies and life are better seen through eyes which have read great American fiction and seen Cezanne’s apples. And to think I have only begun and yet have so little time…

(via OFCC)

September 29th – October 5th

Hannah and Her Sisters – See Woody II post.

The Big Lebowski – This one was at the top of my Movies I Should Have Seen But Still Haven’t List. Finally, I can cross it off. I have to agree with Slate’s David Haglundthat this 1998 film fits right in with today’s political climate. John Goodman’s Walter may as well be urging McCain to attack Iran. You’ve got a guy (the other Lebowski), operating out of an “oval office” and a “west wing,” who has no problem lying and misleading in order to get what he wants. And of course everybody else has their own motives too or at least are otherwise occupied (pot, alcohol) to nip the thing in the bud. And, god, does a white russian sounds really, really good right now.

Manahattan – See Woody II post.

Recount (HBO)- This one ought to be in a double feature with a bottle of Pepto Bismol. It’s nauseating. I wanted to scream and cry and vomit. I wanted to strangle the Republicans for stealing an election and the Democrats for not fighting for it. I might not ever be able to enjoy performances from Tom Wilkinson and Laura Dern again after this one.

Finished up Eric Lax’s Conversations with Woody Allen. Then, watched Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and Manhattan (1979).

Both Hannah and Manhattan show a progression from Annie Hall and Interiors. They’re both more “dramatic” than Annie Hall while still retaining its sense of humor. And yet neither is so dour as Interiors.

Hannah, like Interiors, centers on three sisters and the world that surrounds them. Allen’s Mickey provides comic relief as he deals with his hypochondria and an existential crisis. The film does perhaps have a too happy ending. But, I don’t think it takes much away from the rest of the film. It’s not characteristic so I’ll go along with it.

What I like about Woody Allen is that he both praises and tears down the intellectual mindset. But unlike the McCain-Palin Republican establishment he doesn’t reduce it to pithy slogans of intellectual hatred. Allen is more genuinely concerned with authenticity. It’s not enough to know a lot, or know more than somebody else, it’s really about how you use that knowledge, how you feel it. He talks about the strength and resiliency of the heart over the brain.

Keaton’s Mary Wilkie in Manhattan sort of represents that dichotomy. At first, her intellectual prowess just sort of annoys Woody’s Isaac. Then as he gets to know her he begins to really fall in love with her. Loyalty gets in the way and Isaac must give up Mary and time gets in the way and he must give up Tracy (or just let her go).

The Tracy-Isaac relationship was a little creepy to be sure. But, it still felt authentic and a little bit sweet. While I may squirm a little , I can’t really argue with it. There are too many screwed up relationships out there to seriously criticize one on the basis of age difference.

I loved the scene where Isaac, Mary, Michael Murphy’s Yale, and Mariel Hemingway’s Tracy are walking down the street and Mary starts ripping on all the stuff that Allen likes (Mahler, Scott Fitzgerald, etc.). Then she can’t figure out why he likes Bergman whose view is so “Scandinavian” and “bleak” when the stuff he writes is so funny. Very meta.

In Lax’s Conversations, Woody says:

To the average person, my films might seem, for want of a better word, arty. And to people who know art, they don’t. So it’s a strange limbo I’ve lived in with my movies. They’ve been–I didn’t know what to say. Not commercial and not art and yet some accidentally are enjoyable and even profitable.

This sort of sums up how I see movies and even film criticism. Just watching those movies which academia deems to be excellent or just watching those with the highest grosses is highly limiting. Cinema is about challenging yourself andenjoying yourself. You need your Apatows and your Antonionis.

I’m in the midst of a bit of a Woody Allen kick. It started a couple of weeks ago after watching Annie Hall (1977) on television. I’d seen it a couple of years earlier and loved it even more on this second viewing. The Marshall McLuhan scene is enough to hook me. I can’t imagine a comedy film today being brave or confident or stupid enough to reference McLuhan. Or for that matter, convincing someone of his stature to even appear in the film. Maybe I’m wrong.

A week or so later, I watched Interiors (1978) for the first time. This was such a change of pace. I hadn’t thought he’d done such somber films until much more recently. I liked it quite a bit, but I wasn’t sure if it was just because it was so different from what I expected out of a Woody Allen film or indeed if it could stand on its own. Needless to say, seeing such two different Allen films made we want to learn more. I went to the library and checked out a couple of books and a couple of Allen DVDs.

One of those DVDs I checked out was Bananas (1971). Talk about taking a U-turn after Interiors. This one is pure slapstick. It’s a gag-a-second without much of a plot. But still quite funny.

After Bananas, I read The Films of Woody Allenby Sam Girgus. I found the book to be quite enjoyable even if it can be a bit academic. While I knew what diegesis meant from Film Art, I had to run to Google to figure out histoire. It’s got to be French-y for it to be real film criticism. Anyways, it was interesting to read Girgus’ take on Woody in regards to psychoanalysis, his Woody Allen character/persona, and feminism. Of course, the perceptions of all three of these aspects can be fundamentally altered by the tabloid coverage of Allen’s personal life (which, admittedly, I only know roughly and care about even less).

Now I’m in the middle of Conversation with Woody Allenby Eric Lax. It’s a book of interviews spanning from 1971 thru 2007 that revolves around Woody’s moviemaking process. It’s neither a definitive biography nor an exhaustive study of the films. But, it is still an engaging read for an amateur film student like myself.

Reading through the book, I’m drawn towards the side of Allen that makes him private or even anti-social. I can certainly relate. Okay, maybe he’s not anti-social. As Woody says in the book: “I’m not anti-social; I’m just not social.”

I’m also drawn towards the “literary” side of Allen. I don’t relate in that regard so much as I kind of aspire. And of course I’m intrigued by the balance between that and say the Knicks. It’s pretentious without being pretentious in a way. It’s sneakers and a tweed jacket. Then, of course, given my own lack of religious belief, I’m extremely interested in his thoughts concerning a godless universe and how they play out in his films (which was also my initial reason for checking out some of Bergman’s films).

From a February 2006 conversation, Woody talks with Lax about the themes of Match Point. He mentions a Catholic priest who wrote about the movie but assumed wrongly “if, as I say, life is meaningless and chaos and random, then anything goes and nothing has any meaning and one action is as good as the next.” Instead Woody doesn’t think everything is hopeless in such a world:

If you acknowledge the awful truth of human existence and choose to be a decent human being in the face of it rather than lie to yourself that there’s going to be some heavenly reward or some punishment, it seems to me more noble.

He talks about how a priest-philosopher from St. John’s University described the film as “the most atheistic film ever made.” The absence of God is not trivial, in fact it really does matter:

To me it’s a damn shame that the universe doesn’t have any God or meaning, and yet only when you can accept that can you then go on to lead what these people call a Christian life–that is, a decent, moral life. You can only lead it if you acknowledge what you’re up against to begin with and shuck off all the fairy tales that lead you to make choices in life that you’re making not really for moral reasons but for taking down a big score in the afterlife.

I haven’t seen Match Point since it came out on DVD, but I’m going to have to check it out again sometime soon. I’ve still got Hannah & Her Sisters at home to watch. And, then Manhattan, Sleeper, and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex…are at the top of my Netflix queue.

More to come.