Woody II
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.
One thing I really appreciate about Allen’s films is that I think most, if not all, of the ones we’ve seen so far have passed the Bechdel Test:
1. There must be at least two female characters,
2. Who talk to each other,
3. About something besides a man.
With that being said, I do have a criticism…and it’s fuuny that you should mention Judd Apatow. Like Apatow, Allen films always seem to have the relatively schlubby guy who attracts the hot women. I get the whole male wish-fulfillment fantasy thing, and I have nothing against schlubby guys…but until the day we see movies in which the average woman scores an amazing man, I’m going to consider the whole thing vaguely sexist.
So, what would be some examples of casting choices for the “average woman” and the “amazing man”? Which actors would fit those roles? And I wonder if the look of the “average woman” and/or the “amazing man” changes depending on if it’s a Hollywood or independent film audience.
I think it’s telling that I’m finding it pretty impossible to come up with a female equivalent of Seth Rogen or Jonah Hill (or any of those male sitcom dudes with the impossibly gorgeous wives).
The closest I can get is someone who might be considered “quirky-cute” or “unconventionally attractive” rather than stereotypically “hot.” Someone like Maggie Gyllenhaal, I suppose. Or else, an older woman like Kathy Bates. That’s all I got.
As for the “amazing man,” I don’t know. Who would be the male version of arm candy? Josh Hartnett? Colin Farrell? George Clooney? Christian Bale?
I suppose Maggie Gyllenhaal did hook up with Christian Bale in The Dark Knight…
D’oh! Of course I know she hooked up with Aaron Eckhart, and was just Bale’s ex.
I still don’t consider Gyllenhaal in the same ballpark as Rogen, though.