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(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
Woody Allen (born Allen Konigsberg in 1935) was
a stand-up comedian and a contributor to sitcom scripts before debuting
as a playwright with "Don't Drink the Water" (1966)
and "Play It Again Sam" (1969).
Allen scripted What's New, Pussycat? (1965), directed by
Clive Donner, a wild sexual farce.
Michael tries desperately to remain faithful to his fiancee Carole (Schneider), but he is unable to give up the many women who fall in love with him, particularly Renee (Capucine). He then turns to the psychoanalyst Fritz (Sellers), who is himself, however, a sexually frustrated man who himself falls in love with all his patients, but has to deal with a fat wife dressed as a Valkyrie.
Viktor (Allen) is a shy, introverted friend of Michael's who is equally quick with the ladies. Every year, for his birthday, Viktor rents a tailcoat and goes to dine by the river, alone, bringing his own food and table. This time he meets the madman Fritz who, wrapped in a flag, is about to commit suicide. Viktor, discovering that Fritz is a psychoanalyst, confesses to him that he has emotional disorders and asks him to psychoanalyze him. Fritz agrees, somewhat vexed.
Viktor buys a sports car with which he wreaks havoc.
Rita (Andress) is a parachutist who crashes into Michael's car as he is driving to the hotel. Everyone ends up in the same hotel for one reason or another.
Rita crawls naked into Michael's bed, but Michael once again resists.
Fritz chases a woman, but is pursued by his Valkyrie wife.
Allen is in bed with another victim.
Renee` is chased by her jealous husband.
Pandemonium breaks out.
Carole finally arrives too, just as all the girls converge on her room.
When the police burst in, they use the Valkyrie as a battering ram and all escape on go-karts, still pursued by the police.
Michael and Carole can finally get married.
What's Up Tiger Lily? (1966) is a spoof of secret-agent thrillers,
a very minor (and not funny) movie that wastes an original idea:
A critic interviews Woody Allen (impersonating himself), who was hired by Hollywood to make the ultimate spy movie. He explains that he took a Japanese movie
with Japanese actors speaking Japanese and overdubbed their voices, completely
changing the story. He also rearranged the scenes and added new scenes with
USA actors.
Secret agent Phil is making out with a girl near the walls of a prison,
when suddenly a girl jumps the wall and falls into his car. She takes off
with him inside. Realizing that he has nothing to do with her escape, the girl,
Suki,
wonders who arranged it. Phil is not the least upset and simply takes her
to his place to make love to her. However they are attacked and kidnapped
by a gang. When he wakes up, he finds himself in the palace of a sultan
who commissions him a deadly mission: to rescue the recipe for an egg salad
that is the secret to conquering the world. An evil man named Wong stole the
recipe from the sultan. The sultan assigns two sexy assistants to Phil, one
being the ex-convict Suki. Wong lives on a ship that has a casino, surrounded
by beautiful prostitutes. A rival, Wing, challenges Wong on the boat. He later
kidnaps Wong and one of the girls, and tortures them until they accept
to help him obtain the recipe. They send Suki to sleep with Wong
and crack the safe. The plan works and Wing and Phil obtain the recipe.
Once Wing obtains what he needs, he is ready to dispose of Phil and his two
sexy assistants.
Suddenly the movie freezes and two superimposed black figures, a man and
a woman, kiss.
The movie restarts to the point where Phil and the girls are about to be
killed. Wing sells the recipe to Wong, who tries to kill him but instead is
killed. Wing keeps the recipe, but Phil frees himself and shoots him.
Phil takes off on a plane with the recipe leaving the two girls behind.
Back to Allen's office, a girl that has never appeared in the film
performs a strip-tease while he is lying on the couch.
Allen explains that he had promised to let her act in the movie.
Take The Money (1969)
is shot in the style of a TV investigation with frequent interviews. The film is a relatively traditional comedy set on the misadventures of an inept.
Allen is a criminal, and the reportage reconstructs his childhood. During the
interview, the parents wear a mask so as not to be recognized.
Allen plays cello in the marching band, taking his chair with him on the street so he can sit while he plays. He becomes a street punk. Arrested, he tries to escape by making a soap gun, but it rains that night. He volunteers for an experiment that turns him into a rabbi and is pardoned. He rents an apartment (bathroom gag where water always gushes out from the most unlikely places). He courts the beautiful laundress, son of a military man and an alcoholic. He robs a bank, with a note that the tellers cannot read. Back in jail (shirt-folding machine gag). Accomplices postpone his escape plan without telling him anything. Finally out, he marries laundress and leads domestic life (kamasutra gag with cramp). He repeatedly attempts to kill the blackmailer (with the mini in the living room of her house, stabbing her with a chicken leg while kissing her).
Camouflaged as movie actors, Allen and his gang attempt to rob the bank (Allen tells the cops the plan, finds a camera in the bread, has to swallow the film to hide the evidence, another gang wants to rob the same bank, they vote to decide which bank to rob). Sentenced to hard labor, he and five cousins attempt to escape chained together. Arrested and sentenced to centuries in prison, Allen contemplates breaking out again using the soap gun trick.
Bananas (1971) contains hundreds of gags inspired by the repertory of
Chaplin, Laurel, Keaton and Marx.
A TV commentator broadcasts live the assassination of the dictator of a South American republic (he interviews both the corpse and the general who will become the new dictator), all as if it were taken for granted.
Allen is a worker in a factory building a device that will allow managers to exercise their muscles while sitting at their desks. His job is to test new products. He is a meek and generous person who does not have much luck with women. One day an attractive volunteer shows up at his home and asks him to sign a petition against that dictatorship. Allen falls in love with her: by day he checks the factory's products, by night he woos the girl. To the psychoanalyst he confesses childhood turmoil and a dream in which he is carried through the city streets on a crucifix by a group of monks.
The girl leaves him because she does not consider him a sufficient leader. He, desperate, decides to travel to the South American republic in her honor. In the republic they are torturing a rebel by making him listen to opera records. The president has the idea of having Allen killed and laying the blame on the rebels, but Allen is rescued by the rebels and transported to their camp. He then finds himself drafted into the rebel army. His training is punctuated with comic misadventures.
The revolution triumphs and the rebel leader becomes a dictator worse than the previous one. Allen is elected president and forced to travel to the U.S. for funding. There he finds the girl again, who throws herself into his arms. But the FBI is investigating his revolutionary activities. Arrested, tried, convicted, but he consoles himself by marrying the girl. The wedding is televised as if it were a boxing match.
Play It Again Sam (1972) is Allen's postmodernist masterpiece.
Through a parody of
the classic "Casablanca", Allen creates another portrait of a pathetic
everyman, lonely, failed, neurotic but with a heart of gold.
Allen is left by his wife after two years of marriage. Reason: Allen is an avid cinephile and neglects everything else. She, on the other hand, is in the mood for fun and goes off to Mexico. Allen is a Bogart buff and traces his arrogant and fatalistic style how much he deals with women. He is basically a landslide. In an attempt to cure him of the emotional trauma and find him another girlfriend he is helped by his businessman friend, who always thinks in terms of investments and the stock market and always has to phone his movements into the office, and by his wife. The woman, in particular, takes Allen's state of depression very much to heart. Since her husband neglects her, she spends hours on the phone with Allen. Allen, who is very shy, ruins all the plans concocted by his friends, but the woman gets a kick out of it.
When he thinks, instead of talking to himself, Allen imagines he is talking to Bogart and/or his wife, who appear before him. When his friend leaves on a business trip, Allen ends up falling in love with the sweet counselor friend. She, too, lonely and somewhat melancholy, seems to fit in. But he doesn't feel like betraying his best friend. A little champaign makes her even more consezient. She makes herself say gallant phrases (her husband never does), but when he, driven at last by subconscious Bogartianism, jumps on her, she flees at breakneck speed. He is panicked, but she returns and throws herself eagerly into his arms. Between dreams (all melodramatically Hollywood), Allen enjoys the triumph.
The husband senses that he has been betrayed and tries to figure out who the rival is but does not suspect Allen in the least. A crisis breaks out between the couple. He decides to leave again, she chases him to the airport, Allen chases her, full of remorse, to tell her it is all over. But when he catches up with her, she, though very sweet and smiling, is perfectly fine with it, not feeling up to breaking up the marriage. The whole thing unfolds in perfect Casablanca style (fog at the airport, plane leaving in the background, tear-jerking music). Allen Le also finds an alibi to clear her name with her husband, and the couple leaves together. Allen bids farewell to the Borgartian subconscious and leaves alone in the fog.
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex but Were Afraid to Ask (1972) is a collection of seven unrelated skits, none of which is particularly
funny or revealing. The titles of the episodes are provocative but have little
to do with the episodes themselves.
At the end of a banquet the king summons the fool (Woody Allen). Simulating
modern stand-up comedy, the fool fails to make the king laugh.
Incited by the ghost of his father, the fool decides to make love to the queen.
He has the sorcerer prepare an aphrodisiac that turns the queen on. However,
it takes them forever to open the chastity belt, by which time the king is
coming, also horny. As they try to restore the chastity belt, the fool's hand
gets stuck in it, a fact that costs him his head.
A man asks his doctor for help not because he had sex with a sheep but because
the ship doesn't love him anymore. The doctor falls in love himself with the
sheep and has a romantic night with her. When he gets home, he is exhausted.
Eventually he is caught in the act. His wife divorces. He loses his job.
He becomes a waiter, but happy to live with his sheep. One day the original
lover of the sheep finds his place and takes the sheep away. The former doctor
becomes an alcoholic.
And so forth.
Sleeper (1973) is a picaresque slapstick movie. Following Tati and Chaplin, Allen fights the de-humanizing technology, and like them he is a helpless
victim of progress. Several of the slapstick scenes are accompanied with ragtime music of the 1920s. The film is also a satire of snobbish intellectuals.
It benefits from the sparkling dialogues between Allen and (an enchanting) Keaton.
It's tour de force of gags and jokes.
Allen was hospitalized for a simple operation, but awakens centuries later in a laboratory. Two doctors awaken him from hibernation by transgressing the regime's orders. Allen takes a while to recover, for a few hours he spins around like a top performing all sorts of unconscionable acts. If the regime discovered their misdeed, it would kill them and simplify Allen's brain (My brain is my second favorite organ). The doctors are interested in finding out as much as possible about the past, but Allen provides absurd information about the 20th century (Charles DeGaulle famous French chef). At lunch with the couple he discovers that the servants have been replaced by robots.
Everyone has an identity that is tightly controlled. The two doctors belong to an underground revolutionary movement. To investigate a secret project of the tyrant, the doctors need someone who has no identity. For this reason they bring Allen back to life. The police break in, however, and arrest the two doctors. Allen manages to escape (he tries to take off by hanging from a propeller but gets caught in the branches of a tree), hiding inside a robot van. On the way he disguises himself as a robot.
He is dropped off at the home of the woman (Diane Keaton) who requested him. The woman instructs him to prepare dinner for her party guests. But then she takes him to the mechanic for them to change his head. Allen unleashes pandemonium by disentangling himself from dozens of mechanics, then confronts Keaton and tries to explain the truth to her within seconds, but she screams and he is forced to kidnap her. Keaton tries to fight back and at the first opportunity informs the police of their location. When the police arrive, he manages to escape but she is arrested to be reprogrammed. Allen frees her and this time she cooperates in the escape.
Keaton has a degree in sex and would like to make love to Allen, but his uninhibited ways embarrass him (everyone in the new world is frigid, minus those of Italian descent). The police arrive, however, and capture Allen and deliver him to the lab for brainwashing (Allen is converted into a Miss America).
Keaton meanwhile tries to survive the Tarzan in the forest until she is captured by the Resistance and converted to the Communist cause. When she finally succeeds in freeing him, he now remembers nothing, not even her. Cured, he becomes jealous of the leader with whom Keaton has fallen in love. Allen and Keaton penetrate the regime's science centers to carry out their mission. They thus discover that the tyrant has died in an assassination attempt but from his nose the biologists hope to obtain a clone of the deceased. The two, clumsy and quarrelsome, take the place of the biologists and, in front of an incompetent audience (great comedy show in the operating room) kidnap the nose and, holding it as a hostage at gunpoint, attempt to escape.
Having destroyed the nose, the anarchic Allen, who also considers the leader of the Resistance as belonging to the same category as the dictator (he is only a future nose for Allen), manages to conquer the girl.
Love And Death (1975) is a satire and parody of Russian novels,
at times funny, but mostly amateurish and slow. It feels like a minor
Groucho Marx movie.
Boris, condemned to death for a crime he has not committed, remembers his
childhood (his idiot father, his early encounter with death) and his youth.
His gorgeous and intellectual cousin Sonja was in love with his brother Ivan
and married an old merchant when Ivan decided to marry another woman.
The coward Boris was forced by his family and friend to join the army when
Napoleon invaded (comic scenes of his training in the Russian army, under the
command of... an African-american official).
In the meantime, the married Sonja has an affair with a musician. And by the
time Boris meets her again, at an opera, Sonja has had a long string of affairs,
but she's still thinking of Ivan.
Boris' platoon marches to the front through fields of dead bodies...
only 14 survive.
Boris hides in a cannon and is shot to the tent of the French generals,
thereby winning the battle. Ivan dies.
In the meantime, Sonja's husband accidentally kills himself.
Boris returns a hero and is seduced by a sexy aristocrat. Her fiance` challenges
Boris to a duel and Boris, sure of dying, begs Sonja for a night of sex, which
Sonja, sure of his being as good as dead, concedes and even promises to marry
him if he survives. Boris wins the duel and Sonja becomes his wife.
Boris starts a new life as a wealthy burgeois, but war erupts again and Napoleon
occupies Moscow.
In order to save their lifestyle, Sonja proposes to murder Napoleon.
Boris and Sonja replace two spanish emissaries on their way to visit Napoleon
and manage to enter the building. Sonja seduces Napoleon and Boris has a chance
to shoot him, but neither finds the courage to pull the trigger. Somebody else
does and Boris is arrested for it, while Sonja manages to escape.
An angel appears to him in jail promising a miracle but Boris is shot for real.
Annie Hall (1977) is a romantic comedy and is the film that
elevates to supreme art Allen's neurotic character. It is also
the film in which Allen develops creative techniques of montage creative: it
is shot in an amateurish style, almost documentary, like a
reportage.
In the first soliloquy Allen psychoanalyzes himself and his failing love life. Growing up under the Cyclone flying eight in Coney Island , he was already molesting female classmates at school (you can see him as an adult between desks defending him as a child in front of the teacher). Interviews, cinema verite`. Allen chats about himself with a friend. In movie theater queue with aspiring actress (Keaton) with whom he has sexual problems (in foreground he converses with viewer). Fights with a person who makes loud comments. He fails to make love to a girl he meets on an audition set. He`s divorced. He relives his awkward encounter with the aspiring actress at a tennis match. After accepting a ride from her, a very rough driver, he converses with her about art but the subtitles reveal what they`re really thinking (the love game). Keaton sings in a nightclub, but is a landslide. Even on their first night together they are as polite as they are awkward.
Arguments and
difficulty making love
in bed ensue. Recital of him making people laugh with depressing stories. Jealousy scene of him in the street. Interviews passersby on the subject of sex. Even a cartoon of him and the evil queen from Snow White. He sleeps with someone else, but at 3 a.m. Keaton phones him and makes him run to her for an emergency: a spider in the bathroom. Allen's fierce struggle with the spider. Keaton cries slumped in a corner and confesses that she needs him. They make love. They return with the friend to visit his childhood home next to the flying coaster. Parallel sessions of Keaton and Allen with their respective psychiatrists (half a screen each). Terrified, Allen feigns illness to stay off the air. Party of showmen. They decide to separate. A few days later he proposes marriage, but she now has fun (party, friends) and wants no part of getting back with someone as depressed as him. Nervously, Allen causes an accident, insults an officer, and ends up in jail. He meets her again some time later, they have fun, say goodbye. Actually he is fond, needs stable affection, and remembers with nostalgia everything they did together.
Interiors (1978) is a serious family drama that pays tribute to Ingmar Bergman.
The problem is that the story is rather aimless. There is lot of talking but
little substance. It just sounds pointless.
An elderly man and some young women stare through the window at three little
girls playing on the beach.
Eve, a successful interior designer, walks into the house of her daughter
Joey and her son-in-law Michael. Eve has been arranging and rearranging the
furniture of their house. Joey tells Michael that they have to understand her
because she is sick.
Quietly sitting in an armchair and smoking a cigarette as if talking to a psychiatrist,
the elder sister, Renata (Diane Keaton), a writer married to Frederick, also
a writer but rather a failure,
re-lives how their father Arthur decided to leave Eve, and Eve's
nervous breakdown.
Joey tells Michael, a political activist, that she is quitting her job and
may go back to acting.
The third daughter, Flyn, is a fledging television actress.
Renata and Frederick argue about nothing.
Eve tries to commit suicide and Arthur tells Renata that she has to go back
to the sanatorium.
Joey and Renata argue about mother. Back at home Renata cannot write: she is
suffering from writer's block. They have a child.
Joey is pregnant but doesn't want the child. Mike would like it, but tries
to understand her.
Arthus comes back from a trip to Greece with a lively woman, Pearl,
who has been married twice. Renata and Joey and their husbands welcome them.
Renata is willing to support her father, but Joey is angry and disappointed,
and much more attached to her mother, who still hopes in a reconciliation.
Arthus goes on to meet Eve in a church and asks her to finalize their divorce.
She reacts by making a scene.
At the next meeting with Pearl there is also Flyn. Renata and Flyn then take
a walk on the beach. Renata feels she is getting old. She remains alone on
the beach and starts crying.
Joey finally gives her approval and Arthur can marry his love. At the wedding
celebration, though, Joey snaps and yells at her new mother-in-law.
Fredrick tries to make love to Flyn, who has been sniffing cocaine.
At night Joey sits outside the room where Arthur and Pearl are making love.
She hears steps. Her mother walks in. They talk briefly. Then Eve walks
outside on the beach towards the waves
while Joey keeps talking. Pearl wakes up. Realizing that her mother has
disappeared, Joey runs out towards the beach and jumps into the waves.
HEr husband Mike pulls her out in time, and Pearl herself brings her back to
life with artificial respiration.
At Eve's funeral the three sisters and Arthur pay tribute to their mother.
Manhattan (1979) is a subtle comedy, a tale of lust
that focuses on the romance between a middle-aged man and a high-school girl.
Filmed in black and white with a manic attention to photography,
it is also a love letter to Allen's favorite city.
In the introduction, Isaac (Woody Allen) is a 42-yearl old writer
who is trying to write a tribute to Manhattan (the photography indulges in
scenes of daily life).
In the next scene Isaac is having dinner with his best friend Yale and his
wife, introducing his new girlfriend, Tracy (Mariel Hemingway), a 17-year old
high-school girl, to them.
When they leave the restaurant, Yale and Isaac walk together and chat. Yale
confesses his marriage is very unhappy and he has met a journalist,
Mary (Diane Keaton).
Isaac's former wife, Jill (Meryl Streep), is a lesbian writer. Isaac chases her
in the street, panicking because he heard the rumour that she is writing
a novel about their break-up and love life.
Isaac doesn't feel comfortable with Tracy. He doesn't see a future for them
and is, basically, trying to talk her into leaving him.
At the museum, Isaac and Tracy meet Yale with his lover, Mary.
Isaac has an argument with the talkative and haughty Mary, who emphasizes
that she is from another city and has a more traditional and conservative
view of life.
In a burst of anger, Isaac quits his regular job as a tv scriptwriter.
For a few seconds
he feels like a hero, but then realizes that he doesn't have the money to pay
for two alimonies and his life style.
At a cocktail party, Isaac meets Mary again, and, again, they get on each
other's nerves. They leave the party together and discuss each other's
divorces. Isaac tells Mary how his second wife left her for a woman and his
son is being raised by two women. Suddenly, they become best friends and
spend the night chatting about everything and enjoying the views of Manhattan,
particularly their sex lives (Mary is unhappy of being involved in an
extra-marital affair) and his ambition to write a book on Manhattan.
As they keep seeing each other, Isaac and Mary become more and more frustrated
with their respective relationships. Isaac urges his teenage girlfriend to move
to England to study and Mary vents her frustration with Yale.
Mary sees herself as young, beautiful and intelligent, and in her culture
a woman of that kind deserves better than to be the secret lover of a married
man.
Yale, convinced that he has no future with Mary, talks Isaac into stealing
her from him. Isaac, in turn, tells Tracy that he is in love with someone older.
The fling between Isaac and Mary proceeds with Yale's blessing. They even
take a walk with Yale and his wife.
In the meantime, Jill's book has come out and, despite Isaac's protests,
she is considering selling it to Hollywood.
The separation helps Yale and Mary find out what they feel and want. They
decide that they still love each other. Yale is willing to leave his wife.
Mary tells Isaac that she wants to go back to Yale. Isaac, who has now lost
Tracy, is shocked.
Now Isaac would like to return to Tracy, but she is about to leave for England
and he fails to talk her out of it.
Stardust Memories (1980) is a philosophical treatise with which
Allen attempts to clarify his own existential crisis, but the film is too
verbose and erratic.
The dialogue are deeper than Allen can afford.
The final ravings about the meaning of life are not even parodistic; they are simply amateurish. It's an autobiographical and anarchic film like Fellini's 8 1/2, but without Fellini's surreal poetry.
We only hear
the ticking of a clock. Allen is in a shabby train and the other passengers are silent. Through the window Allen sees another train in which nobles and officers and beautiful girls are traveling. Allen tries in vain to get out of his train: all the doors and windows are locked. The train stops at a public dump, which the passengers always visit in silence.
The film ends. It was a film. Some critics argue about the director. They are dismayed: the director no longer knows how to make people laugh. And it is the truth: Allen is going through a crisis in which he sees only people's suffering and refuses to make a comedy film. But critics and audiences expect comic films instead.
Allen is a celebrated director who has been invited to attend a retrospective of his films and participate in debates. At those press conferences Allen invariably triumphs with his sarcastic humor.
Allen goes from one woman to another with ease, professing his love to all of them. He flirts with his girlfriend and co-star's teenage cousin, and she makes a scene for him. At the same time an old French friend who has just separated from her husband but has two children shows up.
Reporters keep interviewing him everywhere. He is obsessed with the suffering of humanity and the contradiction of having to make people laugh. Exasperated, he even rejects his women. He imagines a fan shooting him at point-blank range and holding his last press conference when he is dead.
A film screening ends, and once again we see mostly critics and fans discussing the film, arguing about him, giving interpretations. The film closes in the deserted theater, with Allen looking at the big screen still gripped by his doubts.
Allen returned to the stage with the mediocre play "The Floating Light Bulb" (1981).
A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982) is a minor farce, loosely based on the Ingmar Bergman's Smiles of a Summer's Night and Jean Renoir's Rules of the Game.
At the beginning of the 21st century, a pompous philosophy professor, Leopold,
reproaches his students for believing in the
supernatural. Then he meets journalists and fans who are curious about his
decision to get married at his late age with the gorgeous and young
Ariel (Mia Farrow). The couple is planning to spend the eve of their wedding
in the country at the weekend house of Leopold's cousin Adrian.
She is married with a humble accountant, Andrew (Woody Allen), who is also a part-time eccentric inventor.
Maxwell is a doctor who is mainly specializes in seducing women.
His latest conquest asks him for a break because her
husband is beginning to realize that there's nothing wrong with her.
Maxwell simply turns to another woman, his sweet and naive nurse Dulcy, and invites her
to spend the weekend with him, as his best friend Andrew invited him.
In the country house
Andrew and Adrian cannot have sex anymore, and Adrian blames herself. When she
tells Andrew the name of Leopold's fiance, Andrew is shocked.
Maxwell and Dulcy arrive while Andrew is testing his new flying machine (that
inevitably crashes in the woods).
Alone with Andrew, Maxwell explains that he never found the one woman who would
excite him enough to marry her, while Andrew reveals that he is desperate about
his sexual life with Adrian.
When Leopold and Ariel arrive, Ariel does not make a mystery that she used to
know Andrew and she is even familiar with the house. Adrian is hurt that Andrew
would pretend he didn't know this attractive woman. Maxwell is immediately
attracted to Ariel, while Dulcy is fascinated by the old scholar, Leopold
(who does not hesitate to insult Maxwell by telling everybody that Maxwell's
only book is terrible).
Ariel and Andrew chat about the past. It turns out that they didn't make love,
but now both regret it: Andrew because he later learned that Ariel was not
a virgin at all (he was misled by the fact that she was in a convent), and
Ariel because she now realizes that Andrew was the only man who could have
stopped her promiscuous lifestyle.
Maxwell proves that Leopold is just all pomp and no substance by swallowing
a mushroom that the philosopher recognized as poisonous. Then Maxwell tries
to kiss Ariel. He asks Andrew for help: Andrew will convince Ariel to a secret
meeting with him, Maxwell.
In the meantime, Leopold honestly admits his lusty feelings for Dulcy, who
listens to him flattered and understanding. She kindly accepts an invitation
to a secret meeting with the old man. While Andrew is fixing his flying machine,
his wife Adrian begs nurse Dulcy to teach her how to please her husband in bed.
Leopold therefore waits in vain for Dulcy to show up. It turns out that Maxwell
is waiting for Ariel in the same spot: Andrew is literally flying her to the
meeting after convincing her that she doesn't really want to marry the old boring Leopold.
Inevitably Leopold and Maxwell meet in the woods, while Andrew's flying machine
crashes in the river, so Ariel and Andrew have to walk back to the house
soaked wet.
Adrian tries to seduce Andrew the way Dulcy taught her but, just when she
aroused him, she feels ashamed and disgusted, leaving Andrew even more frustrated than before.
Andrew's other crazy invention is a sphere to evoke ghosts. They try it after
dinner and they manage to materialize a man and a woman that project the
various subconscious desires of the six.
Maxwell threatens to kill himself if Ariel goes through with the wedding,
and Ariel accepts to meet him at midnight. However, a jealous Andrew ruins
their meeting, and Maxwell returns to the house leaving them alone.
Leopold and Duncy wake up and find out that their respective partners are
out in the dark. Leopold confesses he was having an erotic dream about Duncy.
Just then Andrew's sphere starts working and projects the images of Andrew and
Ariel kissing. It is now morning. Andrew and Ariel made love but they are
feeling terrible about it. Leopold finds them and chases Andrew to kill him
with an arch. Instead he accidentally wounds Maxwell. Then Leopold returns
to the house and, feeling like the stone-age man he dreamed of, rapes
Duncy. Thinking that he is dying, Maxwell confesses to Andrew that the previous
summer he had sex with Adrian. Devastated,
Andrew walks home, grabs his pistol and confronts his wife.
Adrian candidly admits that she was aroused by Maxwell's attentions and
enjoyed the sex, and that's when she started hating sex with her husband.
Now she feels liberated and wants to make love to her husband.
In the meantime Ariel is taking care of Maxwell's wound, and Maxwell admits
that for the first time in his life he is in love.
Duncy screams: Leopold had a heart attack and is dead. Andrew's sphere explodes
and Leopold's spirit talks to them, happy that he has reached a higher dimension.
Zelig (1983) is a mock documentary about a chronic liar of the roaring twenties.
It is, first and foremost, a super recreation of cinematic quality of the
era (black and white, slightly too fast, blurred) and of the costumes of the
era, using fake interviews, fake footage and fake photographs (replete with
sonic and visual glitches).
It is also a massive spoof of American consumerism.
Interestingly, Allen himself is nothing but a face in the film: he is the
object, not the subject of the story.
Vintage footage shows famous characters and city life of the beginning of the
29th century, when a funny little man, Leonard Zelig, was impersonating
different people. The narrating voice describes odd incidents in which he turned
up in different guises.
Eventually he ran into psychologist Eudora, who got intrigued by the case.
He is capable of impersonating just about everybody with an incredible level
of resemblance.
He can turn into just about anybody.
In a psychiatric hospital, he starts behaving like a
psychiatrist, and then like the patients. Scientists are puzzled, and the
press speculates wildly about Zelig. The poor fellow is subjected to all
sorts of physiological and neurological experiments (including electrical
shocks), while hysterical masses blame him for all sorts of evils.
Eudora thinks that Zelig can be better cured by her and her fiance', and
assumes guardianship of him, who is thus released from the hospital.
Crowds gather to take a peek at the celebrated "human chameleon",
and souvenirs of all kinds are manufactured. Famous worldwide, he
tours the world.
Eudora continues her stubborn analysis of Zelig. He is such a chameleon that
he assumes her identity and pretends to be a doctor. She fools him by pretending
to be a fake doctor, and, sure enough, he admits that he is not a doctor.
Eventually, Eudora falls in love with him and marries him. The media publicize
the miracle of Zelig's healing. Unfortunately, several women reveal that
Zelig married them in one or another of his previous lives.
Humiliated, Zelig disappears. He is spotted all over the world, and eventually
Eudora finds him sitting next to Adolf Hitler. Zelig returns home
to a hero's welcome.
Broadway Danny Rose (1984)
is a nostalgic and somewhat pathetic comedy in which Allen is an idealist who sees talent in a crowd of failures.
Allen is a former performer who is now a theatrical agent for the variety world. Variety veterans, gathered around a table, recount his misadventures. One of his discoveries is Lou Canova, an Italian nightclub singer whom Allen restores trust and gets a contract for. But Lou has fallen in love with a blonde, Tina, the girlfriend of a Mafia boss and refuses to perform without her by his side, so Allen must chase her everywhere to convince her to return to Lou. Tina's man becomes convinced, however, that it is Allen who is courting Tina. His clan therefore decides to eliminate Allen. Allen and Tina are forced to flee across fields and rivers. She is actually an unscrupulous woman who has already introduced the singer to another impresario, and poor Allen, unfortunate and generous, had gone out of his way to save Lou's career. Kidnapped and threatened with death, the two get away with revealing that the real lover would be an (innocent) ventriloquist. While the goons are on the false trail, the pair manage to break free and catch up with the singer. Lou has gotten drunk out of desperation, but Allen and Tina manage to get him back on his feet so that he can do the show. But as soon as the show is successful TIna and Lou reveal to Allen that they intend to change managers. Allen comes out devastated: he cannot believe they could betray him like this, after all he has done and risked for them. Allen goes to visit the ventriloquist in the hospital, who does not even know why the goons beat him up. Despite her success and money, Tina is bored to death with Lou and eventually leaves him. Allen has invited his failed friends for a small party in his shabby apartment; Tina suddenly shows up and apologizes to him. Allen at first reacts coldly, then runs after her, in a rather pathetic ending.
The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) is a post-modernist puzzle and one
of Allen's most original scripts.
At another level it's the drama of a simple innocent woman who is tired
of ordinary life but doomed to be trapped in it forever.
During the Great Depression an absent-minded waitress, Cecilia (Mia Farrow),
works hard to pay the bills while her unemployed husband hangs out with his
friends. She loves movies, but her husband prefers to spend the evenings
drinking with the boys, so she has to go alone.
She watches "The Purple Rose Of Cairo", an exotic comedy about an explorer
who meets some socialites in Morocco and is convinced to move to New York.
When she gets home, she finds her husband with another woman and decides
to move out. But she has no place to come and a few hours later she is back.
The restaurant fires her because she keeps upsetting the patrons
and breaking plates. Her only consolation is
"The Purple Rose Of Cairo", where she can dream of another life.
Suddenly the explorer who is the protagonist of the film starts talking to
Cecilia from the large screen. Cecilia and all the other spectators are
shocked.
Tom the explorer physically walks out of the screen and into the theater,
creating panic among the public.
Tom has fallen in love with her and is trying to escape the wedding that
is planned for him in the movie. He needs to hide. While he runs away with
Cecilia, the other characters on the large screen complain that they cannot
continue the movie without him and end up bickering among themselves
and even insulting the audience.
They can't continue the story until Tom is found, so the characters need
the cooperation of the real people.
The theater can't turn the projector off for fear of leaving Tom stranded
into the real world.
The news spreads rapidly and the press seizes on the story.
The owner of the theater alerts the producer of the film.
In the meantime Cecilia finds excuses to leave the house and see Tom.
She envies that he lives in a world in which people do not get old and sick
and there are no wars and unemployment.
But she soon realizes the drawback: he tries to buy her dinner with money
that is not real money, and when he tries to drive a without the key.
The actor, Gil, who plays Tom is alerted too: the character loose in the real
world is de facto a double who could damage his career. Tom even has the exact
same fingerprints of the actor. Gil accidentally runs into Cecilia who thinks
he is Tom. Gil understands that she has met Tom and asks to be taken to him.
Tom has no intention of going back to the movie because he loves Cecilia.
Gil tries to explain to Cecilia that Tom is not real. But Cecilia thinks
he is the perfect man, real or not real.
Cecilia's husband learns that his wife is fooling around with an oddly-dressed
stranger. He finds them in a church and beats Tom up, but Tom is fictional
and doesn't get hurt. Cecilia refuses to follow her husband.
She is then romanced by Gil, who offers to take her to Hollywood.
Now she is very confused: a married woman, in love with a fictional character
and desired by a Hollywood actor.
In the meantime Tom meets a prostitute who takes him to her brothel.
He doesn't know what it is but, when he finds out, he refuses to have sex
with any other woman.
The executives of the Hollywood studio that made "The Purple Rose Of Cairo"
are terrified because more Tom characters have tried to leave the screen
in several other theaters. They decide that the wise course of action is
to destroy the film. They will keep one copy until Tom is found. When they
find him, they will send him back to the movie, and then turn the projector
off and burn the reel and the negative.
Tom takes Cecilia to the movie theater. He wants to introduce her to the other
characters of "The Purple Rose Of Cairo". He walks back into the movie and
takes Cecilia with him. Now the situation is inverted: a real-world person has
entered a movie. Tom takes Cecilia to the fantastic night-club that is
featured in the movie. Gil is surprised to see her on screen and declares
his love for her. Tom and Cecilia walk out of the movie again.
The two men compete for the simple Cecilia, who used to have no love.
She chooses the real man over the fictional character.
Tom, devastated, walks back into the movie.
Cecilia runs home to pack her stuff and tells her husband she's going
to Hollywood. But Gil leaves without her. Cecilia realizes that Gil had
only pretended to love her. Gil's only goal was to have Tom walk back into
the movie, so that he, Gil, could resume his career. Tom was the man who
truly loved her. Cecilia has chosen the wrong man.
She walks into the same movie theater where a Fred Astaire movie is
playing. She smiles at the screen.
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
is a fresco of family dramas that revolve around a sweet and ordinary woman.
The male narrating voice, Elliot's (Michael Caine), confesses that he's madly in love with a beautiful woman, Lee, who happens to be the sister of his wife Hannah (Mia Farrow). Hannah's sister Holly, a former cocaine addict, borrows a lot of money from Hannah to start a catering business. Hannah's whole family has gathered for a holiday dinner. Lee is unemployed and not sure what to do with her life. We learn that Hannah was previously married to a Mickey. We learn that Hannah's old parents Norma and Evan both have successful acting careers. On the way home we hear Hannah's thoughts: she knows that Elliot has a crush on her. Lee lives with her much older boyfriend, Frederick, who didn't attend the dinner because he doesn't like to mix with people.
We then see Hannah's ex-husband Mickey (Woody Allen) in the chaotic television studio where he works.
He is a writer and everybody seems to think he's a troublemaker because of the
thorny subjects he tackles.
Mickey visits Hannah to celebrate the birthday of their twin children.
Mickey is hypochondriac: he is convinced that he is sick and, after calling a specialist, fears that he has a brain tumor.
Holly opens a catering business with her friend April.
They meet a handsome architect, David, who gives them an architectural tour.
We hear Holly's thoughts: she's jealous of April whom David seems to prefer.
Elliot stalks Lee and pretends to run into her by accident.
Lee used to be an alcoholic and still attends the meetings of alcoholics.
She invites Elliot to join her and Elliot accepts enthusiastically.
Mickey undergoes medical tests and the result is not conclusive.
He panics and can't sleep.
He then reminisces about the time that a doctor diagnosed that he couldn't
have children and Hannah started thinking about artificial insemination,
so we realize that the twins are not his biological children.
A flashback shows Mickey and Hannah asking a male friend to provide the sperm.
David invites Holly to the opera.
Elliot brings a rich art collector, Dusty, to see Frederick's paintings.
While Frederick upsets the customer, Elliot tries to tell Lee that he loves
her but he's too clumsy.
Elliot pretends that his married life is falling apart, but Lee knows that her sister Hannah is perfectly happy. Nonetheless, Lee admits that she likes Elliot.
She just doesn't want to be the cause of Hannah's breakup.
Meanwhile, Hannah has to take care of her parents, who are arguing: Evan is
upset that Norma keeps drinking, and Norma complains that Evan sabotages her
career.
Mickey undergoes another medical test that conclusively rules out cancer.
Instead of being happy, Mickey has an existential crisis because now he realizes
that he has to... live.
Mickey and Lee start an affair. Lee says that she feels guilty of betraying her sister Hannah but actually doesn't fight it.
Lee is tired of Frederick's condescending attitude despite the fact that she learns so much from him about everything. She tells Frederick that she wants to move out even though she has no job and nowhere to go.
He guesses that she met someone else and she has to confess.
Elliot instead feels guilty when he gets home to Hannah.
Mickey wanders around the city pondering how meaningless life is.
He reminisces of when Hannah tried to set him up with her sister Holly, but
they hate each other after a date in which
he doesn't like the punk-rock that she likes and
she gets bored and sniffs cocaine at his favorite jazz club.
Hannah tells Elliot that she would like to have a child from him
and he gets very angry leaving her puzzle.
Hannah then meets Holly who is nervous about a singing audition for a musical.
April is auditioning for the same part and is a much better singer.
So now Holly is jealous of April even professionally.
Worse: Holly thought that David was interested in her, but next he invites April to the opera.
Mickey decides to convert to Catholicism. His Jewish parents are shocked and outraged.
The three sisters met for lunch.
Holly has failed another audition and wants to borrow more money to start a new
career as a writer.
Hannah and Lee are obviously skeptic about Holly's chances as a writer,
but only Hannah speaks up and Holly resents her.
Elliot sees a psychologist and explains that he can't find the courage to leave Hannah.
Mickey is disappointed in Catholicism and toys with joining a "Hari Krishna" cult.
Some times later Holly calls Hannah to tell her that she finished a script and met a guy at college.
The family gathers again for the yearly holiday dinner.
Hannah is furious with Holly because Holly's script is about... Hannah and Elliot.
Furthermore, Holly wrote details that she learned from Lee and Hannah can't figure out how Lee would know them.
Lee, tired of waiting for Elliot to break up with Hannah, tells him that she met another man and wants to break up.
And Hannah is confronting Elliot about his hostile behavior towards her: she can't figure out what she's done wrong to deserve it. Hannah is the one who cares for everybody.
At night Elliot calms down and makes love to her.
Mickey runs into Holly and they joke about their horrible date of years earlier.
Holly tells Mickey that she threw away her first script because Hannah didn't like it and she has finished a second one, which Mickey is suddenly interested
in reading. Holly reads the whole script to him: it is based on her own life.
Mickey loves it and offers to help her getting it accepted at the TV studio.
They go on a second date.
Mickey tells her that he almost killed himself, terrified of living in a godless universe, except that he panicked and the gun went off in the wrong direction. He then walked randomly into
a movie theater that was showing
Marx Brothers' manic farce "Duck Soup" and that healed his existential crisis.
At the yearly holiday dinner Elliot stares at Lee who is now married to an academic, but he has now realized that it is Hannah he really loves. He hugs his sweet Hannah as the family reunites. Mickey is now part of the family again: he
married Holly and she tells him that she is pregnant.
Woody Allen did not star in Radio Days (1987) but narrated it.
It is ostensibly one of his most autobiographical films, in that it re-lives
the age of his childhood through popular radio show. It is a sort of
Fellini-an sequence of nostalgic panels
(replete with a sexy plump teacher reminiscent of Fellini's country women).
The first scene is merely a joke to introduce the era: two burglars who just
broke into a house pick up the phone that is ringing and are asked to guess
three tunes by the radio host, and, when they successfully do, they celebrate
their triumph, except that the prize will be delivered to the (very surprised)
owner of the house. Then Allen introduces himself as a child, his parents,
his uncle and aunt who live next door, and his younger spinster aunt who
lives with them. The parade of episodes include the spinster going on a date
with a middle-aged man who abandons her in the middle of nowhere when he hears
on the radio Orson Wells' fake report of a Martian invasion, but also includes
too many stale jokes.
Each member of the family had a favorite radio show, a fact which inspire
more reminiscences. A story in several episodes is the story of Sally, initially
an easy cigarette girl at a night club, then a coat check girl who accidentally
witnesses a murder by the mob and has to convince the mother of the killer
that she is not worth being killed, and finally a Broadway star thanks to
her lovers.
September (1987), one of Allen's "serious" films,
is a kammerspiel that takes place entirely in a country
house during a 24-hour period at the end of summer.
It is a multiple character study, all (six) not-young-anymore characters
having something in common: they love and are not loved back.
Unfortunately most of the conversation is as boring as the characters
themselves, who don't seem to have anything else in life than dig their
own graves.
The house's owner, Lane (Mia Farrow), is an insecure and neurotic middle-aged
single woman who is
still recovering from psychological scars left by terrible events. She mentions
when, still a teenager, she killed her mother's lover. She has been recovering
from a nervous breakdown and suicide attempt, with the only company of
Howard, a neighbor.
Her mother Diane, a former sex symbol (she used to be into the show business),
is just the opposite: selfish, assertive and intrusive.
Her current husband Lloyd used to be a fan of hers.
Lane's mother is so hurt by Lane's hatred for her that she invokes the ghost
of Lane's father to intercede between them.
Lane is attracted to Peter, a handsome and gentleman-like business man who has
rented a nearby house to to write a novel, but he is instead attracted to
Stephanie, Lane's best friend, who has come to visit her. Stephanie is married
with children, and, while her marriage is not very happy, she is shocked by
Peter's love declaration. Stephanie knows that her best friend Lane has a
crush on Peter, and this makes it even more difficult. Peter is aggressive
and possessive. When Lane sees them in what appears to be an intimate embrace,
she realizes that Peter never had any interest in her and feels betrayed by
Stephanie.
Lane is selling the house because she needs money to pay for her medical
bills. But she learns abruptly that Diane and her husband have decided to
move into the house. Faced with her mother's insensitivity, Lane snaps
and shouts, in front of everybody, that she did not pull the trigger:
her mother did. Lane gets suicidal again, but Stephanie knows her well enough
to prevent any rash action.
Summer is over, and the weekend is over. It is time for the guests to return
to their cities. Diane agrees to let Lane live in the house. Stephanie
proves to still be a good friend.
Allen does not feature in the existential drama Another Woman (1988), a character study
that would better suit Ingmar Berman's Wild Strawberries
than Allen's own comedies.
The film relies on a complex plot, whose complexity feels a bit gratuitous.
He feels compelled to throw in all sorts of catastrophes in the lives of many
unhappy characters in order to get to an elusive point about the temper of
the protagonist. And the ending is either too simplistic (the woman was too
attached to her career to care for the others and now nobody cares for her)
or doesn't quite follow from that massacre of psyches (a father who didn't love
his wife, a brother who is a failure and is being divorced, a husband who cheats
on her, a former husband who killed himself, a best friend who is neurotic,
an admirer who plots behind the back of his best friend).
The film is set among the upper middle-class society. Their dinners and parties
feel tedious and obnoxious. They all look artificial and doomed to loneliness.
Even when mired in tragedy, Allen manages to build the film around a "comic"
element: the deus ex machina of this film is actually an air vent, and the voice
that one can hear through it.
Listening to another woman's confessions unleashes a massive mid-life crisis in Marion, who slowly begins to understand what her life has truly been.
As her certainties unravel, she is left with only regrets.
The narrator and protagonist, Marion (Gena Rowlands), is a well-organized and successful
middle-aged woman, a professor of philosophy married to a physician, Ken, who has a
teenage daughter (from a previous marriage). She has just rented
an apartment to have a quiet place to concentrate on her new book.
Unfortunately, the walls are thin and the adjacent apartment is the office
of a psychiatrist: she can hear his patients confess their frustrations.
Marion's social life is quite formal. She has a lot of friends but she mainly
meets them at cocktail parties. She is in full control but she hardly fits with,
for example, the couple who tells the guests an anecdote about having sex on
the living-room floor.
Marion's sister-in-law is going through a divorce and needs money, but Marion has no
time for her because she needs discipline to write her book.
At another party she is confronted by an admirer, novelist Larry,
who is still passionate about her.
Instead, she married a cold, uninteresting doctor who does not seem to
really care for her. During the party his ex wife shows up and makes a scene,
denouncing his heartless and unfaithful nature (he was cheating on her with
Marion while his wife was at the hospital having her ovaries removed).
At a dinner with her father and her daughter, Marion goes over the album of
photographs and a flashback shows how her brother had to sacrifice his
derams and take a boring job so that
Marion could go to college and get the degree she is so proud of.
Marion was always the genius of the family, and Paul the silly dreamer wasting
his time on pointless hobbies.
One evening she runs into her girlhood friend Claire, who hardly seems happy
to see her. Claire has become a famous actress.
As they have a drink, Claire gets a little drunk and vents her
real feelings: unhappy with her own marriage, Claire has nurtured bitterness
and jealousy for Marion all those years.
Back in the apartment, Marion begins to eavesdrop on the conversations of one
of the psychiatrist's patient, Hope (Mia Farrow), a depressed pregnant woman.
Hope's words bring back
memories of when she overheard her step-daughter discussing her (Marion's)
stiffness with her boyfriend.
While in the apartment, we hear Marion's inner flow of cosciousness overlap
the eavesdropping.
Marion hears echoes of her own situation in this woman's desperate words, except
that Hope utters those words while Marion has never even confronted the thought.
It is as if Marion was talking directly to the psychoanalyst through
Hope's voice and getting her therapy.
Marion goes to visit her brother, and finds no love left there because
of the cold way she behaved towards him.
Marion dreams that she is chatting with the psychiatrist, and he says that
Hope is slowly killing herself.
Marion imagines that the next patient is her father, who confesses to the
psychiatrist that he is full of regrets (especially that Marion's brother
never forgave him).
Then she imagines that she is watching a rehearsals of Claire's play, except
that Claire is playing her (Marion) and the male actor is Marion's husband
and they discuss their sad marriage, and Claire is married to Larry.
Marion walks onto the stage and now she is the one who regrets letting Larry go,
missing the chance of her life. In the play within the dream, Marion meets her first
husband, who died an alcoholic: in the play he commits suicide because of her.
Then, one day in a store, Marion meets Hope for real: Hope is crying in front of
a copy of Klimt's painting "Hope" (the painting of a pregnant woman). They
spend the day together and become friends. Marion's goal is to find out about
Hope but instead it is Marion who talks most of the time and reveals her
inner fears to Hope.
This only provokes more self-searching analysis: Marion recalls when, to
protect her career, she had an abortion of the child that her first husband
wanted, without even consulting with him.
Through the air vent Marion hears, or imagines she hears, Hope discuss her
(Marion) with the psychiatrist. Hope describes her as a pathetic frustrated
woman in her 50s. Hope is scared of ending up like Marion.
Their meeting at the restaurant took place on the even of the anniversary of their marriage. While we are listening to Hope retell the encounter we learn that
Marion at that restaurant discovered
her husband's adulterous life: her husband is doing with her friend to her
what he had done with her to his first wife. Marion is as much a fool as that
poor hapless woman who embarrassed herself at the party.
That night Marion confronts her husband and decides to quit.
She realizes that Larry had been right to warn her about her husband's
coldness.
Marion then goes to tell the psychiatrist that she
can hear everything from her apartment. And asks him to get in touch with
Hope, but Hope is no longer one of his patients and has moved away.
Marion has concluded her inner journey: she has realized that
nobody truly loves her. She is a symbol, a reference point,
but not really someone people can love. They stand in awe of her.
Her life is pointless.
She decides to reconcile with her brother Paul, who has reconciled with his
wife. Ironically, now she's the one who is getting divorced.
Larry is now married and has sent her a gift: a novel in which one of the
characters is inspired by her. Marion flips through the book and finds the
page where Larry describes a day they spent together, when he declared his love
for her. Larry's description of her as a potentially passionate woman is therapeutic: Marion suddenly feels the energy to finish her book.
Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) is an analysis of existential crises
and marriage crises
more in line with the films of Ingmar Bergman than with the comedies of Allen,
but also one of his most profound films.
Judah (Martin Landau) is a distinguished and wealthy ophthalmologist, apparently
happily married with a perfect wife, Maryam, who is being blackmailed by a
flight attendant, Dolores, with whom he has an affair. Dolores wants him to
divorce.
Cliff (Allen) is a pathetic filmmaker
(first shown trying to provide a cynical education to his little niece by taking her to the movies and to museums)
who dreams of making an important film
but instead is commissioned a documentary about the successful
brother-in-law, Lester (Alan Alda), whose pompous attitude he has always
detested. He even has to be grateful to Lester for getting him the job.
Judah tells a colleague, Ben, about his trouble with Dolores, who is becoming more
and more aggressive (she also knows that he used some charity money for his
own purposes).
During the filming of the documentary both Lester and Cliff flirt with
the cute tv producer, Halley (Mia Farrow). She seems interested in Cliff's
intellectual project and not interested at all in the aggressive behavior
of obnoxious Lester.
Cliff tells his sister that he has problems with his wife (when his widowed
sister, the mother of his favorite niece, tells him that she dated a psycho out of desperation).
Judah confides his troubles also to his ruthless brother Jack. Jack convinces
him that the best is to have her killed. But after the murder Jack is devastated
by the guilt (he even goes to see personally the scene of the crime).
Cliff witnesses Lester's seduction of Halley. Despite Cliff's warnings, Halley
let the irresistible Lester into her life, while Cliff is stuck with his
boring marriage.
Judah tells Jack that he wants to confess to the police, and Jack hardly manages
to stop his sense of guilt from destroying both of them.
Cliff is fired by Lester when Lester sees that Cliff is turning the documentary
into a parody of Lester's character.
Cliff and Judah finally meet at a wedding party. Judah is as depressed as ever.
Cliff gets depressed when he sees Lester introducing his new girlfriend:
Halley. Both Judah and Cliff get away from the party and end up meeting in
a room. Judah tells him his story in disguise, as if it were the plot of an
imaginary film, and indirectly says how he survived his crisis and decided
that, for the sake of his family, it was best not to confess and let someone
else be arrested for the murder.
There are symmetries and asymmetries.
Judah shows Ben his real self. Cliff shows his niece his real self.
Both Judah and Cliff have negligible wives.
On the other hand, Cliff is the opposite of Judah: very unsuccessful,
he doesn't get to seduce the girl who would give him his first adultery.
Judah lives in the real world, while Cliff (who watches movies with his niece)
lives in a dream.
Both Judah and Lester are successful selfish men who seduce naive girls,
and both live in the real world and get away with it.
The film looks for a moral center, but it doesn't find it.
Alice (1990) is more than a character study: it is an exploration of a woman's alienated mindscape.
But this is not the story of a woman fighting against social conventions and
an oppressive milieu:
everybody seems to conspire to have her commit adultery against her husband.
An intriguing idea, but the film stretches it way too long and too thin.
A woman and a man kiss at the aquarium.
But Joe (Joe Mantegna) is not her husband: Alice (Mia Farrow) is a shy
housewife married to busy and wealthy business man Doug (William Hurt).
Later she tells a friend how ashamed she feels.
She thought she was incapable of having an affair after
16 years of marriage. It turns out she only dreamed of kissing the stranger.
Her friend is amused and intrigued and encourages her to talk to Joe,
but Alice is too shy: they meet again in school, each picking up her or his
child, but Alice can't even say "hi".
She has pain in her back and is advised to see a Chinese acupuncturist in Chinatown.
The doctor tells her that the problem is not in her back but in her mind
and then hypnotizes her. Alice enters a dreamy state in which she talks about
her passion for Joe. The doctor asks her to discuss her marriage, and suddenly
she's talking to her husband. The doctor wakes her up and gives her magical
herbs that stimulate her. When she sees Joe again, Alice talks to him
in a sensual tone. Joe reveals that he is a saxophonist and divorced.
He is shocked by how aggressive and explicit she is.
She returns to the Chinese doctor and confesses her torn feelings: on one hand
she is opposed to adultery but then wonders if she's still attractive enough.
The doctor gives her another magical herb that makes her invisible.
She follows him to his intelligent successful ex-wife's office, and stays in
the office while Joe makes love to the woman in her office.
Back home she tells Doug that she regrets having given up her career in the
theater and that he never encouraged her. Now that she toys with the idea of
becoming a writer, he discourages her again. Either he doesn't think she's
intelligent enough or he doesn't want her to have an independent life.
Her friend Nancy has become an influential literary agent but she too
belittles Alice's ambitions.
Another kind of magical herb leads Alice to meet her ex-boyfriend
Ed (Alec Baldwin), who died in a car accident. He appears in her living room
one night, and they go out together, discussing how life would have been for
her with him and what she should do with Joe.
Alice starts meeting Joe secretely, but she is always nervous.
She meets him in the aquarium, they kiss and finally make love. She confesses
that she had not made love with her husband in a long time.
Another magical herb makes her see her muse and talk to her mother.
At a restaurant with Joe she shows him the effects of the drug that makes her
invisible and gives some to him too: they both disappear and have childish
fun around the city. One day Alice overhears people talking about her husband
having affairs. He denies it. She talks about it to her sister Dorothy,
and reveals that she herself is having an affair. Now everybody knows: her
friends and her family.
It's Christmas time.
She drinks the magic potion and sees her husband kissing his mistress. Then
she stays there until the effect of the potion wanes and she appears to them.
So now he knows that she knows, but he doesn't know that she's also cheating
on him.
Joe in the meantime has used his invisibility to spy on his wife, and now
he knows that Vicki is still in love with him, and wants to go back to her.
The Chinese doctor is about to leave for Tibet and gives her one last potion:
a love potion. She has to decide which man to capture with the love potion.
She goes to a party and accidentally a number of men drink the potion.
She finds herself surrounded by men willing to marry her, including
her sister's husband. She walks home and casually tells her husband that
she's been cheating on him.
She decides to go to India as a missionary and leaves her husband.
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