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Home , Anything Else, Death (play), Deconstructing Harry, Gene Wilder, George Lucas, Hollywood Ending

11/24/10

Week Nine Agenda

 Discuss

 Collect Homework

 Assign Final Writing Prompt

 Clips from other  A Clockwork Orange   Godfather I & II ANNIE HALL  Two 10 minute Breaks (at ~5:30 & ~6:30) and other classics of the 1970s

1965 through 1985

Early “Funnier” Comedies (‘65-75) Increasing Seriousness (1977-85)

 What’s New, Pussycat  Annie Hall  What’s Up, Tiger Lily   Take the Money & Run   Bananas   Everything You Always  Midsummer Night’s Sex Wanted to Know about Sex But … Afraid to Ask Comedy Through the Years   Sleeper  Purple Rose of Cairo ’s Career: Stages & Development  Love and

1986 through 1998 1999-present

 Cassandra’s Dream Intellectual Deepening (1980s) Mid-1990s Decline  (2007)  Hannah & Her Sisters  Ending  Vicky Cristina  Barcelona (2008)  (2003)  September  Manhattan Murder  (‘09)   Another Woman Mystery (2004)  You Will Meet a Tall  Dark Stranger (2010)  (2005)  Crimes and  Misdemeaners  Scoop (2006) (2011)

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From New York to Europe

Life-sized statue of “In the things have Allen in , Spain changed a lot, and it’s hard to Annie Hall make good small films now. “A Nervous Comedy” “The avaricious studios couldn’t care less about good films – if they get a good they’re twice as happy but money-making films are their goal. They only want these $100 million pictures that make $500 million.” -- Allen in 2004

Allen on Annie Hall Backgrounds & Contexts

 “I had the courage to  Original Title = Anhedonia abandon … just clowning around and the safety of  Inability to feel pleasure complete broad comedy.  Studio couldn’t figure out how to I said to myself, ‘I think I promote the film and also define will try and make some the title deeper film and not be  Re-cut as as funny in the same way.  Title changed 3 weeks before And maybe there will be other values that will emerge, premiere that will be interesting or nourishing for the audience.’  Earlier murder mystery plot didn’t And it worked out very very well.” work and was cut -- Woody Allen on Woody Allen (1995)

Autobiographical Bits Reputation

’s real name is  , 1977 Diane Hall  Best Picture (beating )  Her nickname was “Annie”  Best Actress, Lead

 She and Allen dated prior  Best Director to making the film  Best Screenplay

 During a flashback scene,  Nominated, Best Actor, Lead a teacher writes Dec. 1 on the blackboard.   Allen’s birthday … he also would have been 7 at the  #35 on 100 Best Movies time of that scene, like the character  #4 on 100 Best Comedies

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Fun Trivia Trivia, continued

 Sneezing into the  Famous young actors in the film include: pretend-cocaine was  Jeff Goldblum accidental but too  funny to cut  under the rollercoaster was the  Kensington Hotel in , NY.   Both were demolished in 2000  A joking alternate title was “Rollercoaster Named Desire”

Famous People, continued

 Famous cultural figures include: Did You Like it?  (uncredited)  “there’s the winner of the Your Reactions … Truman Capote look-alike contest”  Marshall McLuhan  “You know nothing of my work! … How you got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing!” 

Thematic Oppositions

Themes & “Heart” “Head”  Laughter  Serious-ness What are the major themes of Annie Hall?  Genuine-ness  Pretention, Affectation

 Physicality/Body  Intellectualism/Mind

 Life  Death

 Love & Lust  Resistance

 Consciousness  Altered consciousness

 New York?  ?

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Life and Death Two Brilliant Riffs on Death

 Why is this film – a Opening Monologue Night-chat with Duane comedy, a “nervous comedy” – so fascinated with death?

 How does death – the fear of it, the lurking presence of it – affect the characters?

 What, if anything, is suggested as an antidote to YouTube: www..com/ death? YouTube: www.youtube.com/ watch?v=rrxlfvI17oY watch?v=PSRm_X3BLPU

Death, continued Death, continued

 “There's an old joke – two elderly women are at a  “Can I confess something? I tell you this as an artist, I Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, ‘Boy, think you'll understand. Sometimes when I'm driving the food at this place is really terrible.’ The other on the road at night … I see two headlights coming one says, ‘Yeah, I know; and such small portions.’ toward me. Fast. I have this sudden impulse to turn Well, that's essentially how I feel about life – full of the wheel quickly, head-on into the oncoming car. I loneliness and misery can anticipate the and suffering and un- explosion. The sound of happiness – and it’s all shattering glass. The over much too quickly.” flames rising out of the flowing gasoline…”

Love and Sex Love and Sex, continued

 How does love function for the characters?  “The the other important joke, for me, is one that's

 Is it redemptive? Does it free one from the self? usually attributed to ,… and it goes Or does it function differently – a confusion or like this … ‘I would never want to belong to any scattering of the self? club that would have someone like me for a member.’  Does sex operate differently from love in the film? How so? That's the key joke of my adult life, in terms  Like Kane, do any of of my relationships these characters do “everything for love”? with women.”

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Love and Sex, continued Love & Sex, continued

 Alvy's analyst: How often do you sleep together?  Both as always in permanent crisis Annie's analyst: Do you have sex often?  “Hold on” mentality/ Alvy (lamenting): message Hardly ever, maybe  Renounce Perfectionism three times a week.  Perhaps “muddling along” is really all you can Annie (complaining): do – but it’s not a failure; it’s the norm Constantly, I'd say three times a week.  Subtitled balcony scene & “Love fades” scene

Theme of Performance Theme of Performance

 Why are so many characters  Different roles/faces … involved with performing?  “Prepare a face to meet the faces that you’ll meet”  Alvy is a stand up comedian (T.S. Eliot, “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”)

 Best friend in is TV  “Success in life is being able to merge your private with your public self (Aldous Huxley)  Annie becomes a musician   Paul Simon’s character What is your “true” self?  What relationship exists between performing and  Acting naturally vs. identity? faking it

Alvy Singer

 Did you like Woody Allen’s character?

 What defines him?

 Is he a sympathetic narrator? What makes him so? Why “Annie Hall”?  Would you view him differently if the film’s point of view was not his? Or … why not “Alvy Singer”?  Is he an Everyman character? Why/why not?

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Alvy as Everyman? Annie Hall

 Chief characteristics:  Did you like Diane  Bumbling dweeb Keaton’s character?  Sympathetic loser  What defines her?  Egotistical & hostile yet also self-effacing  Is she sympathetic?  Quintessential American What makes her so? type: loveable underdog  What characteristics does  Crucial that the point of view be his she share with Alvy?  Not a traditional – because hopelessly flawed – but very realistic  Is she an Every(wo)man character? Why/why not?

Annie Hall as Every(wo)man Everyman/Every(wo)man …

 Similar Characteristics Quotation  "It would be a book accounting for the from Martin decline in the status and virtue of literary  Also sympathetic loser Amis, The Information, protagonists.  Awkward yet natural 1995  Self-effacing yet self-aware First gods, then demigods, then kings, then  Seemingly lost but constantly great warriors, great lovers, then burghers searching and merchants and vicars and doctors and  Quintessential American type: loveable underdog lawyers. Then social realism: you. Then  Crucial that the point of view not be hers irony: me. Then maniacs and murderers,  Her loveable quirkiness requires mystery & distance tramps, mobs, rabble, flotsam, vermin.”

… continued Family

 "And what would account for it?”  Everyone’s family is dysfunctional  “They f… you up, your mom and “The history of astronomy. The history of astronomy dad” (Philip Larkin) is the history of increasing humiliation. First the  House under the roller coaster geocentric universe, then the heliocentric universe.  Father’s job with bumper cars Then the eccentric universe – the one we're living in. Every century we get smaller. Kant figured it all  Annie’s brother (C. Walken) out, sitting in his armchair. What's the phrase? The  Siblings always seem poised to principle of terrestrial mediocrity." take each other down  Easter dinner scene

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New York, New York

 Metonymic of modern world  Noise, confusion, uncertainty  Teeming metropolis thwarts confidence  Vibrant street life plays into comic scenes  “Don't you see the rest of What’s the big deal with New York? the country looks upon New York like we're left- wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual porno- graphers? I think of us that way sometimes and I live here.”

New York, continued “Being Lost Together”

 New York eludes categorization & understanding –  Whether in New York or in like the self and also like relationships relationships, we’re all lost – or

 Allen’s utopia and dystopia wrapped into one trying to find our way  That’s okay, though, if universally shared  All you can do is play your “role” to the best of your ability – hold on, and hope someone will share your confusion with you

Ending

 Film ends twice  Alvy writes a play that features Annie returning to him  Annie and Alvy meet up in New York, reminisce, then go their separate ways Why does the film end as it does?  “We need the eggs”  Comedy triumphs over nervousness

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Ending, continued

 “The major theme of the film is that there are severe limitations in life (death and loss are the two most prevalent), but that art forms (such as the printed word, films, and plays) have the power to reshape reality and provide some measure of control, thereby compensating for life's limitations.” Is Annie Hall Realistic? -- Tim Dirks, filmsite.org Realism/continuity editing vs. Fantasy/disjunctive editing

Genre and Mode Realism, continued

 Is it possible to label a film as realistic with so many  Perhaps, though, that quirky disregard for disjunctive, fantasy elements? traditional realism actually makes the film seem  Love fades scene more realistic  /balcony scene  How “realistic” are our  Malcolm McLuhan scene lives?  Wicked Queen  How linear and/or animation scene continuous are our  Split screens thoughts – or our (dual therapists & Easter dinner scenes) romantic relationships?  Youth flashbacks, esp. “latency period” scene  Is “realism” really something we should strive for?

Effect on Fashion

Diane Keaton vs.  Annie Hall look Kate Moss  Frumpy yet chic  Disheveled yet distinct  Mannish, layered blazers & vests  Poofy trousers  No wardrobe – D. Keaton used her own clothes (yet the costumer Form & Meaning worked with ) Annie Hall’s Visual Style  Briefly became a fashion craze

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Long Takes Other Elements

 Allen “famously likes to shoot most scenes in master  Dialogue-heavy, a true “talkie” shots with all of the actors onscreen all of the time,  “Polite meaningless words” (Yeats) instead of cutting on every line of dialogue.”  Unobtrusive camera work, costuming, sets, and locations  In 2002, David Bordwell pointed out that Allen's average shot length (ASL) was 14.5 seconds for  Uneventful plot & special effects Annie Hall. Other 1977 films he timed had an ASL  Form/Meaning Symbiosis range between 4-7 seconds.  In a film about relationships, the -- , May 2002 relationships comprise the film

Characteristic elements

 Quirky yet realistic Characteristic Elements  Despite disjunctive moments (animation, subtitles, etc), film still seems continuous, realistic Last Week’s Assignment  Can navigate between realism and fantasy without alienating viewers

 Time-capsule filmmaking  References to current events & figures & films and books  Reinforces the film’s realism

… continued

 Bumbling, Sympathetic “Loser” as “Hero”  Love entanglements that deepen but do not redeem “Fevered Realism”  Need to navigate social/moral/cultural realms from Other Classics of the 1970s which you feel displaced or ostracized  New York mentality, and Jewish-ness  Seriousness, or , to the comedy  Despite humor, film is exceptionally literate (film literacy & cultural literacy)

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Top Films of the ‘70s

The Godfather - (1972, ) (, ) part II - (1974, Francis Ford Coppola) (Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro) One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - (1975, Milos Forman) (, Louise Fletcher) - (1979, Francis Ford Coppola) (, ) Chinatown - (1974, ) (Jack Nicholson, ) A Clockwork Orange - (1971, ) (Malcolm McDowell, Patrick MaGee) Star Wars - (1977, ) (, ) Jaws - (1975, ) (, ) Taxi Driver - (1976, ) (Robert DeNiro, ) - (1978, ) (Robert DeNiro, Christopher Walken) Annie Hall - (1977, Woody Allen) (Woody Allen, Diane Keaton) Network - (1976, Sydney Lumet) (Peter Finch, William Holden) Rocky - (1976, John G. Avildsen) (, Carl Weathers) Patton - (1970, Franklin J. Schaffner) (George C. Scott, Karl Malden) Close Encounters of the Third Kind - (1977, Steven Spielberg) (Richard Dreyfuss, ) M*A*S*H - (1970, ) (Elliot Gould, ) - (1973, ) (, ) - (1973, George Lucas) (, Richard Dreyfuss) The French Connection - (1971, William Friedkin) (, Roy Scheider) - (1973, Martin Scorsese) (, Robert DeNiro) A Clockwork Orange Aguirre, the Wrath of - (1972, Werner Herzog) (Klaus Kinski) (Cecilia Rivera) - (1974, ) (, ) Last in Paris - (1972, ) (Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider) Stanley Kubrick, 1971 Monty Python and the Holy Grail - (1974, , Terry Jones) (G. Chapman, Eric Idle) The Rocky Horror Picture Show - (1975, Jim Sharmon) (Tim Curry, )

Alex & his Droogs

 “A bit of the old ultra-violence”

 Stylized, rather than graphic, violence

 Futuristic Orwellian dystopia

 Novel by Anthony Burgess

Taxi Driver

Martin Scorsese, 1976

Travis Bickle & Iris

 “You talkin’ to me?”: Everyman (?!) as enforcer.

 Raises questions about heroism & viewer sympathy

 Non-stylized violence

 Gritty, street-level realism

The Godfather & The Godfather Pt. II

Francis Ford Coppola, 1972 & 1974

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Gangster Epics Famous Scenes

 Quintessential films about gangsters and the  Tom Hagan goes to Hollywood (I. 29:10-33:45) American immigrant experience  “It’s Strictly Business” (I. 1:11:00-1:15:00)

 family vs. society  Don’t ask me about my business (I. 2:45:50-2:52:30)  family as society  You can never lose your family (II.B. 0:00-2:50 & 4:35-6:25)  Redemption, damnation,  Hail Mary Full of Grace (II.B. 1:01:00-1:05:10) Catholicism  Vito vs. Michael Corleone  “It’s strictly business”  “An offer he couldn’t refuse”

Final Assignment (!)

 Discuss how one of your favorite films would work if added to the syllabus for this class.  In your 250-350 words, make sure to discuss:  How your film would relate – specifically! – with other films on the syllabus  How it would continue the class “dialogue” between form and meaning  What new material it would offer that is currently missing

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