First, we have an announcement to make…
The next few movies we write about will be ones that are dear to us and conjure up romance in honor of our Wedding Anniversary which we plan to celebrate all weekend :).
So here’s the first – Woody Allen’s Manhattan Murder Mystery. Those who know me may be surprised to know that this is really my favorite Woody Allen movie. Or maybe that’s not so surprising – you tell me. While the critics actually liked it, it is not a “critic’s favorite” among Allen’s work, nor was it commercially successful, nor is it the intellectual feast that is The Purple Rose of Cairo (an Accidental Critic Classic). Maybe this is my favorite Woody Allen film simply because it portrays Woody Allen’s best side if not the best of his work.
The movie features Allen’s ultimate love and greatest character, Manhattan. In it we meet a middle-aged Manhattanite couple living in a high rise apartment. Comedy ensues when Carol (played by Diane Keaton) starts to suspect an elderly neighbor of murdering his wife. Carol’s husband (played by Allen) ends up joining in her amateur sleuthing to keep his marriage alive. What follows is really just a light-hearted series of events that swirl around a true mystery in an old fashioned whodunit style. In the end, our Manhattanites find a bit of spontaneity and adventure to rekindle their romance. No gripping dialogue or tortured souls…though the movie does deliver one of my favorite movie lines ever – “I can’t listen to too much Vagner, it makes me want to conquer Poland.”
To me, this movie is simply the height of a good, entertaining movie that somehow manages to make you feel good (even with a murder lurking in the plot). And maybe that was not only Allen’s intent for his audience, but something he was trying to achieve for himself at the time. This movie was released in 1993 at the height of Allen’s divorce from Mia Farrow and the ensuing public drama and legal battle associated with his “child bride” (in fact, Keaton’s role was originally written for Farrow). In a recent interview, Allen talked about how movies for him have always been an escape, an oasis from the “terror of the universe”. This movie certainly offers that as it effortlessly transports you for a couple hours.
One interesting thing to note as you are enjoying this film is that it contains a small shout-out to Orson Wells in a scene where the characters face off in a “hall of mirrors” while an Orson Wells movie plays in the background. Wells’ movies contemplate evil while here Allen seems to be intent on not facing it directly.
Honestly, I don’t think this movie truly rose to the top for me until I watched it again this weekend, snuggled up with my husband (who really introduced me to Woody Allen films). There was a lovely sunset coming in through our big windows and Dr. Dan was lightly chiding me about how he could imagine me suddenly taking us on an amateur investigation (and of course he’s right). I guess I found the charm of the couple on the screen within the couple on the couch in a way that made me deeply smile and appreciate how romantic we have always been. Just a day before, we had celebrated our years of togetherness in a much more grand style with a local, professional photographer coming out to our farm and a romantic dinner. But for me, this moment of quiet reverie on the couch was the real deal, the real celebration of our life together. How he truly knows me (and loves me anyway)…how romantic he is (he has written me a love poem every year that we have been married) and how blessed I am to have a husband who truly cherishes me and has never taken me off of the pedestal he put me on when he asked me to be his wife. Just deeply knowing that I have always been his first choice is something that no amount of money or romantic displays can buy.
While I certainly hope that we never have the opportunity or need to embark on an amateur murder investigation, I can honestly say that there is no one I would rather sleuth with.
Showing posts with label Romance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Romance. Show all posts
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
The Tiger and the Snow (La Tigre e la neve)
“The Tiger and the Snow” is a romantic comedy that is so beautifully constructed that it feels mythical. Then we watched it again and realized, that’s because it is very much like a myth, the myth of Orpheus.
This Roberto Benigni film was not well received by many reviewers who thought that the hero was too silly, the storyline too ambiguous and other criticisms which all (in our opinion) fail to grasp the spirit of this movie, the same one that runs deeply through many of Benigni’s films – his unassailable love of life and belief in love itself.
In “The Tiger and the Snow” Benigni creates a hero, Giovanni, who is very much like Benigni himself – a poet. In one scene Giovanni explains to his daughters how he came to be a poet by telling them a story about a bird which landed on his shoulder when he was a young boy. He was amazed by this encounter, but failed to communicate his delight and wonder to his mother because as a child he lacked the right words. From that point forward, he wanted to be someone who could make people feel as he was feeling through the power of his language. As the story proceeds, he also charms a bat and a camel. Orpheus, the greatest mythical poet, also has a special relationship to animals.
As the famous myth goes, Orpheus was willing to go to Hell (or Hades) to bring back his true love, Eurydice, but he lost her when he turns to see if she is following him. What if Orpheus had never looked back? Well then, he gets his life back with the girl.
This is the question (and the answer) of this 2006 film. In the myth, Orpheus braves Hades for Eurydice, but he is fairly certain that he can make it back because of the power of his lyer (his music). In the film, Benigni does the Orpheic myth one better in that Giovanni dives into deep uncertainty and danger to retrieve his true love out of a war-torn Baghdad with nothing but his wits and his love to sustain him. He will pose as a surgeon, drive buses and mopeds through the dessert, face riots, looters, American troops and imprisonment.
Giovanni has an Orpheic counterpart: Fuad the Iraqi poet who goes to the realm of the dead never to return. Their conversation prior to Fuad’s suicide is revealing. Fuad, distraught at the condition of Baghdad, loves the city at least as much as Allah does (he recites a story of how Allah so loved the view of the night sky from the city, that he would often return to earth just to see it). But Fuad lacks faith and believes that there is nothing after death. Giovanni proclaims that he believes that after death he will remember and celebrate life. If Fuad represents anyone, it is the lover who cannot bear the hell he must traverse to save his love.
That Giovanni is a fool may seem to be a contrivance. After all, Benigni needs to make jokes and certainly the character’s foolishness gives his true love, Vitoria, cause to hold him at arms length. His foolishness, however; allows him not only to tread where no one else would go but to keep absolutely focused on the essentials. So many people do not like this film because the single mindedness of Giovanni does not do justice to war-torn Iraq, but this is exactly how Giovanni succeeds where Orpheus fails.
What is Orpheus real power? His music inspires life. When Giovanni lectures on how to write poetry he captivates his students and his colleagues fall in love with him. When he pursues his love, he is hardly aware of what clothes he is wearing (if any) or where he has parked his car. He is a testament to a man who’s cup of life runs over and any who find him entrancing find themselves drinking full of life as well.
All I can say is, we love this film and speaking for myself…it makes me want to kiss my husband.
This Roberto Benigni film was not well received by many reviewers who thought that the hero was too silly, the storyline too ambiguous and other criticisms which all (in our opinion) fail to grasp the spirit of this movie, the same one that runs deeply through many of Benigni’s films – his unassailable love of life and belief in love itself.
In “The Tiger and the Snow” Benigni creates a hero, Giovanni, who is very much like Benigni himself – a poet. In one scene Giovanni explains to his daughters how he came to be a poet by telling them a story about a bird which landed on his shoulder when he was a young boy. He was amazed by this encounter, but failed to communicate his delight and wonder to his mother because as a child he lacked the right words. From that point forward, he wanted to be someone who could make people feel as he was feeling through the power of his language. As the story proceeds, he also charms a bat and a camel. Orpheus, the greatest mythical poet, also has a special relationship to animals.
As the famous myth goes, Orpheus was willing to go to Hell (or Hades) to bring back his true love, Eurydice, but he lost her when he turns to see if she is following him. What if Orpheus had never looked back? Well then, he gets his life back with the girl.
This is the question (and the answer) of this 2006 film. In the myth, Orpheus braves Hades for Eurydice, but he is fairly certain that he can make it back because of the power of his lyer (his music). In the film, Benigni does the Orpheic myth one better in that Giovanni dives into deep uncertainty and danger to retrieve his true love out of a war-torn Baghdad with nothing but his wits and his love to sustain him. He will pose as a surgeon, drive buses and mopeds through the dessert, face riots, looters, American troops and imprisonment.
Giovanni has an Orpheic counterpart: Fuad the Iraqi poet who goes to the realm of the dead never to return. Their conversation prior to Fuad’s suicide is revealing. Fuad, distraught at the condition of Baghdad, loves the city at least as much as Allah does (he recites a story of how Allah so loved the view of the night sky from the city, that he would often return to earth just to see it). But Fuad lacks faith and believes that there is nothing after death. Giovanni proclaims that he believes that after death he will remember and celebrate life. If Fuad represents anyone, it is the lover who cannot bear the hell he must traverse to save his love.
That Giovanni is a fool may seem to be a contrivance. After all, Benigni needs to make jokes and certainly the character’s foolishness gives his true love, Vitoria, cause to hold him at arms length. His foolishness, however; allows him not only to tread where no one else would go but to keep absolutely focused on the essentials. So many people do not like this film because the single mindedness of Giovanni does not do justice to war-torn Iraq, but this is exactly how Giovanni succeeds where Orpheus fails.
What is Orpheus real power? His music inspires life. When Giovanni lectures on how to write poetry he captivates his students and his colleagues fall in love with him. When he pursues his love, he is hardly aware of what clothes he is wearing (if any) or where he has parked his car. He is a testament to a man who’s cup of life runs over and any who find him entrancing find themselves drinking full of life as well.
All I can say is, we love this film and speaking for myself…it makes me want to kiss my husband.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Dangerous Liaisons *****
“Dangerous Liaisons” is based on an epistolary novel written prior to the French revolution. It is 18th century France and the idle rich are amusing themselves by practicing the art of deception and seduction. At the head of it all is the Countess (Glen Close), master manipulator and society’s reigning queen for whom control is the ultimate aphrodisiac. Her devoted and lustful Vicomte (John Malkovich) is her partner in crime. Trust us, the modern day shenanigans portrayed in those cheesy reality shows have nothing on the machinations of the idle rich in 18th century France.
Bonded through a deeply cynical view of love, the Countess and the Vicomte strike a deal. If the Vicomte can seduce the pious Mme de Tourvelle, he will receive what would be his greatest conquest – the Countess herself. The perfect plan is hatched and our Vicomte is confident that he is in it only for the thrill of the seduction and the prize. But love it seems has a gravity of its own that pulls on each of them, causing them to lose control.
Love and truth, two things we try desperately to deny them when they disappoint us. You cannot control love and the truth will not only be eventually revealed, it will also reveal you. This is the lesson that we see our Vicomte learning as his heart is conquered by Mme de Tourvelle and then broken by his inability to rightly honor that love.
The climax of the movie is reached when the Vicomte repeats “It’s beyond my control” over and over again. It is the blunt instrument that he uses to break the heart of Mme de Tourvelle and placate the Countess. Is he lying? Certainly being in control in affairs of the heart has been his absolute. Control is what enables him to ignore what is best in humans and instead delight in their humiliation. The truth is that the control he prizes is a sham. The Countess has, by giving him this phrase, sent him on his way to Mme de Tourvelle like a missile fully armed. Malkovich delivers the line with a robotic intensity. The Vicomte is losing whatever humanity he pretended to have. His growing anger as he repeats it is a sign that he himself is not unaware of what he is losing. The only suitable punishment is death, which he elegantly turns into revenge upon the Countess.
So often people mistake love for their desire for control. Think about the wife who tolerates her husband’s infidelity. Is it love she is hanging on to or is she merely driven by the fear of losing her own fairy tale? In the name of control we deny the absence of love and its presence. Nothing good comes from this denial.
The closing scene of the film is chilling. We see the Countess seated at her dressing table staring into a mirror as she removes her "masque”. What lies beneath is the emptiness sown by denial.
Bonded through a deeply cynical view of love, the Countess and the Vicomte strike a deal. If the Vicomte can seduce the pious Mme de Tourvelle, he will receive what would be his greatest conquest – the Countess herself. The perfect plan is hatched and our Vicomte is confident that he is in it only for the thrill of the seduction and the prize. But love it seems has a gravity of its own that pulls on each of them, causing them to lose control.
Love and truth, two things we try desperately to deny them when they disappoint us. You cannot control love and the truth will not only be eventually revealed, it will also reveal you. This is the lesson that we see our Vicomte learning as his heart is conquered by Mme de Tourvelle and then broken by his inability to rightly honor that love.
The climax of the movie is reached when the Vicomte repeats “It’s beyond my control” over and over again. It is the blunt instrument that he uses to break the heart of Mme de Tourvelle and placate the Countess. Is he lying? Certainly being in control in affairs of the heart has been his absolute. Control is what enables him to ignore what is best in humans and instead delight in their humiliation. The truth is that the control he prizes is a sham. The Countess has, by giving him this phrase, sent him on his way to Mme de Tourvelle like a missile fully armed. Malkovich delivers the line with a robotic intensity. The Vicomte is losing whatever humanity he pretended to have. His growing anger as he repeats it is a sign that he himself is not unaware of what he is losing. The only suitable punishment is death, which he elegantly turns into revenge upon the Countess.
So often people mistake love for their desire for control. Think about the wife who tolerates her husband’s infidelity. Is it love she is hanging on to or is she merely driven by the fear of losing her own fairy tale? In the name of control we deny the absence of love and its presence. Nothing good comes from this denial.
The closing scene of the film is chilling. We see the Countess seated at her dressing table staring into a mirror as she removes her "masque”. What lies beneath is the emptiness sown by denial.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
The Purple Rose of Cairo *****
When we read the Cave Allegory from Plato’s “Republic” we all think of the movies; when Woody Allen reads Plato it leads to a movie.
In the “Purple Rose of Cairo” Wood Allen creates a movie within a movie, showing you scenes from a fictitious black and white depression era movie (also entitled The Purple Rose of Cairo) because his heroine can’t help but watch it over and over again. For her it is escape and an impossible inspiration. According to the fictitious movie, the purple rose of Cairo is supposed to grow in a pharaoh’s tomb - the expression of a perfect love. Of course no rose is purple and flowers do not grow without light. It is an impossible inspiration. It’s all Plato’s fault.
According to him our relationship to the truth is dreadful. We are like people chained facing a wall in a cave, behind them a fire, and between the fire and their benches men parading objects whose shadows project upon the wall. Hankering for the truth, the viewers take shadows for reality. But Plato has another important point. Although our sense of reality is shadowy at best, we are only capable of understanding anything, thanks to a set of ideals which are beyond real experience. The impossible inspiration guides us through our shadows and intimates that there is more.
The movies are all that counts for the heroine of “The Purple Rose of Cairo”. Her chains are the miserable life to which she is subjected by the depression of the 30’s and her abusive husband. After too many hours in a theater watching her new favorite movie, about people with ideal life styles, one of its characters impossibly leaves the screen, and while comically attempting to establish himself in the real world, falls in love with her.
Screen characters running free in New Jersey, is bad for the movie business. So the actor who played the role is enlisted in the task of capturing his shadow and returning it to the screen. When he also falls for our heroine she has the ultimate Platonic choice: perfection or reality. Which would you choose?
In the “Purple Rose of Cairo” Wood Allen creates a movie within a movie, showing you scenes from a fictitious black and white depression era movie (also entitled The Purple Rose of Cairo) because his heroine can’t help but watch it over and over again. For her it is escape and an impossible inspiration. According to the fictitious movie, the purple rose of Cairo is supposed to grow in a pharaoh’s tomb - the expression of a perfect love. Of course no rose is purple and flowers do not grow without light. It is an impossible inspiration. It’s all Plato’s fault.
According to him our relationship to the truth is dreadful. We are like people chained facing a wall in a cave, behind them a fire, and between the fire and their benches men parading objects whose shadows project upon the wall. Hankering for the truth, the viewers take shadows for reality. But Plato has another important point. Although our sense of reality is shadowy at best, we are only capable of understanding anything, thanks to a set of ideals which are beyond real experience. The impossible inspiration guides us through our shadows and intimates that there is more.
The movies are all that counts for the heroine of “The Purple Rose of Cairo”. Her chains are the miserable life to which she is subjected by the depression of the 30’s and her abusive husband. After too many hours in a theater watching her new favorite movie, about people with ideal life styles, one of its characters impossibly leaves the screen, and while comically attempting to establish himself in the real world, falls in love with her.
Screen characters running free in New Jersey, is bad for the movie business. So the actor who played the role is enlisted in the task of capturing his shadow and returning it to the screen. When he also falls for our heroine she has the ultimate Platonic choice: perfection or reality. Which would you choose?
Sunday, March 14, 2010
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee ***
What Comes Next
You may come to this movie looking for a lot of meaning and given that, the ending might disappoint you. But don’t be disappointed because what you are getting instead is a whole lot of truth. While Pippa Lee (played brilliantly by Robin Wright) is described as “an enigma” in the opening scenes of the movie and is in fact a rather peculiar woman with a colorful past, in many ways she is very much like the rest of us. She struggles to weave the threads of her life into some kind of meaningful pattern. While not a chick flick, this is a woman’s movie…and not just a woman’s movie, but an American woman’s tale. A portrait of the American deconstructed life where you wake up in your 50’s in the midst of the busy world you’ve created to protect yourself and you’re just not able to buy into your own shit anymore. Working as a metaphor for a “great awakening”, Pippa discovers that while sleeping she raids the refrigerator and drives to the convenient store to buy cigarettes where an equally troubled younger man with a tattoo of Jesus on his chest (Keanu Reeves) awaits. Just as she starts questioning her own sanity and getting kicked out of pottery classes, she discovers her much older husband is having a hard time buying into his shit as well. We also learn a bit more about the secret guilt that binds them. While infidelity is a major plot theme, this is not a move about affairs nor is it a movie about marriage. Rather it’s about our willingness to face ourselves and what comes next in a life that is not only alarmingly unpredictable but just might not ever answer all the questions we have about ourselves. Towards the end of the movie we find Pippa embarking on a journey and declaring “…I’m just going to see what comes next”. I’m reminded of the Stephen Dobyns poem, How to Like It. It’s last stanza reads…
How is it possible to want so many things
and still want nothing? The man wants to sleep
and wants to hit his head again and again
against a wall. Why is it all so difficult?
But the dog says, Let's go make a sandwich.
Let's make the tallest sandwich anyone's ever seen.
And that's what they do and that's where the man's
wife finds him, staring into the refrigerator
as if into the place where the answers are kept
the ones telling why you get up in the morning
and how it is possible to sleep at night,
answers to what comes next and how to like it.
You may come to this movie looking for a lot of meaning and given that, the ending might disappoint you. But don’t be disappointed because what you are getting instead is a whole lot of truth. While Pippa Lee (played brilliantly by Robin Wright) is described as “an enigma” in the opening scenes of the movie and is in fact a rather peculiar woman with a colorful past, in many ways she is very much like the rest of us. She struggles to weave the threads of her life into some kind of meaningful pattern. While not a chick flick, this is a woman’s movie…and not just a woman’s movie, but an American woman’s tale. A portrait of the American deconstructed life where you wake up in your 50’s in the midst of the busy world you’ve created to protect yourself and you’re just not able to buy into your own shit anymore. Working as a metaphor for a “great awakening”, Pippa discovers that while sleeping she raids the refrigerator and drives to the convenient store to buy cigarettes where an equally troubled younger man with a tattoo of Jesus on his chest (Keanu Reeves) awaits. Just as she starts questioning her own sanity and getting kicked out of pottery classes, she discovers her much older husband is having a hard time buying into his shit as well. We also learn a bit more about the secret guilt that binds them. While infidelity is a major plot theme, this is not a move about affairs nor is it a movie about marriage. Rather it’s about our willingness to face ourselves and what comes next in a life that is not only alarmingly unpredictable but just might not ever answer all the questions we have about ourselves. Towards the end of the movie we find Pippa embarking on a journey and declaring “…I’m just going to see what comes next”. I’m reminded of the Stephen Dobyns poem, How to Like It. It’s last stanza reads…
How is it possible to want so many things
and still want nothing? The man wants to sleep
and wants to hit his head again and again
against a wall. Why is it all so difficult?
But the dog says, Let's go make a sandwich.
Let's make the tallest sandwich anyone's ever seen.
And that's what they do and that's where the man's
wife finds him, staring into the refrigerator
as if into the place where the answers are kept
the ones telling why you get up in the morning
and how it is possible to sleep at night,
answers to what comes next and how to like it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
