Woody Allen

[kid-glove]

Some pearls there.

But of course, I've read him use lemonade analogy.. Perhaps it's another shortened version of this interview..

[P_R]

Play it Again Sam

Excellent

It's the same goddamn movie all over again and still he manages to impress

[P_R]

Stardust Memories

Rules padi enakku pudikka koodAdhu.
It is too straight, dangerously borderline meditative, not funny enough etc. But ennavO therila enna maayamO therila I liked it very much.

Simply by pre-empting every possible reaction and counterreaction, explanation, misunderstanding etc, in-your-face laziness he wins you.

What can you say to a work which shows a member of the audience crying out "cop out artist"

a member of the audience winking at another who asked a 'clever' question

two members of the audience having the following conversation

She: what do you think the Rolls Royce represents
He: I think it represents his car

I wouldn't have liked this film had it been made by anybody else. But then no-one else would have made this kind of teasing film.

Genius

[P_R]

Deconstructing Harry

I was inexplicably moved in several parts of this film


Mind is likely dictate Manhattan, Crimes.. etc as the best film in the long run. But this one is one going to be an all time special film.

நான் ரொம்பொ ஆர்டிஸ்ட் சார்-னு சொன்ன ராஜூ கூட குறைந்தபட்சம் புரட்சிகரமான கருத்தோட ஒரு நாடகம் போட்டார். அது கூட செய்யாம ஒரு கலைமன பாவனையை கிடைபிடிக்க கூச்சமா இருக்கு.

But those who love Woody in some ways in some degree are guilty of this. Some degree of empathic relation to the intellectual, out of step with the world, artistic spirit. So must some day seek confidence in the strength in this brotherhood and write at length unabashedly.

Wrestled with certain questions which were unnervingly precise. So the whole film felt like I was flitting between enjoying the self-deprecation and empathizing with the one being depcrecated much more than has ever been the case before.

Excellent excellent film.

[P_R]

Wild Strawberries and Through a Glass Darkly

Me: flow-la irukkumbOdhu idhu reNduthaiyum paathuralaamE.

Mini Me: unakku edhu varudhO, adhai mattum seyyi. podhum enRa manamE pon seyyin marundhu.

[kid-glove]

As much as Woody derives from both the films & Bergman quite a bit, the reason it worked for you is because the film, from start to finish, is fully and utterly Woodyesque. And I personally think it's an original film using Bergmanesque narrative "devices".

For similar reasons, I could make out from your post that it's the Woody part that made you sit through (& applaud) Stardust. Not the Fellini side of it.

Let me admit that both these masters don't get diminished but richened by looking through Woody's glass (not 'darkly' any more but with a lighter idiosyncratic personal tone) which at times encourages one to watch the original films and at least appreciate at a subconscious level, even if not easily reduced to words.

I'm equally guilty of feeling a part of this 'brotherhood', of inner vices of self-importance, pretentiousness, condescension, as you say "empathic relation to the intellectual, out of step with the world, artistic spirit." at a slightly lesser degree too..

[P_R]

For similar reasons, I could make out from your post that it's the Woody part that made you sit through (& applaud) Stardust. Not the Fellini side of it.

Actually I've not seen Fellini at all thus far excepts parts of Amaracord - which was kind of a film for me.

Though I am not sure I will give Fellini a try I am inclined to give Bergman one. I feel the two movies I saw (Cries and Whispers and Virgin Spring) may not be 'typical'. Or atleast he may have made different 'types' of film given he was such a prolific filmmaker. That's why I felt if there was a time to try, it would be pretty soon with memories of Stardust and Decon. still fresh.

I'm equally guilty of feeling a part of this 'brotherhood', of inner vices of self-importance, pretentiousness, condescension, as you

Yeah and in many ways this stands in way of writing at length about it because it somehow feels like giving a lot of oneself away

A few deep breaths later it seems perhaps that one wouldn't give oneself away as much as put on display the exaggerated impressions of oneself. Now that's even more worrisome

I loved Stardust's portrayal of the artist's predicament. No longer being what you used to be, what you are liked for (he is going to a retrospective!) and being thought of as the 'one with the answer to everything' and continuously emphasizing this is not the case (and being liked even more for it) all of that came out very well. He isn't impacting people's lives or perhaps not in the way he thinks one ought to, but seeks h reassurance that there is some justification of his existence and manages to find some again through his imagination - his only mode of existence.

In a way it said exactly the same thing as Decon Harry, that he 'exists' in his work. The couple of seconds of suspension when the woman at the beach says "don't you remember me, your mother" makes the point well. But it is pretty much there throughout in the frog jumping in and out of screen, film and real, as if to him the difference is marginal. He exists in the reactions to his work, the winking audience member who thought he'd trapped him etc.

But all this will be swept away. Nobody cares even when he tries to cloak the question nobly by saying even Beethoven and Shakespeare will be his fellow victims.

He has to make decisions which are not imaginary. They as real as two noisy kids can get. Does he have emotions or is he expressing emotions to 'fit in'. Can he hold that line long enough to make things work in a world where he can't just imagine things the way he wants them to be. (And not as if the imaginations guarantees realization there either, you have people being sent to jazz heaven ! So even in the 'easy' world things are tough). He has to grasp at the memories, the perfect moments that are bound to be evanascenet. (Nothing is as fatal to an ideal as its realization - Schopenhauer) Acknowledging that that's all he's going to get.

As an artists you feel several lives - so you can't live one life as easily as the rest of the world seems to. As an artist you have heightened aesthetic sensibilities, a complicated personality and you never ever relate to anyone fully as much always deigning to put on an agreeable personality. Perhaps he will hold on to it long enough, perhaps not. And perhaps he will be the peddler of profundity who makes gaping admirers feel clever by coining corny descriptions like 'peddler of profundity'.

[P_R]

I may be guilty of reading it the way I want to, based on the flavor of month in terms of 'ideas I obsess about ' now.

Woody seems to think that is inevitable too

He watches Bicycle Thieves and tries to divorce it from the social context and relate it to wider problems of the human condition (i.e. things his character obsesses about )

What a terrific artist.

[rangan_08]

In the last couple of weeks, I really don't know how many times I saw the first half an hour of Annie Hall. I am obsessed.

True Genius.

What a source of inspiration - not in the technical aspect ( for me, of course), but just to live life....with all the crisis, traumas, agonies & miseries. Truly one of the greatest, sensible & brilliant films ever made.

[kid-glove]

I don't like to stress on birthdays. But it so happens that one gets to remember their favorite filmmakers. Today it's Woody's 75 or 76th. Still have enough time to meet the tall dark stranger. Until then keep giving us many more films to laugh, feel, ruminate and indulge with.