Annie Hall

Annie Hall

Directed by Woody Allen

USA, 1977

Cornerhouse, 10 February 2013

Woody Allen is Jewish.

That’s one thing you’ll learn from this film, if you didn’t already know it.

He also makes sense of his life through jokes, well, why wouldn’t he?  He is, or was, a comedian.  Jokes are a source of wisdom to him, a way of understanding the world.

This is not a perfect Woody Allen film, but it’s pretty funny.  There are plenty of good jokes, some moments of formal invention (e.g. the wheeling on of Marshall McLuhan) and it says a few things about human relationships.  Well, one thing actually and that little more profound than: ‘Women, you can’t live with them and you can’t live without them, so best to live with them.’

Just enjoy the jokes, then.

Annie Hall is showing again on Wednesday and Thursday as part of the Matinee Classics season, further details are here.

To Rome with Love

To Rome with Love

Directed by Woody Allen

Italy, 2012

Cornerhouse, 15 September 2012

It is curious that – while the comedy is generally clear or notable by its absence – few have noticed the fantastical element that characterises Woody Allen’s best films.

In this enjoyable tour of the Italian capital there are about four main stories, each with its appetising aspect of absurdity.  Allen’s character brings an opera singer to the stage, that’s one: the snag is he can only sing when in the shower.  Another sees a clerk become suddenly famous, for no discernible reason whatever.  Just as in real life, you might say.  An architect visits his younger, more foolish and vital self in the third.  Finally, there’s a newly-wed couple honeymooning in the big, bad city, with temptations strewn all around them.  Like as happens with Perelman and Feydeau, the absurd premises create the conditions where the comedy can flourish.

Matters are altogether brighter and better, in my view, when Allen gets to appear in his own films.  Else you end up with an actor (Caine, Branagh) doing little more than playing him, channeling his distinctive voice.  Faced with an array of one-liners, it is difficult to choose just the one.  But this would be my favourite: ‘Don’t try to psychoanalyse me.  Many have tried, all have failed.’  The line is spoken, unsurprisingly perhaps, by Allen himself.

They are plentiful, the pleasures to be had here.  When Allen is on song, as in this love letter, he is pitch perfect.

Woody Allen: A Documentary

Woody Allen: A Documentary

Directed by Robert B. Weide

USA, 2011

Cornerhouse, 9 June 2012

He seems to be very much an acquired taste, Woody Allen, people either praise him to the skies or they think his films are pretty much all alike (doesn’t he repeat himself endlessly, obsessively?).

In this documentary, everyone is in the former camp.  It is about Allen’s career and work, not his personal life, though that is touched upon briefly.  You’ll come away from the film, even if you’re not a huge fan, with an admiration for Allen’s way of working.

The man has complete control over his films, and has had it since the get-go.  So when he says, ‘The only thing that stands between me and immortality is me’ it’s not just another joke about death.  Because there are no excuses when it comes to the work: he’s the guy who makes the decisions.  There’s also his pragmatism, which a few actors draw attention to: he’s a good-enough kind of film maker, a satisficier.  He knows what he wants to see in a scene.  That’s good to know: these so called perfectionists generally don’t know shit from shinola.  As a rule.  Generally.  In the main.

I’d have preferred a documentary with a more critical, analytical bent but Robert B. Weide’s film is good enough as well.  He has a stellar set of contributors, all saying nice if not always enlightening things about the funny guy with the funny glasses.

Another Year by Mike Leigh

Another Year
Directed by Mike Leigh
UK, 2010
Cornerhouse, 7 November 2010

Still from Another Year

Mike Leigh’s latest film is, as per usual some may say, a closely observed social comedy.

Tom and Gerri (Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen) live a comfortable, some may say cartoonish, middle-class existence but some of their friends, notably Mary (Lesley Manville), are rather more desperate.

There’s an unsparing quality to Leigh’s work which I admire, an unwillingness to sugar-coat social realities or to be deceived about them.  It gives rise often to a subtle cruelty, a disdain, when people meet and speak to each other.

In ‘Gooseberries’ Chekhov writes of the invisibility of the sad and the stricken; those who live more comfortable existences, such as Tom and Gerri here, simply do not notice them.  Or, if they do, they see them simply as a nuisance.  It is a charge one could never place at the director’s door.

If there is one point that I’d level at Leigh (and I’m not sure really whether it’s a criticism: you could say the same thing about Woody Allen, say, or a slue of other directors) it is that he has a tendency to recycle his characters.  Katie in this film (Karina Fernandez) is Poppy from Happy-Go-Lucky, while as for Mary we’ve seen her many times before.  She is the guest that you cannot get rid of.

Nonetheless this is a very special film, a distillation almost of all that’s good about Leigh.  There’s a stirling cast and plenty of fine performances.

Whatever Works

Whatever Works
Directed by Woody Allen
USA, 2009
Cornerhouse, 27 June 2010

If you like Woody Allen’s past recent efforts you will probably like this film.

It is full of the moderately amusing kvetching and the moderately angst-ridden musings that have become his current trademark.

Larry David plays Boris, a chess coach and former physics professor and all-round general purpose genius, or so he thinks.  His chess lessons seem quite superficial.  Does he provide his students with an explanation of the terms ‘prophylaxis’ and ‘zugzwang’?  No, he does not.  Maybe instead he can be found recommending a good line for White against the Sveshnikov Sicilian?  Scratch that hope too.  He has a good line in banal invective, mind, always an admirable quality in a teacher.

For way too long now, Allen’s films – and Whatever Works is as good an example as any – have taken on the appearance of a precious item of clothing that has been washed too many times.  You recognise the garment still as something you once loved, but there’s no doubting it’s become faded and tired over time.  This is a film that just about works.  Barely, truth be told, or thread-barely if you prefer.  Whatever.