Woody Allen's Manhattan, after all these years

We recently watched Manhattan, the 1979 Woody Allen movie. It hasn't aged well, or is it just me?

This is alleged to be a comedy drama. Apart from a constant stream of weak verbal gags by the autobiographical leading character Isaac (played by Woody Allen), it isn't at all funny. The situations are pretty sad; a middle-aged man sleeping with a teen-age girl, the terrible shame he feels that his second ex-wife has left him for another woman - we no longer find either of these situations amusing now in the same way as they were intended. The first situation is not funny; Lolita is barely acceptable now. The second is no longer shameful, just part of life.

Nor is this a drama in my opinion. It is a series of static scenes showing a group of New York intellectuals, each of whom live by some kind of role in the artistic-industrial complex without really having to work. There are authors, writers for TV and magazines, college professors, a student of acting. There is a constant sexual square dance, partners switching joylessly; without much passion or excitement. A running chatter about tennis lessons, ex-wives, alimony, art gallery openings, analysts, going to the Hamptons, worries about what other people will think, and other purported concerns of the New York rich.

This is often cited as one of Woody Allen's "best movies". It has a cast with several well-known female actors.

Diane Keaton plays her usual character in Allen's movies: channeling Kathryn Hepburn on anti-depressants;  kind of crazy, kind of clever, kind of dumb, with unsuitable men but they find her adorable...continually making indecision into a sort of angst-sodden group sport. She did have nice breasts - her nipples feature prominently under clothing in several shots. Woody Allen was nothing if not a connoisseur of the female form.

The other female lead (played by the 16-year old Mariel Hemingway) appears to be made of some kind of sapwood. She's pretty but granite-jawed and mumbling, like a teen-aged Marlon Brando with a mouth full of marbles. She is completely unbelievable as a talented 17-year old actress who is having a passionate affair with 42-year-old, short, balding, self-centred minor celebrity. (Although in reality several young girls did pair off with Woody Allen, but that's a real-life story; dramatically, I remain unconvinced.)

The scenes with Meryl Streep as the long-suffering lesbian ex-wife who has custody of Isaac's son are painful by today's standards and like much of the movie seem to exist just to support a single gag:

"How's Willie?"
"Fine"
"Well, give me some details, does he play baseball, wear dresses, what?"
"He doesn't wear dresses. You'll find out the details when it's your turn to see him."

The thing that really upsets this man is that his ex-wife is writing a tell-all story of their marriage. The fact that his wife was compelled to do this about someone so pretentious and annoying did have a unique ring of truth.

There are visits to galleries with protracted discussions of (mostly) unseen artworks; again with a few funny lines but the scenes go on too long. There were a few items of interest from a nostalgic point of view where typewriters, tape recorders, and old push button telephones were being operated.

The squash game shown in this film may be the lamest example of athleticism in movies, deliberately so I suppose. Isaac, holding his squash racquet along the shaft not at the handle and without appearing to look at the ball, conducts a (for him) profound conversation with his best friend. One man serves, the other misses, the ball is returned for another serve. Repeat, until we get the point that this is funny. Both players are breathing normally when they leave the court.

This is the kind of lifestyle that gives liberals a bad name apparently. It may be sort-of amusing for the time and demographics as a parody where rich Jewish New Yorkers are copying WASP stereotypes, but I didn't really care at the end. The talk throughout about how much in love with New York everyone is was not convincing, there was not really anything to show for it. There is a night ride in a Central Park carriage which is pretty, a walk thorough late-night streets, a number of motor vehicle rides on local highways, ho hum. The only real love depicted was self-love. Is that the point? New York allows one to be absolutely selfish?

The moral of the film is clumsily revealed near the end by Isaac as the author, explaining everything into a tape recorder. Perhaps all these people are running around having affairs, creating dramas and difficulty to distract themselves from their empty lives.

The film does look good; filmed in glorious black and white to emphasize the shots of a brooding New York skyline - sinister towers looming behind shots of Central Park, and a black-silhouetted illuminated bridge at dawn. After a while you stop noticing it isn't in colour. The music, all by Gershwin, is excellent.

So it may be that Manhattan will be viewed in the future as a kind of time-capsule of  interesting details of  New York life in 1979, but I'm not sure that the plot, scripts or acting will ever be anything but silly and implausible. I much prefer Allen's Radio Days, made 8 years later which is much less self-indulgent, funnier and more affectionate.

This sporting life

From the writing of Tim Davis comes this quote:

Sport is a pantomime of war, and even during peacetime, we beg its stresses back into our lives. Buying mortgages in the padded cell of Western consumer culture has turned us all into what I call horrorists. Terrorists enact violence on the lives of others; horrorists fill their own lives with ritualized violence: slasher films, roller coasters, video games, 24-hour news, sport.

I threw away my television 15 years ago...too much of everything except thinking: sport pretending to be significant; advertising copy purporting to be news; lies; mind control; insanity; compelling, crappy dramas; bad acting; worse acting; and horror.

One major horror is the feeling after watching a movie/show that your anchor has come adrift - you have taken in a different way of thinking about something, and it's wrong or corrupt. A siren call, a temptation. It's like getting a worm in the ear. It's too much for the immune system to take. I don't watch TV and I am selective about films because I don't trust myself.

I stopped taking part in competitive sports about the same time. I was sailing a dinghy across a lake when a slightly larger sailing boat was approaching on a collision course. Technically he was the give-way boat, however a woman's enraged voice shouted: "Fuck off we're racing!" Although they didn't recognize me, these were people I worked with. I thought about the times that I had been in a sporting event and played really hard to win. "Not pretty," was my conclusion.

There are plenty of other things to do with my time. Some of them give me hope I can be a better person.

Does it matter whether you hate your . . . self?
At least Love your eyes that can see, your mind that can
Hear the music...

Robinson Jeffers

Movie review: Compare Harold and Kumar go to White Castle with Bachelor Party

For inexplicable reasons, I recently watched these two movies almost one after the other.

"Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" is definitely aimed at immature teenage boys, so I fit right in to their market demographic. However I found it hilarious. Well worth watching for a bit of a laff. A couple of scenes I classify as IWM¹ funny. Kind of Cheech and Chong for the current crowd of wannabe drug-swilling hetero nerds. Mostly formulaic and predictable (except for the appearance of Neil Patrick Harris as a degenerate pervert called "Neil Patrick Harris", and the controversial use of the "goto" instruction²) but it struck me that this film illustrates the current state of censorship (perhaps self-censorship) of Hollywood. Lots of references to violence, soft drugs, and "strong language", but very little nudity (a few bosom flashes only) or serious sexual references. Acting was strong, scripting pretty good and the plot, FWIW held together. Production is actually pretty good.

I contrast H&K with "Bachelor Party", the 1984 film that was one of the first big-screen appearances by Tom Hanks. In this movie, pretty well aimed at the same age group of teens, there is a lot more nudity, sexual situations, orgies, S&M, bestiality, hard drug use (admittedly mostly by a donkey) and depictions of prostitutes³. The acting (apart from Hanks) varies from bad to seriously bad (his leading lady appears to be made from some kind of sap wood); the first half is more or less unwatchable. You won't lose anything by skipping to the middle. I would guess it was a very low budget film at the time.

Perhaps I should have watched "Cheech and Chong" alongside H&K, but I think we are can say from this experiment that teen movies have cleaned themselves up as far as sex is concerned. Disappointing, really. The last part of BP is kinda fun.

One constant between 1984 and today is the design and structure of North American school buses. How can it be that these are the only vehicles that remain unchanged in 25 years?


¹ IWM: I Wet Myself
² Sorry, but I do make programs for a living & don't get out much
³ This is therefore literally "pornographic", pedant.

Movie review: Lust caution

This Ang Lee epic (aren't they all?) drama is well worth watching. It's also disturbing - a serious work about love, death, war, fascism, youthful idealism, and of what, depending upon your POV, it takes to make either a freedom fighter or a terrorist. An espionage drama with a gritty Grahame Greene feel to it.

The protagonist is Wong Chia Chi, played by the absolutely gorgeous and talented Tang Wei. She is the unwanted daughter of a rich man who has fled China. At school in Hong Kong at the end of the '30's, when China is torn by warring factions and the Japanese are very much the enemy, she falls in with a group of politically-minded students who form a patriotic drama group. She becomes the star of their show to provide support for the Chinese cause. Afterwards, realizing that they haven't actually done anything useful, the group of five, now friends, resolve to take action. They decide to assassinate an important collaborator, Yee (played by Tony Leung) who has arrived from the mainland. Since their target is well-protected, they invent a honey trap baited with Chia Chi, disguised as the neglected wife of a businessman, although she has no sexual experience.

Their efforts nearly succeed. Yee, middle-aged and with a boring wife, is intrigued by her youth and charm. However he returns to China before the group can take action, and the messy murder of a minor thug drives Chia Chi away from them.

A few years later with the Japanese and Kuomintang now in full murderous control of South China, members of the cell, discover Chia Chi living in poverty in Shanghai. They recruit her back to finish the job, supported by mysterious Chinese resistance agents now that Yee has become head of the secret police. The last half of the movie details her successful attempt to become Yee's mistress and her struggle to bring him to be murdered by the group. Needless to say, it does not end happily.

The mind and behaviour of the character Yee, is very disturbing. A powerful and ruthless killer, he is apparently completely amoral. He even knows that the collaborationist regime he supports is doomed. We are seeing corruption taking place as his civilized exterior is eroded by his lust for his work. His internal conflicts appear only when he is shown in the home with his rich, spoiled wife. When alone with Chia Chi he can give rein to his brutal nature. This includes some of the most violent but compelling sex scenes that I have seen in a serious movie. Most of them have been cut from most distributions. The reaction of the woman who is raped and tortured, and cannot flee because of her commitments is breathtaking - she hates it and yet she is consumed by it. In a horrible irony, her compliance actually changes her abuser; he comes to some form of love for her, although he is still a monster.

Another interesting characterization was that of the students; young, well-educated, idealistic, and with a sense of justice and righteousness on their side. They take to the life of a terrorist cell as a desperate measure to do something in an attempt to help their cause. This seems to me to be the real explanation for ideologically driven espionage and terrorism, from the Cambridge group in the '30's to the people who brought down the World Trade Center towers. Once people are caught in a web of ideology in their formative years it is easy to see how they can be used to do almost anything.

The incidental scenes of life in China in the 1939-1943 are also very striking: rich collaborators having polite tea and mahjong parties while the poor are brutalized by soldiers; destitute multitudes passing through security checkpoints and in breadlines; lost White Russians washed up in Shanghai working as prostitutes and rickshaw runners.

All told, a brilliant, serious work.