Hitchcock

The Hitchcock post is going to be a superficial one. His work from the 1950s and 60s seems horribly dated. Not because of the setting or characters (I actually found that to be captivating); but because of the cinematic techniques which he used in his films of this era. You see it in the dream scenes from Vertigo, and the flashbulb scene from Rear Window. Did Mr. Hitchcock think that technicolor cellophane light filters would look cool? The floating heads? The mannequin silohuiettes? The floral bouquet in the following clip is reminiscent of what (I imagine, of course) an acid trip would look like. After the clip from The Birds was played, the cheap theatrics was a common critique of that film. Why would you take what would otherwise be flawless films and do that to them? Editing fifty years ago was invariably harder, but I have seen it done very successfully by many other directors. Damnit Alfred.

For this post, I'm going somewhat nostalgic (albeit for a time which I do not recollect). I wanted to speak to the intelligence level of film. Woody Allen is a master of dialogue. Unlike more contemporary films, Allen does not feel it necessary to create physical action to create the action of his films. Love or hate, films such as Annie Hall rely upon a myriad allusions, witty quips and absurd dialogues. The end result is a movie which necessitates a certain level of aptitude to enjoy. Instead of falling to the median level of its viewers, it challenges them to rise to Allen's much higher level. Ebert, in his 2002 review of the film, comments on this sadly unique form and how it is created.

Because "Annie Hall" moves so quickly, is so fresh and alive, we may not notice how long
some of Allen's takes are. He famously likes to shoot most scenes in master
shots with all of the actors onscreen all of the time, instead of cutting on
every line of dialogue. The critic David Bordwell has an illuminating
article in
the Spring 2002 issue of Film Quarterly that points out that
Allen's average
shot length (ASL) ranges high: 22 seconds for "Manhattan"
and 35.5 seconds for "Mighty
Aphrodite." Bordwell tells me "Annie
Hall" has an ASL of 14.5 seconds (he says other 1977 films he clocked had an
ASL of from 4 to 7 seconds). By comparison, the recent film "Armageddon"
has an ASL of 2.3 seconds, a velocity that arguably makes intelligent
dialogue
impossible.
Alvy and Annie take a sly delight in their
conversational skill;
they're attracted to each other not by pheromones but
by pacing. In the first
conversation they have, after meeting as tennis
partners, they fall naturally
into verbal tennis:

Alvy: You want a
lift
Annie: Oh, why? Uh, you got a car?
Alvy: No, I was going to take a
cab.
Annie: Oh, no. I have a car.
Alvy: You have a car? I don't
understand. If you have a car, so then why did you say, 'Do you have a car?'
like you wanted a lift?
Annie: I don't, I don't, geez, I don't know. I
wasn't. ...I got this VW out there. (To herself) 'What a jerk, yeah. Would you
like a lift?'
Alvy: Sure. Which way you goin'?
Annie: Me? Oh, downtown.
Alvy: Down ... I'm going uptown.
Annie: Oh well, you know I'm going
uptown too.
Alvy: You just said you were going downtown.
Annie: Yeah,
well, but I could ..

To begin his essay, Ebert commented on how Annie Hall hearlded the end of an era for him. How after this film, Hollywood saw the dawn of the blockbuster. I think that the idea of this divides film into two distinct arenas: films that enlighten and films that blindly entertain. While the latter still exists, it comes less and less from Hollywood. Perhaps there is a breaking point, when Hollywood will see the error in its ways. Perhaps not. It depends on the cultural tendencies of the audience. What they seek in their two hour allotment. Contemporary trends are against me.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20020512/REVIEWS08/205120301/1023

http://youtube.com/watch?v=rrxlfvI17oY&feature=related

Grecian Aphrodite

Woody Allen has long been one of America's great actors and directors. His directorship in Mighty Aphrodite makes unique combination of Allen's traditional subject matter and the outline of the Greek plays of yore. It includes many of the requisite elements of the Greek theater; a chorus, a tragic character and a "deux ex machina [which] arrives in a helicopter" (Ebert).
The general plot is based on the legend of Pygmalion. (Which interestingly was also the subject for Shaw's My Fair Lady.)
The film, however, is set in a very modern Manhattan, with very modern characters. This juxtaposition is risky, but well-executed. It becomes a modern interpretation of the historic plot. While it could have easily bastardized the mythology on which it was based, Mighty Aphrodite diverts enough from it as to not try to mirror it.