jjgittes Blog

Under discussion:

Annie Hall  (1977)

Quite simply, ANNIE HALL is one of my top ten favorite films of all time, even higher on the list than CASABLANCA, the other Reel 13 film this year to have that honor. It is a perfect, soaring example of “modernism lite” – a cinematic movement that borrowed creative filmmaking ideas from European Art Cinema, but made them more accessible by utilizing them within a traditional Hollywood-type narrative. Modernism lite made its debut stateside in the seventies with the rise of the film school generation. Other examples of this might include AMERICAN GRAFFITI, MEAN STREETS or THE CONVERSATION. ANNIE HALL also started a genre of its own to some degree, which I like to call the “neurotic romantic comedy”, which is mostly typified by the idea that the obstacles for couple in question is really just themselves and their own hang-ups and psychological issues. This is a tradition that filmmakers like Nora Ephron and company would continue many years later with films like WHEN HARRY MET SALLY and SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE. In many ways, it is a truer and more honest representation of relationships as we know them in modern society and the comedy in these films derive from the audience recognizing themselves in the characters and the flaws in their own behavior. This is very different from traditional Hollywood romances in which the characters represented an ideal, something for the audience to admire and aspire to. Granted, none of us are quite as neurotic as Alvy and Annie are (though I may come close). They take the behavior to an extreme, but that only enhances the comedy. 

I think the element that is the most special about ANNIE HALL is the way it blends fantasy and reality. Early on, Allen comments that he always had a problem distinguishing the two and the results in the film are glorious. From the scene in which his eight year-old classmates stand to announce what they would grow up to become to when he and his friends would physically watch and then interact with flashbacks, these moments are high points in the film because they manage to not only provide exposition and character information, but they also comment and provide insight on the information in a way that feels very natural, kind of like drinking water to make a pill go down easier. Allen establishes this style from the get go and therefore, the transitions to his imagination never feel jarring. He handles them with a matter-of-factness for the rest of the way, which is fun, fascinating and also keeps the viewer on his or her toes. We are engaged.

Diane Keaton won an Academy Award for her performance as the titular character and deservedly so. Woody Allen, at his most amusing and charismatic, is no slouch either. There has been much criticism over the years that Allen and Keaton merely played themselves, but to me, that holds little weight. While I concur that the characters were based on them, every actor needs to draw from their own experiences when approaching a performance. Here, what Allen and Keaton each do, transcends the advantage they had of living through a similar, real relationship. Their comic timing is masterful while never feeling contrived or sitcom-like. Their chemistry is natural and even though that’s probably due to their off-screen relationship, it’s still a joy to watch on-screen. They manage to make scenes with all those zingers feel honest and real, as if conversations any of us would have in real life. It’s not as easy as they make it look. In my opinion, they used themselves as a starting point, a springboard for crafting the performances that they did, but each of them added to that foundation so that the film would not still be fun and not just a home movie of their love affair. 

Of course, the other memorable quality to ANNIE HALL is the script, particularly the dialogue. Allen keeps most of the best quips for himself, but that never feels like too much because many of them are self-deprecating. Not only are the lines witty and well-delivered, but they have a resonance behind them. Many of them come from old jokes that Allen retells, turning them upside down to shake out the hidden meaning. Examples include the famous “I wouldn’t want to belong to a club that would have me as a member” and “I need the eggs”. These moments or lines of dialogue are funny on the surface, but quite poignant underneath, offering insight into the nature of relationships and the characters we are watching while not hitting us over the head and still being interesting and entertaining. That’s a combination that serves the film as a whole and the result is an always surprisingly powerful experience.

(For more information on this film or any other Reel 13 film, check out their website at www.reel13.com)

Under discussion:

Team Picture  (2007)

Mumblecore rears its ugly head (and I do mean ugly) once again on Reel 13 with TEAM PICTURE, which proves just how interchangeable the films within this emerging genre tend to be. Just change the city (here, it's Memphis, TN) and the protagonist and then use the same formula – drifting twentysomething deals with a potential romance and a lack of career or direction. While the plight of the aimless does have implicit dramatic tendencies, the trend is getting to be disturbingly repetitive, especially given how TEAM PICTURE takes the aimlessness to an extreme, mirroring the character's meandering with its narrative structure. At least a film like QUIET CITY had an objective – to find the friend that the girl was supposed to meet. TEAM PICTURE, conversely, is as lost as its main character.

As far as that protagonist is concerned, director/star Kentucker Audley (Kentucker?) seems perpetually high (as in, on drugs) and the film seems to hope that we would mistake his quirk for depth. David, as played by Audley, eventually becomes an impossible character to root for. His inability to communicate with people in a normal way or perhaps more importantly, to the audience, is initially interesting, but it evolves into being extremely frustrating. I felt myself giving up on him three-quarters of the way through the sixty-minute main narrative and that is a sign of death for any narrative. Furthermore, I get the sense that Audley, like many of his mumblecore counterparts, is not acting so much as he is playing himself with a different name. In doing so, however, he fails to communicate the dimensions of his character/himself that would give us enough of a window into his psyche that would allow us to care

This leads me to another issue I have with the mumblecore movement that Team Picture epitomizes. While the genre is supposed to more representative of reality than most narrative films, this becomes a stylization in and of itself that many films of the genre take to an unnecessary extreme, which makes them less realistic than they think, just on the other side of the spectrum. In other words, the supposed "realism" is forced. Conversations are rarely as random as they are here and in other films of its kind. The discussions about fingernails and flowers that take place in this movie are just as crafted as regular dialogue, but here with the intention of seemingly like it wasn't as contrived. But, in my mind, they are overcompensating. I'll take a well-shaped scene that advances the narrative any day over a wandering conversation about something uninteresting. Along the same lines, technical snafus like boom shadows and breaking the 180-degree rule aren't cool or rich. It's just sloppy.

I don't even know what to say about the epilogue to TEAM PICTURE, entitled GINGER SAND. After TEAM PICTURE ends suddenly after only an hour, GINGER SAND begins and seems to take place much later, reuniting two of the main characters from the main film, but it also features two characters that Audley doesn't bother to introduce or explain. Once again, he rudely eschews the need for traditional exposition, probably as some form of rebellion against "Hollywood storytelling". The ensuing ten minutes of GINGER SAND has absolutely nothing to do with the story of TEAM PICTURE and gives us no insight as to where David is in his life, what he is doing with his time, etc. All it manages to do is convey that his new relationship isn't working out, even though we just met this new girlfriend and have no sense of their history. So why should we care? And that goes for TEAM PICTURE as well.

(For more information on this or any other Reel 13 film, check out their website at www.reel13.org)

Under discussion:

Lilies of the Field  (1963)

LILIES OF THE FIELD, last week's Reel 13 Classic, is famous for being the film that led the first African-American (Sidney Poitier) to a Best Actor Academy Award. However, as an overall product, it's something of a disappointment. The film is built around the conceit that Homer, Poitier's character, helps out a group of German expatriate nuns with some chores around the house and then can sever seem to leave. However, the manner in which they continually trick, guilt or goad him into staying on quickly becomes tiresome. It's like a handful of bad episodes of "Gilligan's Island" in which some mishap or hijinks prevent our heroes from escaping the island.

One would then assume that Sidney Poitier's Oscar-winning work in the film carries it, but I personally didn't think he was all that great. He doesn't so much create a deep, three-dimensional character as he does rely on his strongest assets – his charm and charisma, those qualities that made him palatable to white audiences of the 50's and 60's. It was, by no means, the best work of his career (THE DEFIANT ONES, TO SIR WITH LOVE, IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT and GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER are all stronger) or even the best leading man work of 1963 (Albert Finney in TOM JONES is one example). I don't even think it was the best performance in the film. Lilia Skala (well before she became famous for FLASHDANCE) does some terrific, nuanced work as Mother Maria. The conflict within her character is significantly more subtle and therefore, in a way, more palpable. 

As rich as the black and white cinematography is, the direction of the film is mostly haphazard. The angles are generally uninspired and the blocking for the camera is clunky (I point to several scenes in the nuns' meeting room as examples). The majority of the scenes are slow and ramble on longer than they should and as a result, the film never seems to catch any headwind – no momentum. The second half of the film is much stronger, once the repetitive cat and mouse games with the nuns take a backseat to Homer's determination to build a chapel, but it's too little too late to rescue the film from ultimately being a big ol' bore.

(For more information on this or any other Reel 13 film, check out their website at www.reel13.org)