Annie Hall, great comedy

How to write about one of the most influential filmmakers in history, Woody Allen, and about the film that is considered to be his turning point, it is hard to know where to begin.

Annie Hall is the film where Woody Allen made the turning point from comedian to incredible filmmaker. His experimental style of comedy is just truly brilliant and very poignant. It is truly no the usual style that we are used to seeing, he uses peculiar strategic style choices that include, text on screen, animation, and split screen, to show the neurotic and innermost thoughts of the main characters, to create this amazing romantic comedy.

His style of comedy works perfectly because is so different, for example when he uses the split screen to show the contrast between characters and situations, when he first uses it, we see Alvy having dinner with the Halls in a well lit, and decorated scene, everyone is sitting evenly spaced and everyone is at ease of course except for Alvy. In the contrast screen, we see Alvy’s family having dinner, the family is all crammed together, and it’s a low-lit, crowded frame. The respective mothers begin to talk to one another through the split screen discussing the differences in their homes. This is absolutely brilliant, because we get to see two different sides of why the main characters are who they are; it’s a different way to give us a background story of sorts by taking a look at these two families simultaneously. Also when they are both in therapy and we get to see them discussing their problems with their respective shrinks. They talk about very similar things, but their points off view are completely different. Also the scenes themselves are contrasting, her side is lit, while his is stark and feel crowded, also when the shrinks ask about their sexual lives, Alvy says that they hardly have sex only three times a week, while Annie answers with “constantly” with the same number of times, this shows how different they are, and it is a way of smart banter. We get to enjoy this style of comedy because it does not need to be dumbed down for it to be funny. He utilized perfect timing to deliver the dialog, and this would have not been possible without the split-screen, the characters interacting in this particular scene is like a perfect choreography of expertly timed banter with one another.

Woody Allen is undoubtedly an iconic filmmaker, his films have touched me deeply, movies such as Annie Hall, Blue Jasmine, and my particular favorite Midnight in Paris. His movies are interesting and certainly beautiful, they are creative and incredibly interesting, it is impossible to dislike his movies and his style.

1960's Daisies

I have to say that even though I thoroughly enjoy strange enigmatic movies, Daisies is not one that I could truly get in too, I think that even though it is amazing, I am one of those people that need a story line to follow, regardless of how strange that plotline may be, I definitely need one. I love films with bright colors and interesting scenery, and its ok if the movie moves in a strange pace, such movies as Amelie, which happens to be one of my favorite movies of all time. Many find Amelie strange and hard to follow, which is the way I felt about Daisies. But even though it is not exactly my cut of tea, I do have to admit that it is indeed a fantastic work of art. The way it shifts from color, to black and white, to some slashes of color, and the overall the scenery is incredible.

At first glance Daisies could be played off as a disembodied comedy, girls running around like crazy from set to set, falling into different colored world. They run around stuffing their faces with everything they can find, even magazine pages with food printed on them, cutting limbs of each other’s bodies, we get glimpses of an arm, and a head. They run around in a wild rampage of child like delight, but doing rather “stupid” things. When you just watch it and not think of it too hard as to why they do what they do, it feels just like a strange episode of a cartoon. But when you stop and ponder as to why? Then that’s when Chytilova’s intent comes into fruition. She meant for it to be thought off, she wants the audience to wonder, “why are they doing all of this?” that is what she wanted. Her visual strategy was to be provocative, she wanted for people to question their antics, to wonder, why are they cutting sausages, what does that mean?

It is rather brilliant to think that she in a way hid these intense thoughts behind silly cartoon-like antics. And once again even though Daisies is not something I will be watching again, I do have to appreciate its brilliance.

The Master of Suspense; Vertigo

Vertigo, is one of Hitchcock’s classics, yet not quite one of my favorites, I am quite partial to birds. Nature attacking humans, it tends to be my thing! Hitchcock is the master of suspense, not just because he knows how to work a story, but for the complex camera work, the way he utilized angles, pans, zooms and tracks to make the viewer a part of the suspense, to really feel what the character is going through, you feel their panic, their fear. He also utilizes music, the way he uses music especially in Vertigo is absolutely masterful.

The music, which was composed by Bernard Herrmann, is used by Hitchcock brilliantly to portray emotion, to show the suspense, to shock the audience to draw us into the scenes.

He uses music to emphasize the suspense of the scenes, for example when John is running to catch Madeline in Mission San Juan Bautista. The music begins to crescendo when Madeline begins to run toward the tower, when John enters the music quiets completely. When he starts running up the stairs the music picks up and crescendos even more. This builds up the intensity of the scene to incredible heights, the music plus the amazing camera work, makes this scene the masterpiece it is.

Other times the music juxtaposes with the scene, building up the suspense without an actual climax. For example, when John begins to follow Madeline, he follows her in his car with the music beginning to build suspense. Once he turns into an empty alley, the music intensifies even more; we follow John as he opens the door, the music is at its peak, and once he peeks inside, the music becomes pleasant and soft and lovely, showing Madeline surrounded by flowers. So he created suspense just to pull the audience in, just brilliant work all together.

Even I personally find Vertigo to be too heavy, its distressing and just uncomfortable at times, it doesn’t change that Hitchcock made some brilliant choices when he made this movie, and it deserves to me a masterpiece.

1930's Film Noir

Detour is a film that at this day and age could never be everlasting, but even though many corners were cut to make this movie, and it’s many technical errors, it has endure because it embodies the guilty spirit of the film noir, its creepy and so haunting, hard to forget once it has been seen.

It’s hard to really place a category to the main character, cannot say whether Al Robert is a hero who has bad luck or a villain who enjoys being mistreated by Vera. At first we see him sad because his so-called love, whom he wants to marry has left him, and now he is depressed, so he hitchhikes to California where his love has gone. So far, he is a dopey, sad guy, maybe a hero who is down on his luck. But then Haskell who picks him up on the road, dies of a heart attack after telling Al of a Dame with claws who attacked him. Al then acts very much like a villain and buries Haskell, he says that the police would count him guilty, he almost sounds like he is guilty. Even though we saw Haskell die from a heart attack, Al sees himself guilty, he even dreams about doing exactly what he just did! Why? Not only he just buries him, but he assumes his identity, and then picks up a strange and angry hitchhiker, who turns out to be the same angry woman Haskell has picked up, all in all very fishy.

When Vera proposes to steal the money Haskell would have inherited, he falls right for it, there is not even a good reason for him to do it, he isn’t tricked into it, he is fully aware that what he will be doing is wrong, yet he goes along with it. He stays around for Vera’s bullying as though he enjoys it and just refused to take charge and leave. You can’t help but to feel sorry for him, but still not understand why he can’t just do right… He then gets stuck with another death, that he didn’t cause, but yet he just takes it onto his back and keeps on falling even further down the hole he has been digging.  

Maybe he is a hero who has been dealt a bad hand by life, but maybe he is a bad guy who is telling us, his version of the events, maybe we are being told his alibi, he is trying to show us, that he is not really bad.