[This long-form analysis of Woody Allen’s INTERIORS appears in Alex Sheremet’s “Woody Allen: Reel to Real.” You can also watch our conversation reviewing INTERIORS here.]
Woody Allen’s Interiors aimed higher and accomplished more than anything else the director had previously done. The film takes a kernel — a family in turmoil — and shows how characters are affected by it, as well as how they, themselves, are the contributors to the dissolution. Interiors shocked viewers upon release, for it had exactly zero comedic value, and remains one of the heaviest stories that Woody Allen has written to this day. It is also precisely what is so hated in Allen’s work, for he skewers an ‘upper crust’ family in a way that is both poetic and realistic, thus opening Allen up to criticism because ‘they’ don’t like what they see, or simply do not believe it. And yet, for all the superficial difficulty one might have with ‘getting into it’, it is, at its core, a highly complex and well-wrought drama, full of great characters, interesting symbols (the red dress at end; the black, almost cosmic tape during the first suicide attempt), and some really great psychological interplay between three sisters that would not be equaled until Hannah and Her Sisters (1986).
Yes, it’s often been derided as Woody aping Bergman, but while Bergman is clearly an influence, Allen is in no way derivative of him. Interiors partly revolves around art and its misuses; its lack of a ‘savior’ element for the characters (Eve, especially); and many of the personages, such as Joey (Mary Beth Hurt), are completely and inarguably American, in the sense that they suffer through American excess and American leisure; all of which (art’s neuroses included) have become a Woody trademark, not a Bergmanian one. Joey, in particular, is a true and fully realized ‘type,’ a ponderous, artistic wannabe that, for all of her detractors in print and online, is completely real, and can appear pretty much anywhere in life, as if from the very thinness of the space she inhabits: art cafes, jazz shows, gallery openings, and whatever else might invite such congregation. In short, the film defines its own moments, not Bergman’s, a truth which has rarely been examined at length.
The film opens with a shot of dark windows looking out into the ocean and three girls playing in the sand. Joey, the middle sister, appears, followed by a shot of Renata (Diane Keaton) placing her hand upon the glass, as if to ‘capture’ that lost beach scene. Is she pining for her childhood, or are the girls really them, as the two sisters are busy looking in? Arthur (E.G. Marshall), their father, interrupts with a monologue on Eve (Geraldine Page), his wife and their mother, who has, at this point, already died. He comments on how Eve had created the world for them — strict, orderly — and that, in time, it had felt like an “ice palace.” After the monologue, the film moves back, before Eve’s suicide, where she brings a vase to Joey’s boyfriend, Michael (Sam Waterston), that she wishes them to buy for the apartment. She is an interior decorator, and already forced multiple changes on the apartment, including doing and redoing the kitchen floors, to get it ‘perfect.’ The two argue about the cost, yet Eve — in the first scene of really great acting in the film — has an almost hypnotized look on her face as she sets around these doodads, while Joey comes in, genuinely compliments her now-haggard, sick-looking mother, and chides Michael for not catering to the mentally sick Eve, who expresses her desire to ‘get back’ with her husband, while Joey tells her to be realistic. This, then, is another non-Bergman touch, for Joey is quite vocal about her feelings (not “meek”, as so many reviewers insist), not poetic, for the most part, but straight-laced, even confident, even if she does not ever come to love herself. (A comparison, then, with Bergman’s contemporaneous Autumn Sonata would mostly yield contrasts.) Renata, the eldest sister and a successful poet, appears at psychotherapy (another Woody trademark), and muses that Arthur is merely “Eve’s creation,” for she orchestrated his schooling with her own money, organized his life, living space, and the like, all the while resenting Arthur’s strong love of Joey, but not fully realizing how much Eve loves and worships her — or rather, Renata’s talent. And Flyn (Kristin Griffith), the youngest and seemingly least successful of the sisters, whom nobody expresses any strong feelings towards, pro or con, is still nowhere to be seen. Thus, we already have a rich set of conflicts, done in a few deft touches, barely fifteen or so minutes into the narrative.
Suddenly, Renata’s comments bring the viewer even further back, where Arthur, at the breakfast table, very calmly announces that after so many years with Eve and the children, he wishes to leave Eve, and go live by himself. Joey is clearly affected by all this, and Eve, as if to affirm Arthur’s sudden decision, explodes at Joey, telling her to stop “breathing so hard.” This typifies not only her lack of warmth, but also her absolute need to keep everything to a certain manner and aesthetic. Renata, back at the psychiatrist’s, now, admits her fear of death, and in a particularly telling moment, says she does not know why she is creating. “Do I really care if a handful of my poems are read after I’m gone? Is that supposed to be some sort of compensation?” I will deal with what this admission entails later on, but for now, suffice to say that it is yet another non-Bergmanian touch, for her inner conflict takes shape around something few Bergman characters can relate to, at least in this way.
In the next scene, Joey tells Michael she wants to quit her job, that she hates reading manuscripts all day. Michael makes several suggestions, which Joey simply shoots down. She wants to go back to acting, but is unsure. She thinks of children, but decides they would be too stifling. And her recent photography she now admits she “hates” and thinks is “stupid.” Finally, she tells Michael that “I feel a real need to express something, but I don’t know what it is I want to express. Or how to express it.” Again, more non-Bergman, whose angst tends to be more primal, and less concerned with these self-deluding artsy types.
At this point, we get to see the relationship between Renata and her husband, Frederick (Richard Jordan), a novelist. They are at a store, making jokes about Flyn, who is supposed to be a gossip and an insipid actress. Yet Frederick uses this as an opportunity to attack himself, negatively contrasting his meager accomplishments with his wife’s. Later on, Renata compliments her husband’s latest book, which he rejects passive-aggressively, and says he doesn’t care about posthumous fame, but wants “to knock somebody over right now” as he continues drinking, which is yet another Woody trope.
Meanwhile, Eve gets flowers from Arthur on her birthday, which she takes as a “positive sign,” yet ultimately decides to kill herself anyway, for she can’t truly believe it. In one of the film’s best scenes, she is shown duct-taping the cracks between the windows and doors, all the while wearing a rich black and white dress. In a beautiful shot, one sees how even the colors of the tape match her dress as she turns on the gas and lies down, for the implication is that even in death, she needs some order, some kind of art, and as she lies there, it looks, with the apartment lights outside, as if there is a cosmic funeral, prepared just for her.
Eve survives the suicide attempt, gets institutionalized, and Arthur accuses Renata of cutting herself off from everyone, while Renata accuses Arthur, in turn, of only thinking of Joey, and Joey wonders why Renata does not want to pursue a relationship with her. In fact, amidst all this ‘intrigue,’ doubt, and accusation, it is the much-maligned Flyn who is still innocent of such, and kept in the background, for no one really solicits her opinion on things, nor will they ever care to. Such tempers are typically kept under wraps, as this is what they were taught. It takes the near-death of their mother, however, for it to bubble up, and her successful suicide, at the end, for them to get through it, and finally be able to look out — as Matt Cale writes[1] — on an “Eve-free shore,” wherein they are no longer trapped.
At one point, one begins to see glimmers of a ‘normal’ relationship between Renata and the despicable Frederick, where Renata confides in him about some of her feelings. “I was here,” she says of a half-dream or hallucination, “and the world was out there, and I couldn’t bring us together.” He holds her, bonds over their comments about Joey, but ultimately torpedoes even this genuinely affectionate moment by turning everything back to himself, so he could once again be the center. This is realism at its best, for the Fredericks of the world — bitter, resentful, and full of nothing at all — behave precisely in this way, all the while destroying everything around them. The two prepare for Arthur’s visit, and get their daughter upstairs. It’s a telling moment, for the child is barely shown in the film at all, despite so much of it taking it place in their own household. In fact, the girl seems to play almost no role in their lives, which seems to substantiate Frederick’s earlier comments about their daughter being used as a poetic “experiment” by Renata.
Later on, Arthur brings over a new woman for the sisters to meet — Pearl — who is the exact opposite of their mother. She is warm, kind, talkative, lively, dresses in bright colors, and “vulgar,” which reaches slightly comic proportions when they all discuss a recent play, and Pearl is unable to think of it in metaphorical terms, choosing, instead, to look at it on surface level. Alone, Joey and Renata argue with Arthur about his decision to marry Pearl, with Joey being against it, as it might destroy Eve. The argument is yet another occasion for the sisters’ bickering, which, again, is still being brought upon by Eve, albeit indirectly. They ultimately agree, however, and there is a final meeting between Arthur and Eve, this time at a dark, empty church, wherein Eve marvels at the architecture and color, despite it being so drab. Arthur admits that he wishes to marry another woman, and Eve, in one of the best and most frightening scenes of the film, knocks over a series of blurred candles, then runs down the aisle, with Arthur in pursuit. As she runs, one only sees rows and rows of pews, darkness, and solemnity, and one gets the feeling that this is her interior, for it is where — and what — she really is.
Arthur and Pearl are married, and the camera stays on the three sisters the whole time. Joey looks upset, still, Renata is concerned — possibly due to getting even less attention from her father due to the new woman — while Flyn’s face, in fact, is the most understanding, for she seems to have no personal stake in the marriage at all, unlike her sisters. This is followed by a small party at their childhood home, where everyone is dancing, and Pearl, feeling lively, begins to dance by herself, her body ponderous, as everyone (except Joey) stares in delight. But she gets too close to a vase, and ends up knocking it over. Joey explodes, telling her to be careful, paralleling Eve’s explosion at Joey at the beginning of the film for “breathing too hard.” It is clear, then, that her mother’s flaws are sometimes her own flaws, as well. Flyn goes to her car and snorts cocaine, and Frederick attempts to rape her, since it’s been “so long” since he’s made love to a woman he didn’t feel “inferior” to. She resists and runs off.
The scene cuts to Joey, who is sitting in the dark, alone, and sees her mother, who appears almost like an apparition. Joey is finally able to tell her everything she hadn’t, that Eve is “too perfect to live in this world,” and reveals her resentments over Renata. “You worship Renata,” she says. “You worship talent. Well, what happens to those of us who can’t create? What do we do? What do I do, when I’m overwhelmed with feelings about life? How do I get them out?” Yet Eve merely looks on with dead, black eyes, and says nothing the entire time, as if she’s come to a decision. Eve disappears, Pearl appears, and Joey runs out into the glum morning, as Eve enters the ocean, and Joey tries to save her, thereby almost drowning, herself. Michael ends up pulling her out, and Pearl runs to her in a bright red dress that stands out against the gray, and resuscitates her. There is a funeral, and Renata holds Joey for the first time, as Joey thinks back to some ‘warm’ memories of her mother, which actually have a very cold veneer. They all seem to devolve to beauty, decoration, ideas, but nothing base, nothing ‘merely’ human, thus making it impossible to enjoy, or connect to on any level that is recognizably human. The final shot is of the three sisters looking out into the window and the beach outside, as they walk into position, one by one, by age, with Flyn in the end, practically a blur, and Renata announcing how beautiful it is outside. Of all the characters, I’d argue that Joey is the most complex, and perhaps the most enduring. Yes, Eve is extremely well-acted, and absolutely necessary to the film, yet her presence is that of an apparition: she always stalks their thoughts, and in a way is an extension of themselves, as if the fat, drab, haggard woman is a symbol of their various ills, which her death ultimately cures. One does not see much of Eve when young and triumphant, only the ghost of such, which comes out in little moments such as her re-designing of Joey’s apartment, where, instead of the true talent she might have once had, the viewer only sees obsession and fixation. If Eve is mentally wrecked and spiritually sick, Joey’s ill is that despite being bright and ready to ‘live,’ she simply has no creative talent, no way of expressing her thoughts and feelings in a truly meaningful way. Michael seems to care for her, but as a ‘regular guy’ who likely does not have much talent himself, or any real reason to crave it, he does not know how to handle Joey and her endless moods. On one level, Joey worships Eve because of her talent, but manipulates her because, on a deeper level, she feels that she’s inherited something from her mother, and needs to be wary, for talent (at least to Joey) is probably not worth all the suffering Eve put her family through. That said, Joey is self-absorbed and makes too much of her own feelings, at times even recapitulating Eve’s behavior. She whines about her lacks but doesn’t accept them, and, as an upper-crust type, seems to have infinite resources to ‘try’ an endless array of pointless things, skipping from job to job, activity to activity, and hating everything in between like a little child. Clearly, she’s unsuited for something, yet this realization is not enough. What’s more, her father worries about this tendency, but absolutely supports her, regardless, almost to her detriment. She is not ‘likable,’ but liked, nonetheless, for much of her love is genuine, and her problems seemingly irreparable. Too much has been made of a lack of realism in such personages in Interiors, but I have personally known Joeys, have seen them travel, have watched them get indulged, have heard the crying, and have seen enough of the consequent guilt to understand that Woody Allen has very much captured a ‘type,’ and accurately, at that. In fact, the very name, itself, might as well be part of everyday parlance, if only the film was not so savaged upon release.
Earlier, I wrote that Joey is very much an American, practically as a symbol of excess, because ca. 1978, America was (and is probably more so now) a place of so much freedom for the rich, that the leisure and opportunity could drive a person to functional idleness. In short, ‘everyone’ can be an artist, it is repeated. ‘Everyone’ is encouraged to do everything, no matter how ill suited to the task they are. Every whim is indulged, and no question thought insoluble. As Joey literally hops around, it is all too easy to loathe the self-indulgence she represents, and loathe her, by extension. Yet, this would also miss something important. The Joeys of the world are quite good for the arts, if not downright necessary, for they can be its arbiters, or at least understand the deeper things in a way that quotidian, non-artsy folk cannot. No, they will not be artists, but, basically, artists need someone to communicate to. All throughout the film, Joey is sensitive and has a good read on people, even if her actions (as with Pearl) are repeatedly marred by her own biases. But Joey does represent a bright, sympathetic type, and thus ought to be the kind of audience an artist aims for. Moreover, her inability to replicate such aims herself is irrelevant, for it is outside of her core purpose. Talent is indeed wonderful, but, as Woody Allen has so often argued, it’s also a crapshoot. One either has it, or not. If one does, not cultivating it is an absolute waste. Yet if it’s not there, the most self-destructive thing one could do is to obsess and desire the impossible. Joey, then, is quite real as a Woody, not Bergmanian, creation, and her conflict, which is uniquely Woody, is central to the tropes within the film itself.
If Joey is immature, but emotionally open and receptive and full of potential, Renata is closed-off and a bit cold, even if she is better than her mother. One can’t ascertain if she has any real talent, for we don’t see any writing, and only know that she is critically acclaimed. On the other hand, it doesn’t really matter, for what’s important is others’ perception of her success, and how that affects everyone from Joey, to Frederick, Eve, and Renata, herself. Still, she does admit some rather telling things to her analyst, including that she no longer knows ‘why’ she is a poet. In fact, she wishes to be ‘saved’ by art, and can only think of it in solipsistic terms: that art can make her immortal, rather than her ideas, which is what really counts. One wonders, then, why she is even involved in the art world. On the one hand, she tells Frederick that posthumous fame is what counts. On the other, her admissions call her motives into doubt. Is she writing because, as a great writer, she has the potential to influence the course of human events, and give future artists something new to build off of? Or is she writing merely because she was lucky enough to have some talent, win acclaim, hit others over the head with her ‘success,’ and fulfill some selfish fantasy to go on living past her death? At any rate, one senses her puerility here, and even if, in some ways, she is more mature than Joey, in others, she is worse. Her marriage to Frederick, for instance, is a disaster, as he is nothing but a resentful leech, yet she’s stayed with him this long, regardless. Joey’s boyfriend, whom she refuses to marry out of immaturity, is actually a good guy, and good for her, which is more than what can be said for Frederick. So, why the self-abuse? To me, it is clear that, for all of her success, Renata is not at all self-confident. Joey naively believes that talent might ‘save’ her, but Renata, who has in fact tasted it, understands that she still has to deal with herself, to live her own life, and face some very real consequences, talent or not. The fact that Eve worships this part of her seems to extend Eve’s sickness unto Renata, for talent does not truly make a person in all his self-worth, and Eve’s own undoing is evidence.
Flyn, although a supporting character at best, is nonetheless an interesting one, for she’s always somewhere in the background, a sister neither of the two seeks out, nor a person who stirs up any real passion in anyone. Despite this, however, she clearly has a very different emotional make-up, a purity that the other two lack, even if she is insipid. And to be fair, we never do hear any stupidity from her — it is all second-hand, as we are expected to take this on faith. But, perhaps this says more of the other characters’ perceptions than about Flyn, herself, for in the few scenes where she does open up to her sisters, she reveals no resentments, no hang-ups, no passive-aggressiveness or ill will towards anyone, but, surprisingly, a good deal of self-awareness. In the scene where she is walking along the beach with Renata, and a camera follows them at a distance behind an undulating fence, Flyn gently rebukes Renata’s compliments, saying that she knows who she ‘actually’ is, that she is a minor television actress, and that if it weren’t for some insipid culture, she’d not even have a job. Flyn says this with some resignation, but not resentment or self-loathing. To Flyn, it just is, and there is no sense in fighting against reality. (If only Joey could agree, or Renata see herself as clearly!) At the funeral, where Joey appears rigid, and Renata only mildly upset, caring, as she does, for Eve only for the first time now, it is Flyn who has the strongest and most emotionally ‘pure’ response, given the fact that she’s had no such personal investment in Eve’s death. To Flyn, it is merely the death of a pitiable mother. To the others, however, there is exoneration and release. This surely makes Flyn less complex than the other two, but no less interesting, and the fact that Woody was able to give this kind of personableness to one of the film’s trivialities flies in the face of everything that’s been written of its supposed lack of realism.
Allen was very critical of the response to the film, calling it “a shame.”[2] In fact, he’s quite critical of the entire ‘dramatic’ genre in America, saying that soap operatics, rather than solemnity, is what’s typically preferred. Perhaps, for this (along with the false assertions of ripping off Bergman) is the only reason why the film seems to have been so savaged — that is, for its dead seriousness. Yes, the film has some flaws: the too-obvious symbolism of Renata’s hands on the window, the heavy-handed manner in which she confides in her therapist (despite the exchange being quite well-written), or the way Pearl, at film’s end, responds to the word “mother,” and even explains why, despite the viewer already being quite aware of the fact that she’s become the new mother-figure. Yet these are all minor complaints that, unfortunately, have been extended to other areas, as well. Nick Davis writes that Interiors is “lacking in nuance,”[3] and Graeme Clark likewise did not, on a purely subjective level, care for the characters, since they were “terminally uptight.”[4] This is hard to argue, but immaterial to the film’s success or failure. Thompson also writes that the characters are “false” and “lack an emotional core,” while asserting that Bergman handled such things better, for he’d have more humor and surreality to offset it all.[5] Again, I do not know what a character’s ‘falseness’ has to do with a film’s artistic success, but the claims about Bergman are simply out of this world. Cries and Whispers — the film’s supposed base — is equally humorless, Autumn Sonata is one of the most difficult films to watch, and A Passion (which boasts a perfect score on RottenTomatoes) ends with a gang urinating on a mentally sick man, leading him to suicide. How’s that for solemnity?
I’ve already dealt with the charges of the lack of nuance via my own detailed exposition, but it is Vincent Canby, perhaps, who needs the most attention. After describing, accurately and precisely, what Interiors is about, he goes on to say that he “hasn’t any real idea what the film is up to,” and that Woody “set out to make someone else’s movie,” a “Brooklyn Jewish boy’s fantasy about middle-class American Protestantism.”[6] To this, I can only ask: Huh? Did Canby ever meet these types and their infinite variations in the lower classes, and beyond? And, even if Woody had ‘inaccurately’ captured a certain slice of the population, they are still real characters that inhabit his created universe, play out a narrative in complex ways, and say something of substance and worth, whether or not Canby is willing to recognize this as such. As it stands, however, Woody left the typical “Brooklyn Jewish boy’s” life in his early 20’s, and more or less subsisted on the WASPy Upper East Side ever since, drawing on experiences that were true-to-life as can be, with the added benefit of distance that only a transplant could provide. If that wasn’t enough, Canby goes on to deride Keaton’s role, as it’s “impossible” to write a successful poet’s character. (What?) He ponders what success even means — publication, awards, disheveled hair. Canby, who was no artist, thus foists up the very artistic stereotypes he, himself, does not understand, and thus cannot appreciate how the film attacks and deconstructs. A real poet is not disheveled; he merely writes real poems. All else is accoutrement, and as varied as people vary. To Canby, Diane Keaton is too busy looking out of the window, thinking “sensitive, poet-type thoughts.” Yet, this is the Diane Keaton of his invention, not Renata, who exists in a real universe of people, who do complex things, and are not defined by merely one part of their existence. With Eve, her fate was exactly that, and this is why her reality went hollow.
[1] Cale, Matt. Review of Interiors. Ruthless Reviews. http://www.ruthlessreviews.com/12785/interiors/ 4/27/2012. Accessed 4/9/2014.
[2] Bjorkman, 95.
[3] Davis, Nick. Review of Interiors. Nick’s Flick Picks. http://www.nicksflickpicks.com/interior.html 5/1999. Accessed 4/9/2014.
[4] Clark, Graeme. Review of Interiors. The Spinning Image. http://www.thespinningimage.co.uk/cultfilms/displaycultfilm.asp?reviewid=4917 Accessed 4/9/2014.
[5] Thompson, Bill. “Movie Dictator Club: Interiors (1978).” Bill’s Movie Emporium. http://billsmovieemporium.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/movie-dictator-club-interiors-1978/ 5/17/2011. Accessed 4/9/2014.
[6] Canby, Vincent. Review of Interiors. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9A0CEFDE1F3EE432A25751C0A96E9C946990D6CF 8/2/1978. Accessed 2/4/2014.
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