Tag: cinema analysis

Film by Alex Sheremet
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Stills of Woody Allen and Juliette Lewis (Rain) flirting in his 1992 film "Husbands and Wives", with Woody appearing much older and more haggard, as analyzed and reviewed by the world's top Woody Allen expert, Alex Sheremet, for the automachination literary magazine.

In The Dark: Analyzing Woody Allen’s “Husbands And Wives” (1992)

Although Woody’s last couple of films were underrated, they were not great works, by any means. It would take two years for Woody to return with another true drama, and thus triumphantly close his decade-and-a-half Golden Age. In some ways, Husbands and Wives is the most pure look at ‘Woody’ relationships, and one of the more intimate and best films of his career. In short, if ANNIE HALL was a kind of grown-up ‘first’ for Woody as well as Alvy Singer, and MANHATTAN too odd — it dealt with a grown man and a seventeen year-old girl, after all — or HANNAH AND HER SISTERS too marred by the ‘big problems’ of infidelity, familial conflict, and the like, to really get at the core of romance itself, this film merely examines the inner workings of two marriages, and what the interactions in one say of the events in the other, and vice-versa. It is, then, the most vanilla of the aforementioned films, but while there are no truly arresting visuals, no haunting metaphors, nor moments of ‘perfect poetry’ or scoring, this in no way detracts from what the film actually does. It is hyper-realistic, down to the documentary style, complete with questions and answers that shed light (and not) on those involved, and the quick edits and ‘jagged’ handheld camera that gets into the actors’ faces, showing not only why their marriages disintegrate, but also how the characters themselves are part of a self-imposed pattern they do not understand. […]

Film by Alex Sheremet
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Mariel Hemingway and Woody Allen look at each other as Woody smokes in his 1979 film, "Manhattan", as reviewed and analyzed by the world's leading Woody Allen critic, Alex Sheremet, for the automachination literary magazine.

The Many Illusions of Woody Allen’s “Manhattan” (1979)

Although Woody Allen’s “Manhattan” is one of cinema’s best and most-loved films, it also among the most misunderstood. This is probably because there is such a disconnect between the film’s stunning and romantic imagery, and the way the characters actually behave on-screen. Often, it’s been called a “love letter” to New York, or what’s worse, a “love poem,” but it’s really an excoriation of Isaac Davis (Woody Allen) and the projection of his ideals, which are incongruently set against all that’s beautiful and lush. It is quite an effective device, for it makes the film seem to be about one thing, yet completely undermines the genre tropes that other superficially similar works are so dependent on, even as the black and white cinematography of the great Gordon Willis seems to ‘pretend’ otherwise. Not wasting any time, Woody makes this apparent from the very first shot, in which Isaac is busy at his book. Yes, it’s a ‘romantic’ trope, in the sense that Isaac is a man in love with his city, and trying to write, but is marred by the fact that he simply cannot express one well-articulated thought. At end, he settles on this line: “‘He was as tough and romantic as the city he loved. Behind his black-rimmed glasses was the coiled sexual power of a jungle cat.’ I love this. ‘New York was his town and it always would be.’” This is not exactly good writing, and flies in the face of a later scene where he up and quits his job so he could stop writing crap television, and work on something “serious” and worthwhile instead. Clearly it is not, and despite being one of the most-quoted parts of the film, there is an irony, a futility, here, that most viewers do not catch. The stunning visuals of fireworks are celebratory, but of what? Probably of Isaac’s feelings and ideals, which are repeatedly shown to have little to do with reality, not only of the outside world, but of his internal life, as well, which is as false and self-congratulatory as anything he critiques. This gives Manhattan a special place in cinema, even as, thirty-five years later, it continues to outshine films that, while inspired by Woody’s, are restricted by the genre conventions he absolutely defies. […]