Love and intrigue at centre of new Allen film
Love and intrigue reportedly lie at the heart of the new Woody Allen film which the veteran US director has begun shooting with a star-studded cast.
According to Catalan newspaper El Periodico, the plot, which Allen, 71, has kept carefully under wraps to date, involves a tryst between a painter, his ex-fiancee and two American tourists.
Allen has said only that the new flick will be a "love letter to Barcelona," adding that filming in Spain -- aside from Barcelona some scenes will also be shot in the northern region of Asturias -- will be "a dream come true."
El Periodico says it has learned the movie will be a "romantic and touristic comedy" based on the two US women who come to Barcelona to learn Catalan culinary secrets as well as on a seductive artist and his jealous ex, played by Spanish star Penelope Cruz.
According to the journal, Spanish actor Javier Bardem will play the artist and US starlets Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall have been cast in the roles of the tourists.
As well as keeping mum on the plot details Allen has not been forthcoming on the title, although El Periodico suggested the provisional title was "Wasp 2007," standing for "Woody Allen Spanish Project 2007".
The paper said it had information the script had undergone certain modifications at the suggestion of some of Allen's colleagues in order to make it "closer to the current reality" of life in the region of Catalonia, of which Barcelona is the capital.
Bardem was, for example, originally to have played a bullfighter, rather than an artist.
Although Barcelona does host bullfighting contests, there is widespread opposition to the pastime locally and city authorities threatened three years ago to abolish the tradition.
Security guards last Monday had to hold back curious sunbathers as Johansson and Hall joined Bardem and Cruz to begin shooting on a beach just outside the city centre.
spanish artist? or bullfighter? damn thats original... way to go woody.
i think he should stay doing films in new york... europe doesnt work for him
Some Barcelona residents resent Allen's 'love letter'
Source: Los Angeles Times
BARCELONA, Spain -- Director Woody Allen has promised that his new movie, starring Scarlett Johansson, will be a "love letter to Barcelona, and from Barcelona to the world" in the same way that "Manhattan" was to New York. But Barcelona's people are not so keen to be helping foot the bill for the movie, which local media have called the biggest public investment in the history of Spanish cinema.
Ten percent of the budget for "The Barcelona Project" -- Allen's working title -- is being paid by the taxpayers of the city and the region of Catalonia, about $2 million.
"He [Allen] must think we're quite a stupid society," said an editorial in the Catalan daily El Periodico. Seventy-five percent of Catalans polled by the paper thought the public investment was "excessive."
Although some officials say the investment is worthwhile to promote Barcelona to the world -- the same way "The Lord of the Rings" helped New Zealand -- the row has aggravated artistic tensions in the region where the first official language is not Spanish, but Catalan.
"The problem is they say there is no money for Catalan films, and they even put obstacles in the way of awarding subsidies to films made in the Spanish language," said Alberto Fernandez Diaz, leader of the opposition right-wing Partido Popular.
Barcelona's mayor, Jordi Hereu, said it would be well worth the investment: "It's a huge advertisement for the city that will be seen all over the world."
Many within Spain's film industry think the project is actually no bad thing for them either.
"The director might be American but everyone from the art director to the technicians is Spanish, so this is actually a Spanish film and will give our industry a huge boost," said Pedro Perez, president of FAPAE, the Spanish Assn. of Film Producers. And the movie also features Spain's top movie stars, Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem.
Woody Allen's Barcelona Problem
Source: Time
Woody Allen was engulfed by adoring fans in mid-June when he came to Barcelona to scout locations along the city's famed artery, Las Ramblas. The director returned the ardor, promising the movie he has since started filming there would be "a love letter to Barcelona." Alas, the romance may not survive the summer. Weeks of roadblocks and a dispute over subsidies have made some Barcelonans regret letting the American cinematic icon use their city as a movie set.
The film, reportedly called Midnight in Barcelona and slated for a September 2008 release, stars Scarlett Johansson as an American tourist caught in a love triangle with a local painter (Javier Bardem) and his jealous ex-girlfriend (Penélope Cruz). Given Allen's trademark of turning the cities in which he shoots into distinct characters (Manhattan; the London of Match Point), Barcelona can expect a loving portrayal of its ancient streets and charming port restaurants.
But at what cost? Citizens and opposition political leaders alike are complaining about the toll the project is taking on the local community. To accommodate recent shoots, for example, the city's Socialist government shut down part of Las Ramblas, obstructing the locals' morning stroll and blocking access to many restaurants. That might be a tolerable burden, except that Barcelona has paid for the privilege: roughly 10% of the film's budget, it is now known, comes from the pockets of taxpayers in the city and its region, Catalonia. "It's not just the money, and we don't have any problem with the movie," says Alberto Fernández of the opposition conservative Popular Party. "It's the attitude the city government has toward Allen. They give him privileges as if he were a visiting dignitary or head of state, while they don't treat Spanish and Catalan movie projects that way."
While the municipal government acknowledges putting more than $1.3 million into the film, "the money is an investment made through a private capital risk company — it's not a subsidy," says Carles Puig, spokesperson for the mayor. "If the film makes a profit, then so does the city government." But that doesn't settle the issue, according to Jaume Ciurana, the main opposition party Convergence and Union's representative to the city's Institute of Culture. "The private risk society [BCN Ventures] is legitimate, but it was created by the city government to support young, innovative, struggling artists — not world-renowned filmmakers like Woody Allen. It was irresponsible for city hall to invest so much public money without first seeing a business plan or the film's total budget."
As for traffic congestion and other problems caused by the film's production, "Allen's film is no different than any big budget project," notes Steven Guest, also with the mayor's office. "Pedro Almodóvar's All About My Mother shut down Ferran Street a couple of years ago, and television shoots close streets every day. The only complaints I've seen have been in the media." For now, Barcelona's relationship with Allen can cool off a bit. On Monday, cast and crew began shooting in Oviedo, the less cosmopolitan capital of the region of Asturias, eight hours to the west. That city's spokesperson, Pilar Ávila, hasn't heard any complaints about Allen's shoot here so far: "Just the opposite — people are delighted," she says. Perhaps this is because Oviedo, unlike glamorous and popular Barcelona is happy to bask in a little international attention. Or it may be, as Ávila notes, because Oviedo's investment in the film so far amounts to "not a single euro."
"These pretzels are making me thirsty!"
"¡Estos pretzels están dándome sed!"
fucking catalans are idiots.
Allen tames Spain in Euro love letter
Director brings Barcelona to bigscreen
By TODD MCCARTHY; Variety
"WOODY ALLEN is all over Barcelona," we learned last week at dinner in Mallorca with friends who had just arrived from the Spanish city.
They had seen him at the Arts Hotel, an architecturally striking waterfront hostelry so posh and heavily staffed that beautifully groomed young ladies circulate through the lobby offering you drinks even if you're just pausing before heading out.
The Woodman had finally started shooting his long-planned Spanish-set feature -- a romantic comedy purportedly titled "Midnight in Barcelona" -- in July after a considerable postponement and recent local controversy over the financial contribution by the city and Catalonia of $1.3 million, considered an exorbitant sum by those who feel such amounts should go to native filmmakers rather than established foreign helmers.
FOR HIS SELF-ADVERTISED love letter to the city, Woody evidently surveyed many of its most decorous neighborhoods and artistic sights as potential locations. But early on, shooting had created considerable inconvenience on the celebrated La Rambla promenade and the producers had trouble securing permission to film at the street's legendary produce market La Boqueria, as the demands of a film production promised to be too disruptive to the frenzied sale of every manner of edible produce known to humankind that is always taking place there.
"You're bound to run into him," our friends concluded. "He's everywhere."
Still, Woody Allen, as well as his film's stars, Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz, never even entered my mind once we arrived in the massively photogenic city last weekend. So I scarcely anticipated the sight that awaited us as, accompanied by the tolling of the sonorous bells of the city's central Gothic cathedral, we opened the shutters of our room at the Hotel Colon on Monday morning to behold beneath us eight large trucks in the middle of the cathedral square that were unmistakably of the sort used in film production.
It didn't take a moment to deduce that our friends' confident prediction of a Woody sighting was about to come true. There was no resisting it. My wife, who shares the filmmaker's Dec. 1 birthday, and daughter headed out first and returned to report that Woody and the crew were working down a little side street along the edge of the cathedral.
My son and I soon followed suit, easily locating the director, sporting his trademark frumpy fisherman's hat, rumpled clothes and chest-caving slump, confering with a man bearing a pronounced resemblance to Harvey Weinstein. The small group of gawkers, my son and I included, was restrained from getting too close by tough Spanish guards and portable metal fences, and was quickly pressed back up against a wall when Johansson suddenly appeared and bounded purposefully past us to report for work. At this point the barrier, and the growing throng of tourists, was pushed much further down the street, making continued voyeuristic surveillance of the scene impossible; when I approached a young and obviously American production factotum and politely asked if he would pass a note to someone I knew inside, I was greeted with the sort of dismissive I'm-so-busy-and-important-why-do-you-dare-even-speak-to-me attitude that has unfortunately always afflicted certain levels of the film business.
WHILE WE HUNG AROUND, my nine-year-old son, whose taste in comics includes the greats and near-greats -- Chaplin, Keaton, the Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges -- began asking me who Woody Allen is and why he hadn't seen any of his films. Well, you have, I said, remembering our one dismal attempt a couple of years back to introduce the kids to Allen with "Sleeper," only to discover in it such unremembered highlights as the Orgasmatron and other sexual interludes that provoked more questions than we felt like answering during a movie screening, and that taught us all that what was PG in 1973 is now more like PG-13 or R.
While we couldn't get anywhere near enough to Woody, Harvey or anyone else to catch their attention, we did strike up a conversation with a nice older Spanish woman whose companion was a strikingly unidentifiable type of black-and-white terrier. She told us that Woody Allen had noticed the dog and decided he wanted to use it in the film, and would she wait until 2:30 so it could make its movie debut? With nothing special to do, she agreed.
When we prepared to leave the next morning, the trucks were still in the plaza, and extra effort had clearly been expended to protect from view the central makeup and wardrobe vans where Johansson, Cruz and the other stars spent much of their time. From our fourth-floor window, however, we had an unobstructed view of all of them in their various states of readiness.
I'll look forward to seeing them all -- and to how Allen depicts this seldom-seen city onscreen -- when the film comes out in a year. But I'll be paying particular attention to whether or not the dog makes the cut.
What a bizarre article.
Quote from: MacGuffin on August 16, 2007, 11:31:42 PM
what was PG in 1973 is now more like PG-13 or R.
Surely this is the opposite of truth?
Remember the gratuitous breast shot in Airplane!? That movie was PG.
Allen's Barcelona pic has a name or two
Source: Hollwood Reporter
MADRID -- Woody Allen's Barcelona project now has a title, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," Spanish production house Mediapro said Thursday.
"Vicky" stars Scarlett Johansson, Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem in a film the director described only as a "love letter to Barcelona."
A co-production between Gravier and Barcelona-based Mediapro, with collaboration by Spanish broadcaster Antena 3, the film is set for release in Spain in fall 2008.
Mediapro chief Jaume Roures said in September that he has an oral agreement with Allen to co-produce two more projects.
Woody Allen quits Spain in film funds row
Source: The Guardian
When Woody Allen arrived in Barcelona in July to start making his latest film, he was greeted with open arms. Just how open those arms were has become the cause of a dispute that has led to the cancellation of the director's plans to film in Spain.
The president of Mediapro, the Catalan production company behind Allen's new film Vicky Cristina Barcelona, has announced that two future projects will be made "neither in Catalonia nor in Spain", as had been previously planned.
Jaume Roures blamed what he said was the "small-minded attitude" of local politicians and press, who complained Allen received special treatment in Barcelona.
The controversy began when it was revealed that 10% of the budget for the film, starring Scarlett Johansson, Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem, would come from Barcelona city hall and Catalan regional taxpayers. Barcelona provided €1m (£700,000) of funding for the film, which the city expects to recoup from the film's profits. Regional authorities added another €500,000 to the film's budget.
Roures denied that there was anything out of the ordinary about this funding, but local film-makers complained that Barcelona city hall had bent over backwards to help Allen, rerouting traffic whenever the director wanted, besides providing the kind of funding they would never expect to receive. Producer Quique Camín told the daily Periódico de Catalunya: "I'm thinking of giving my company a name that sounds foreign... maybe that way I'll get [some money]."
Source: www.Slashfilm.com (http://www.slashfilm.com)
Men everywhere rejoice - Scarlett Johansson filmed a "steamy lesbian sex scene with Penelope Cruz" for Woody Allen's new star-filled film Vicky Cristina does Barcelona. A source tells the NY Post that the scene is "extremely erotic" and that "people will be blown away and even shocked." Apparently, Penelope and Scarlett go at it in a red-tinted photography dark room, and "it will leave the audience gasping." The duo later have a threesome with No Country For Old Men star Javier Bardem, who plays Penelope's husband. I'm guessing that scene might be more creepy than hot.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona tells the story of a painter who enters a relationship with two American tourists, but conflict begins with the painter's jealous ex-girlfriend. The film which also stars Patricia Clarkson, Rebecca Hall, Kevin Dunn and Chris Messina, has completed filming and will likely hit theaters in late-2008.
there's your four star ebert review right there.
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Trailer here. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO8x2zu44CE)
Yes. YES. YES!!!!!!!!!
Boner!
Woody Allen finds love is hard in "Vicky Cristina"
His new movie "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" deals with women, men and multiple lovers, but when it comes to real-life romance, director Woody Allen, 72, says more than a single sex partner is far too many these days.
"It's hard enough to get one person," he told reporters at a Saturday news conference at the Cannes film festival. "In trying to figure out solutions in life, two tends to make it more complicated than one."
"In film, you can do it because I'm dealing with larger than life characters ... but in real life, most of us could never handle anything like that," he added.
"Vicky Cristina Barcelona," which looks at several different love relationships including a menage-a-trois, debuted to a warm reception at Cannes as one of the few light comedies here. Many films, such as prison drama "Hunger" and Lebanese war movie "Waltz with Bashir" delve into dark human conditions.
Show business newspaper Daily Variety called "Vicky Cristina" "a sexy, funny divertissement that passes as enjoyably as an idle sunny afternoon in the titular Spanish city" and added the film "is by several degrees more hot-blooded than his (Allen's) usual norm."
Allen said he definitely wanted to make the movie funny, but he also saw it as a somewhat tragic tale of people who can't fall in love, others who fall perhaps too deeply for each other, and those who marry for all the wrong reasons.
YOUNG AND IN LOVE
The movie centers on two American tourists who travel to cosmopolitan Barcelona to spend a summer. One, Vicky (Rebecca Hall), wants to spend it studying a portion of Spanish culture before she gets married, and the other Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) is on a constant search for fulfillment.
They both find love, but love comes with complications. In the case of Cristina, her affair with a painter Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem) involves trouble in the form of his ex-wife, Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz), who is also a painter.
While the two -- Maria Elena and Cristina -- initially are rivals, an unconventional relationship strikes up between them and Juan Antonio. At the same time, a trip to Barcelona by Vicky's fiance causes her to rethink her impending marriage.
"I want people to see the romance, and I wanted some laughs," Allen said. "I wanted to see two young women who go to Barcelona ... and gradually things start to disintegrate."
Cruz said Maria Elena was a character she could understand, but the Spanish actress admitted that when it came to romance, "I would probably make different choices in general."
Ever since the filming of "Vicky Cristina" last year, Cruz has been romantically linked to Bardem, although the two have never publicly confirmed their relationship. And again on Saturday Cruz was able to dodge the issue.
When it was implied in a question that he was her "boyfriend," she just smiled, and Allen chimed-in that Bardem did not attend the festival due to a "family problem."
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holy hot
agreed.
my pants just got all NSFW.
*UPDATE* Just realized it's PG-13...pants now SFW. Why'd you do it Woody? You broke my heart.
New Trailer here. (http://movies.yahoo.com/premieres/8357615/standardformat/)
After that trailer, two things hit me: A, this is going to be a very hard PG13, and 2, KEVIN DUNN is in this....Yipeeee!!!!
this thread is so PG-13 guys
Your fuckin' a fork and eggs right it is...
Woody Allen drafts little-known band for "Barcelona"
Like Woody Allen's new film, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," the song "Barcelona" by the band Giulia y los Tellarini explores chance meetings and subsequent love affairs, including one with the Spanish city itself.
"I equate Barcelona with love," says Giulia Tellarini, singer for the little-known Spanish indie band, whose song is featured in the film.
Talking to reporters at the recent Cannes Film Festival, where the movie met with enthusiastic reviews, Allen called the track "perfect."
"Barcelona" can be heard in the trailer for the film, which will be released September 5 and stars Scarlett Johansson, Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem. In addition to "Barcelona," the soundtrack includes Giulia y Los Tellarinis' song "La Ley del Retiro."
The band's first album, "Eusebio," was released on iTunes in late May. Its music came to Allen's attention last year during filming, when the girlfriend of one of the band members left a CD with some of the group's songs on it at the director's Barcelona hotel, the fashionable Hotel D'Arts.
"I didn't even know about it," recalls Tellarini, who was dubious when she checked the band's MySpace mail one day and found a message from someone in Allen's camp who was urgently trying to reach them. "I thought it was a joke. I didn't think that something like this could happen."
CHANCE ENCOUNTER
The band's beginnings were unexpected as well. Tellarini, 29, an accordion player, sound engineer and self-described "gypsy" from Northern Italy, met Alejandro Mazzoni, a musician from Buenos Aires who produces music for advertising and film, at a studio in Barcelona.
Mazzoni and studio partners Maik Alemany and Jens Neumaier needed a female voice for a commercial, and Tellarini, who had never sung into a microphone before, obliged. The four subsequently decided to record some music together, called in other musicians they knew, and within two weeks had written and recorded all of the tracks on the album.
"Our music is difficult to classify. It's got loads of influences," says Tellarini, noting her preference for traditional forms of popular song such as the French chanson, as well as tango, jazz and Latin boleros. "I think one of the main things about us is that we sing in different languages. We try and get inspired by the atmospheres of different countries."
"Barcelona," sung in Spanish, is a seductively bouncy tune with punchy brass and dark edges intoned by Tellarini's whispery vocals. The song reflects Guilia's on-and-off relationship with the city, written at a time when she was deciding whether to stay in Barcelona with Mazzoni or return to Paris.
"Barcelona was expensive. There were too many people, I was confused," she recalls. "It wasn't the top point of my life."
Ultimately, Tellarini and Mazzoni moved to Berlin, where Tellarini finds it "cheap enough to be creative." But the couple plans to spend the summer in Barcelona with the rest of the band, where they'll play some shows to support the release of the album.
"We hope that people will appreciate the music -- not just the buzz it's getting because it's part of the film," Tellerani says.
The Surprise of Woody Allen's 39th film
Source: Los Angeles Times
In the old days, everyone would beg me to take them to an early screening of a Woody Allen film. As the '90s wore on, some of the hard-core fans began to move on. Soon the waiting list got shorter ... and shorter ... and ... finally, even my wife stopped going with me. So when I went to see "Vicki Cristina Barcelona" the other night, I went alone. In fact, I almost didn't go at all.
I don't know about you, but these days, when people talk about Woody Allen, the conversation essentially revolves around the question -- when did you give up on him? Did you give up after 1994's "Bullets Over Broadway," which had a great Dianne Wiest turn as a neurotic diva? Or did you stick it out until 1999's "Sweet and Lowdown," which featured Sean Penn as a brilliant jazz guitarist who was a rotten human being? Or did you finally get off the train with 2005's "Match Point," the murder mystery that earned Allen his last Oscar screenplay nomination? (When DreamWorks had an early "Match Point" screening for The Times, the response was so tepid that no one even stayed to sample a lavish spread of food. When journalists skip a free meal, that's always a bad sign.)
I've been off the Allen bandwagon for nearly a decade, having been disappointed too many times. It felt as if his best days were behind him. He seemed to make movies out of habit, not out of inspiration, locked into a filmmaking style -- and comic sensibility -- that came from another era. There are filmmakers who've done great work into their 70s (Robert Altman and John Huston instantly come to mind), but once filmmakers of a certain age go into decline, the decline is irreversible.
But here's the good news. "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," due out Aug. 29 from MGM and the Weinstein Co., is a delight. Call it a throwback or call it a comeback, it's Allen's best movie in years. But that's not the only surprise about it:
The movie's story is simple enough. Young American friends Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) travel to Barcelona for the summer. Vicky is engaged, with her whole life already seemingly planned out. Cristina is a free thinker, impulsive, romantic and always vaguely dissatisfied by her relationships. Then they meet Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), a charming, seductive painter who whisks them away for a weekend, promising them romance and fine wine, even though he's still clearly in the thrall of the wildly high-strung Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz), the great love of his life who vamoosed after stabbing him in a jealous rage.
The film grows far more complicated as it goes along, but complicated in the way of classic farce, not tedious storytelling. What makes it such a surprise is that it shows Allen exploring a new form: It's a bedroom farce, but performed slow and smooth, like a Ben Webster sax solo, without the hell-bent rush of a "Noises Off"-style door-slamming comedy. In an era in which comedy is such a blunt instrument, it's a kick to see a comedy that's actually a cozy meditation on the unpredictability of love, with the passion lurking just under the surface, erupting when we least expect it. Allen even tells much of the story via a dispassionate narrator, who shares information with us, the audience, on a need-to-know basis.
The movie is full of good acting, especially from Bardem and Cruz, who are pretty irresistible every moment they're on screen. But the real surprise performance comes from Rebecca Hall, who starts out as the obligatory Allen stand-in character, jittery and full of nervous tics, but takes the part in an entirely unexpected direction, not only showing an emotional vulnerability but also nicely capturing the wobbly uncertainty of a woman startled by how thoroughly she succumbs to a passion she has so doggedly resisted.
So mark your calendars. It will soon be time to give a Woody Allen movie another try, a movie that, compared with all the summer fast-food high jinks, feels like a sumptuous meal.
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Woody Allen reflects on 'Vicky Christina Barcelona,' love and his life
Filmmaker's latest comedy stars Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz and a European sensibility.
By Rachel Abramowitz, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
THE ONLY place Woody Allen ever really wants to be is in his bed. "My spot on the bed is my spot in the world," he explains. It's where he watches baseball games, and reads, and where he writes, usually in the morning, because if he starts at night, he sometimes gets so excited he can't go to sleep. It's where the act of imagination is actually "pleasurable and I might go cast the people and see my characters come to life. And I put the music in and I see the characters playing their scenes to the beautiful music behind them. You know, I get a kick out of that. And if nobody else does, that's too bad."
He sounds less defiant than resigned. Of all the major American artists, Allen has experienced one of the cruelest and most violent whipsaws of fortune, of tumbling from audience adulation to mass approbation. His solution to the vagaries of public estimation is to hold fast to the belief that none of it means anything. "When you're a kid you think to yourself, 'Fame and fortune and it's going to be so exciting and . . .' -- but then you quickly find after three or four films, you find, 'Wait a minute, the upside is nothing and the downside is nothing.' The adulation of the multitudes or of the critics is an impersonal experience, and the negative feelings [from] people is an impersonal experience. The contract that the audience has with the person is you entertain us and we'll show up. And that is as the contract should be."
From the way Allen is talking, one would assume it's the eve of the release of one of his misfires, the platoon of piffles including "Celebrity" and "Anything Else" that followed the public scandal of his 1992 breakup with Mia Farrow, the ugly accusations (denied and never proven) of child abuse and his later marriage (now 10 years running) to Farrow's adopted daughter, then-22-year-old Soon-Yi Previn. In fact, he's just made one of his most charming and funny movies in over a decade, "Vicky Christina Barcelona," the tale of two American young women (Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall) who, while summering in Spain, tumble into a relationship with an attractive, woman-loving artist (Javier Bardem) and his addled but delicious ex-wife (Penélope Cruz). The film, opening Friday, is a distillation on the vagaries of love with each woman struggling to find a stable foothold: the sexual adventuress who's chronically dissatisfied (Johansson), the risk-averse would-be academic who's in danger of squelching life's passion (Hall) and the intoxicating, anarchic spirit (Cruz), who makes art great and life hell.
On a recent weekend, he was holed up in a hotel room, giving interviews -- a rare burden for Allen, who used to be able to escape such routine experiences. The filmmaker, now 72, is living in Los Angeles for the next month, staying in a hotel with his wife and two young daughters while he makes his opera debut directing Puccini's comic opera, "Gianni Schicchi."
He is frailer than expected, in a pristine blue-checked shirt and chinos. He has totally gray hair, thick black glasses and skin that is curiously unwrinkled. One gets the sense that he would be happiest if everyone just left him alone to do his work. His manner is sweet but cagey.
A piece of the big picture
ALLEN admits that going to Barcelona to make a movie fulfilled his fantasy to one day be a European filmmaker. "I always wanted to make the kinds of films that I saw in the 1950s. The Truffaut films and the Goddard films and the Bergmans and Fellinis, and those are the films that always influenced my work. And I've always copied them and been influenced by them. 'Vicky Christina Barcelona' looks to me, when I see it, like one of those films. It's got all the earmarks: the music, the people bicycling through Europe, the interaction of the characters and the out-of-focus scenes that you see in those pictures."
The film, full of lovely images of the Gaudi buildings and old churches, is one of the happy accidents that have come from falling out of favor in America. Allen has directed more than 40 films and made more gems than almost any other living filmmaker -- "Annie Hall," "Manhattan," "The Purple Rose of Cairo," "Crimes and Misdemeanors," "Hannah and Her Sisters," "Husbands and Wives" -- but America hasn't always treated its iconoclasts particularly kindly. Allen is not like Orson Welles, reduced to hawking Gallo wine, or Charlie Chaplin fleeing to Switzerland, but since the '90s, his box-office grosses have fallen off and the quality of his films has become more uneven. His last, "Cassandra's Dream," made less than $1 million here, although it garnered $20 million abroad. He has had to go with his hat in hand looking for financial backers, largely European.
Almost by necessity, he's been catapulted out of his familiar New York tropes, into London and now Barcelona, and the change of scenery appears to have been rejuvenating, resulting in "Match Point" and "Cassandra's Dream" -- biting nihilistic satire-dramas that examine whether evil ever gets punished.
When a Spanish company, Mediapro, approached him with the proposition to finance a film in Barcelona, the writer-director basically thought, "Why not?" "Barcelona is a city that I can live in very easily," he says. "If they mentioned some city in the Ukraine or the Sudan or something, I would have said no. But Barcelona is a beautiful, wonderful city." While New York City is a character in many of his films, Allen had never specifically written a movie for a locale, but his task got easier when he received a call out of the blue from Cruz, who asked if she could come meet and visit him. "And when I saw her, I thought, 'My God, she's -- if you can believe this -- more beautiful in person than she is on the screen.' I thought she was so beautiful it took my breath away." Cruz told him that she'd love to be in his Barcelona film and by the time she left, "I would have given her all the furniture, you know?" Allen heard through channels that Bardem was also interested. "I thought, 'OK, I have these two great tempestuous Spaniards and Barcelona, but I don't have a film.' "
Throughout the year, Allen jots down ideas for films on scraps of paper and matchbooks and throws them into a big drawer. In the case of "Vicky Christina Barcelona," he used an idea he once had about two girls going on vacation in San Francisco. He transported the story to Barcelona and added Johansson, who's become a staple in his films of late, as a totem of youth, of intoxicating unavailability. He began to mold the characters to his cast and, when filming, he never talked to the actors, other than to give them stage directions.
He says he doesn't care if he ever acts in one of his movies again. "If there are no parts for me, then I just won't play any. . . . And if there's a lovable character named Gramps who, you know, was wise beyond his years, you know, then. . . ."
It's clear, as he talks, that he's nothing like his on-screen presence -- he's hardly a chattering neurotic scaredy cat seized with existential panic. He claims that his alter ego is just his comic shtick, like Charlie Chaplin's bowler hat and mustache, and the persona simply grew out of his limited acting ability. "I'm not like Dustin Hoffman or Robert De Niro. These guys go out and do miracles on the screen. I'm a perfectly believable actor in my small range. So I can play a college professor, I can play a shrink, I could play an intellectual, even though I'm not an intellectual, or I can play a lowlife. I can play like Broadway Danny Rose or I could play a cheesy little bookmaker or a grifter of some sort because I can handle that. Me, the character for real, is closer to the sleaze ball, but I can act both of them."
For a brilliant man, one who understands many of the nuances of human impulse, he's willfully anti-psychological (or simply guarded in public), intent on saying that none of his films reflect anything in his personal life. "I always feel like I am doing the same process all the time. I don't make them any differently," he says. "I don't feel any sense of liberation in Europe. I don't feel that I make happy films when I'm happy and sad films when I'm sad. I don't feel I make autobiographical films. I was not particularly happy, or going through a good time of life, when I made 'Take the Money and Run' and 'Bananas.' Those are two of my most silly comic films. Whereas when I made 'Cassandra's Dream' and 'Match Point,' I was going through a very wonderful time of life. These have been very good years for me. I have a great marriage, great kids. There is no plan or agenda to it or anything. It's luck. It's random."
The only impulse Allen cops to is the one to work, maniacally, as if to stave off death. "It's a way of coping with the world. You know, in the same way that somebody copes with it by being a stamp collector or a sports addict or a titan of industry or an alcoholic or something. My way of coping with the horrors of existence is to put my nose to the grindstone and work and not look up."
Most who see his new work will luxuriate in the comedy and in the possibility of spending 90 sun-drenched minutes in Barcelona. But, he says, his Spanish fable is actually "a very sad film." This is, after all, Woody Allen's universe, no matter what continent it takes place on, or how many laughs are to be had. Nobody gets what he or she wants.
"A relationship is like two sets of wires that are all over the place and they all have got to connect," says Allen. He uses his fingers to demonstrate, gently touching one hand to the other. They are delicate and surprisingly youthful, but his attitude about love is fatalistic. "If one wire doesn't connect, then it doesn't work. It's like there's one thing missing. The salt is missing from the diet. It's a small thing, but it ruins you. You die."
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wow... this promotion work so much better with this movie than it did for 'No Country'...
or
and as for the other member of this smoking hot threesome, you guessed it:
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Frank Stallone
[/b][/size]
That reeks of Poochy-style desperation.
"Catch you on the flipside, dudemeisters!"
Excerpts From the Spanish Diary
By WOODY ALLEN; New York Times
JAN. 2
RECEIVED offer to write and direct film in Barcelona. Must be cautious. Spain is sunny, and I freckle. Money not great either, but agent did manage to get me a 10th of 1 percent of anything the picture does over $400 million after break even.
Have no idea for Barcelona unless the story of the two Hackensack Jews who start a mail-order embalming firm could be switched.
MARCH 5
Met with Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz. She's ravishing and more sexual than I had imagined. During interview my pants caught fire. Bardem is one of those brooding geniuses who clearly will need a firm hand from me.
APRIL 2
Offered role to Scarlett Johansson. Said before she could accept, script must be approved by her agent, then by her mother, with whom she's close. Following that it must be approved by her agent's mother. In middle of negotiation she changed agents — then changed mothers. She's gifted but can be a handful.
JUNE 1
Arrived Barcelona. Accommodations first class. Hotel has been promised half star next year provided they install running water.
JUNE 5
Shooting got off to a shaky start. Rebecca Hall, though young and in her first major role, is a bit more temperamental than I thought and had me barred from the set. I explained the director must be present to direct the film. Try as I may, I could not convince her and had to disguise as man delivering lunch to sneak back on the set.
JUNE 15
Work finally under way. Shot a torrid love scene today between Scarlett and Javier. If this were a scant few years ago, I would have played Javier's part. When I mentioned that to Scarlett, she said, "Uh-huh," with an enigmatic intonation. Scarlett came late to the set. I lectured her rather sternly, explaining I do not tolerate tardiness from my cast. She listened respectfully, although as I spoke I thought I noticed her turning up her iPod.
JUNE 20
Barcelona is a marvelous city. Crowds turn out in the streets to watch us work. Mercifully they realize I've no time to give autographs, and so they ask only the cast members. Later I handed out some 8-by-10 photos of myself shaking hands with Spiro Agnew and offered to sign them, but by then the crowd had dispersed.
JUNE 26
Filmed at La Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's masterpiece. Was thinking I have much in common with the great Spanish architect. We both defy convention, he with his breathtaking designs and me by wearing a lobster bib in the shower.
JUNE 30
Dailies are looking good, and while Javier's idea to add a massive Martian invasion scene complete with a thousand costumed extras and elaborate flying saucers is not a very good one, I will shoot it to make him happy and cut it in the editing room.
JULY 3
Scarlett came to me today with one of those questions actors ask, "What's my motivation?" I shot back, "Your salary." She said fine but that she needed a lot more motivation to continue. About triple. Otherwise she threatened to walk. I called her bluff and walked first. Then she walked. Now we were rather far apart and had to yell to be heard. Then she threatened to hop. I hopped too, and soon we were at an impasse. At the impasse I ran into friends, and we all drank, and of course I got stuck with the check.
JULY 15
Once again I had to help Javier with the lovemaking scenes. The sequence requires him to grab Penélope Cruz, tear off her clothes and ravish her in the bedroom. Oscar winner that he is, the man still needs me to show him how to play passion. I grabbed Penélope and with one motion tore her clothes off. As fate would have it she had not yet changed into costume, so it was her own expensive dress I mutilated. Undaunted I flung her down before the fireplace and dove on top of her. Minx that she is, she rolled away a split second before I landed causing me to fracture certain key teeth on the tile floor. Fine day's work, and I should be able to eat solids by August.
JULY 30
Dailies looking rather brilliant. Probably too early to start planning Academy campaign. Still, a few notes for an acceptance speech might just save me some time later.
AUG. 3
I suppose it comes with the territory. As director one is part teacher, part shrink, part father figure, guru. Is it any wonder then that as the weeks have passed, Scarlett and Penélope have both developed crushes on me? The fragile female heart. I notice poor Javier looking on enviously as the actresses bed me with their eyes, but I've explained to the boy that unbridled feminine desire for a cinema icon, particularly one who wears a sneer of cold command, is to be expected. Meanwhile when I approach the set each morning bathed and freshly scented, between Scarlett and Penélope there is a virtual feeding frenzy. I never like mixing business with pleasure, but I may have to slake the lust of each one in turn to get the film completed. Perhaps I can give Penélope Wednesdays and Fridays, satisfying Scarlett Tuesdays and Thursdays. Like alternate-side parking. That would leave Monday free for Rebecca, whom I stopped just in time from tattooing my name on her thigh. I'll have a drink with the ladies in the cast after filming and set some ground rules. Maybe the old system of ration coupons could work.
AUG. 10
Directed Javier in emotional scene today. Had to give him line readings. As long as he imitates me he's fine. The minute he tries his own acting choices he's lost. Then he weeps and wonders how he'll survive when I'm no longer his director. I explained politely but firmly that he must do the best he can without me and to try to remember the tips I've given him. I know he was cheered because when I left his trailer, he and his friends were howling with laughter.
AUG. 20
Made love with Scarlett and Penélope simultaneously in an effort to keep them happy. Ménage gave me great idea for the climax of the movie. Rebecca kept pounding on the door, and I finally let her in, but those Spanish beds are too small to handle four, and when she joined, I kept getting bounced to the floor.
AUG. 25
End production today. Wrap party as usual a little sad. Slow danced with Scarlett. Broke her toe. Not my fault. When she dipped me back, I stepped on it.
Penélope and Javier anxious to work with me again. Said if I ever come up with another screenplay to try and find them. Goodbye drink with Rebecca. Sentimental moment. Everyone in cast and crew chipped in and bought me a ballpoint pen. Have decided to call film "Vicky Cristina Barcelona." Studio heads have seen all the dailies. Apparently they love every frame, and there is talk of opening it at a leper colony. It's lonely at the top.
Holy fucking shit dude.
that was hilarious. aug 3 was my favorite.
It is Vicky Christina Barcelona's misfortune that I only recently rewatched The Royal Tenenbaums, a movie that similarly features a love triangle, feature length voice over narration, and artistic and idiosyncratic characters. Its misfortune because otherwise I would not have had a perfect model of solutions for all the movie's problems.
I don't not like a Woody Allen movie. I like Barcelona even. It's just that I think the way for example people might be insulted by the way a writing staff trying to capture mid-20s apartment life will vomit out Friends is similar to the 73 year old Allen writing about the youth culture today. His storytelling skills are sharper than ever, but it's exactly because he clings so unreasonably and so previously uncharacteristically to his plots that this film and Match Point are failures. A great character needs room to breathe and live, and especially a great Allen character, because Allen is capable of writing great characters, and he's capable of effortlessly exposing the mundane idiosyncrasies of people in an amazingly entertaining way (even through running gags, which Barcelona does have a great example of ("In this house you speak Spanish")), and when that talent is suppressed it creates a far more traditional and superficial film.
Allen covers for this by adding a pretentious voice over that is supposed to elevate the bland love triangle and fortify the interior mysteries of the leads. Which is what you do when a film doesn't work, you add a voice over to explain what the audience wouldn't otherwise understand.
Allen has his own solutions. As far back as Manhattan he was cleverly exploring his aging, in fact his filmography is full of great and aging characters, including even recently in Scoop and Anything Else (if Anything Else isn't an overall great movie it's not because of Allen's character, who I think is one of the funniest and most likeable of Allen's incarnations). Barcelona feels like a mixture of being talked down to and being missunderstood. He can write films like this one the rest of his life and they'll be good, but they won't be great like Sweet and Lowdown was, and they won't be honest like Deconstructing Harry kind of is.
Did Wes Anderson just inadvertently fuck Woody Allen in the ass? :shock:
Quote from: Stefen on August 30, 2008, 10:33:39 PM
Did Wes Anderson just inadvertently fuck Woody Allen in the ass? :shock:
Now there's a promotion i wouldn't mind winning...
this was just lovely. superb performances (penelope takes the cake), well-written, beautifully photographed. woody and team bathe everything in this warm light that, while certainly romanced, i ate up like candy. and the music! the hell with therapy, all you need is some spanish guitar. ahhh what'd i give to spend a summer, hell, life, trotting about europe, sans phone or itinerary, drinking wine, making art, getting lost. that dinner scene with Vicky, her dunce husband and the new york couple really hit home. i loved how he faded out the conversation and brought up the music there.
and the last shot was just awesome.
Quote from: ©onzo on September 02, 2008, 09:59:32 AM
and the last shot was just awesome.
absolutely. so much sad resignation. it's what put this movie over the top as the best thing I've seen so far this year. Good work Woody.
I liked it. gorgeous people acting out what is essentially one man's realization about love. it was simple, but not so cynical because the romance was actually convincing and steamy and fun to watch. so. good for them all. especially for penelope - her before and after was really fun to watch.
i did not like this. scarlett johannsson is a terrible actress in woody allen's movies.
she really is, not that there were many opportunities for her to shine in this. i think she keeps starring in his movies because she insists on being old-school glamorous in every shot (even though she's supposed to be playing an ultimately clueless american in this and scoop), which excites allen since it reminds him of a time that he understands, back when his movies weren't like swipes in the darkness of his bedroom.
but really i thought this was way better than anything he's done in a loong time. it was actually engaging and didn't try too hard to be contemporary (ugh, i'm thinking of "anything else" and how it was like a nightmare "annie hall"), with the characters just functioning as general archetypes... annoying at first, but once that's understood and accepted, it became a kind of movie of ideas, like a good play, which worked for me and felt open enough that i was thinking about love and relationships all the way home rather than the movie itself.
i went with two female friends who were bored and hated it though, so who knows. i guess i certainly wouldn't want to see it a second time.
and hi! i'm tornado. :oops:
[p.s.] i thought the last shot was dumb. "things are back to how they used to be...golly, will this mixed-up world EVER learn?" when your movie ends the same way as crash did, i think you've made a slight mistake.
I don't think scarjo is terrible - she's playing young dumb girls - maybe not as sultry as one looks for in a dumb blonde, but she gets the job done. I don't think the audience is to fall for her in either vicky cristina or match point.
scarjo has turned out to be terrible. it took me a while to admit this to myself. i don't know what happened.
ps. have not seen this.
does woody know what a pathetic cliche of a person the studying abroad, don't-define-my-sexuality, wannabe photographer is or is he just kind of out of touch? despite that fairly shallow and annoying character, i liked this. all the other characters are so much more complex, it's hard to believe the same guy wrote scarlett's character.
It's like you guys complaining about Scarjo and her character in this don't understand that she's supposed to be a cliche, and a simple one at that. Like Pete said. At least that's the way I saw it, which is why I thought it was great. I think it shows that he's in touch, because he's making movies about what people are really like, not what they're like in movies when they're played by movie stars. Some people are complex, some arent, they're just confused. That's Vicky. or was it Christina? I forget
Quote from: abuck1220 on September 11, 2008, 09:40:58 PM
does woody know what a pathetic cliche of a person the studying abroad, don't-define-my-sexuality, wannabe photographer is or is he just kind of out of touch? despite that fairly shallow and annoying character, i liked this. all the other characters are so much more complex, it's hard to believe the same guy wrote scarlett's character.
I think you're out of touch by thinking that scarjo doesn't always play some sort of annoying corny character.
i think abuck meant all of the other characters in VCB are more complex, not scarjo's other characters.
how were the other characters more complex? they were complex like...artists are complex, but really they seemed just as predictable as scar... for example, bardem and cruz's actual art had nothing to do with the movie...i don't even remember seeing cruz's paintings. no one ever made any shocking decisions outside of our assumptions of their general character types, it was just interesting to see how these people with different approaches to openness and passion could influence each other and how far they would allow themselves to be influenced.
at the time i thought the narrator was pretty pointless, but maybe it would have felt a lot different had he not been there with that somewhat distanced tone.
I'll start by saying Scarlet was tolerable here, and that was only because she was finally playing a character age-appropriate (Match Point, for example, was a role far too mature for her). But the real revalation was Rebecca Hall. Where did she come from, and why isn't she doing more? She breathed life into her character and showed everything that Vicky was feeling. I found her character the most interesting because of Hall's performance. I thought this was Woody as close to the Woody of the 70's and 80's has been in a looooong time.
This film isn't even out in the UK yet. It's opening in a week or something. And I'm like, OH MY GOD I SAW THAT FUCKING 9 MONTHS AGO IN THE U.S.! Like.
Scarlett Johansson continues her streak of being a shitty actress in good movies. Woody Allen better be fucking her. Rebecca Hall's back must have been killing her after this shoot from having to carry Scarlett during all their scenes together. She should have charged her a fare. I hope Penelope Cruz gets Best Sup Act. Out of everyone nominated, she deserves it the most. No homo, but by the end, even I wanted to sleep with Javier Bardem.
Overall, it was entertaining. Kept me interested, I found it sexy, funny at times, and as a movie, it did what it's supposed to do. It's my second favorite Woody Allen flick this decade after Match Point, which Scarlett also could have ruined, but didn't. Has he even made anything else that was good this decade?
Quote from: Stefen on January 31, 2009, 11:12:39 AM
Has he even made anything else that was good this decade?
Cassandra's Dream and Melinda and Melinda are pretty good.
I thought every film since Sweet and Lowdown was pretty good. Some better than others. I love how Woody has changed his whole storytelling style since the beginning, with some traits (his neurotic character for one), staying the same.
I found VCB to be superb. A bit superficial and cliched but incredibly sexy. Can't wait to see how Whatever Works.
Really, the one thing I never expected from th woodman is to make such a sexy film. This one is sexier than pretty much any other film that tries to be sexy, at least recently. Everythins is sensual and desirable. Me too man, I also wanted to sleep with everyone in this picture.
Anyway, it would be a mistake to not point out that the film really comes alive when Penelope and Javier talk in spanish. They seem to free themselves from the excessive respectability that actors suffer when working with Allen, something that usually ends up working against the films themselves. Sometimes Woody's dialogues sounds too much like woody's dialogues, and here, with a different language, obviously they felt more free to improvise and the results are evident.
Penelope was incredible here.
SPOILERS BELOW
I agree but after Match Point I knew Allen still had some fire left down below, but even that film's early raw sexiness fleeted as the film went on, and wholly pales compared to the sustained sexuality of VCB. it was quite funny because VCB even had one of those "how far does the rabbit hole go" moments when Cristina drops the Ménage à trois bomb which is just so sexy that I almost simultaneously combusted. Storytelling wise it was great timing too because it was a nice release from the earlier tension between the three, and wondering exactly how it would work out with Cruz and Scarlett (which if it was following in the Match Point/Cassandra's Dream tradition, would have one killing the other, and I think this directly works against that.
The Spanish incorporation was realistic and wonderful, although IMDB forumites still talk about how they should have been speaking Catalan and not Spanish.
That's also not to take away from Vicky, but compared to the other storyline happening, it was a little tame, and to be quite honest, predictable. Like, take away Cristina from the movie and it is suddenly just a romance save for the one moment in the bushes. I also didn't quite buy Rebecca Hall's acting through a lot of the film, but again, thats probably because I already knew her character type and what role she needed to play in the story to have it come off.
Penelope was indeed incredible, and perfect casting. Although I wish we had at some point seen a little more of the "sensual" side not just the sexual and bitchy artist side.
Then there was the photography, which seems to be a refreshing change back to original Di Palma style, more vector lined photography especially with the wider shots and city backdrops. Much more pleasing to the eye. Coincidentally my friend didn't like the tobacco color grading. I absolutely loved it. So refreshing and different for an Allen film.
BTW I wanted to use the spoiler tag but it told me I didn't have permission.
:bravo: You should post more.
I dunno, I was pretty much in love with cristina - rebecca hall did enough with someone who should've been a lot more boring. she was barely movie boring, undergoing a tiny struggle that someone like me will enjoy watching. I actually found her to be a whole lot more ravishing and charismatic than scarjo, who, in my opinion, peaked at 8-Legged Freaks. Rebecca Hall reminded me of those watchably lame characters that mia farrow and diane keaton used to play a lot back in his glory days. People that you know are ultimately no fun, but it was fun watching them trying to sway our way in the meanwhile. Am I making sense? I'm talking about diane keaton in Manhattan primarily - you almost thought Woody could've transform her into someone more lively, but he couldn't. I like it when Woody does things like that, 'cause it's always a revelation - even in real life too, when you break up with someone and realize she was never the person you wanted her to be - I find that in Woody's films sometimes and it always brings me solace.
Quote from: pete on February 04, 2009, 01:40:56 PM
rebecca hall did enough with someone who should've been a lot more boring
i saw her on the street the other day. i like her.
I found Vicky far more interesting than Cristina. Cristina was just a dumb hoe with no talent, but a decent rack who used her sexuality to befriend people. Vicky actually had a life, a fiance, morals, etc. If I were to ask a girl, "Hey, would you like to have sexual intercourse?" I find the one that hesitates a lot more interesting than the one that immediately answers, "YES"
I don't know if it was just Scarjo who bothered me or if it was the character of Cristina. I guess it was both. Neither (Scarjo/Cristina) really seemed very honest to me. She reminded me of those girls in high school who are bi-sexual, but not because they're REALLY bi-sexual. You know the ones that just do it for attention? They're at a party and a bunch of soon to be frat boys are all chanting, "MAKE OUT! MAKE OUT! MAKE OUT!" and so the girls do? That's Scarjo/Cristina.
Vicky on the other hand is the character who fell in love with a girl in college, moved in together, thought she'd spend the rest of her life with her, then eventually just grew apart/up and then found a male fiance and went right back on the straight and narrow track her parents told her was right. Marriage, children, the white picket fence, etc.
I just found Vicky far more honest and real than I did Cristina, who I felt came off as a phony. I doubt that was Woody's intention, but that's how I saw it.
Quote from: Stefen on February 04, 2009, 01:13:49 PM
:bravo: You should post more.
Thank you! I've been lurking at xixax for a long time.. 5 years? I don't know. I've always read to get the scoop on what's coming and especially get the scoop on PTA info. So I look forward to finally joining the discussions if I have something to add.
Quote from: pete on February 04, 2009, 01:40:56 PM
I dunno, I was pretty much in love with cristina - rebecca hall did enough with someone who should've been a lot more boring. she was barely movie boring, undergoing a tiny struggle that someone like me will enjoy watching. I actually found her to be a whole lot more ravishing and charismatic than scarjo, who, in my opinion, peaked at 8-Legged Freaks. Rebecca Hall reminded me of those watchably lame characters that mia farrow and diane keaton used to play a lot back in his glory days. People that you know are ultimately no fun, but it was fun watching them trying to sway our way in the meanwhile. Am I making sense? I'm talking about diane keaton in Manhattan primarily - you almost thought Woody could've transform her into someone more lively, but he couldn't. I like it when Woody does things like that, 'cause it's always a revelation - even in real life too, when you break up with someone and realize she was never the person you wanted her to be - I find that in Woody's films sometimes and it always brings me solace.
"Watchably lame" I love it. I agree, he has a tendency to allow characters to wallow in a state and prove their own fallibility through weakness in personality, which they try to make up for with constant babble which never really amounts to much. Take any role where Mia is a lead and she tended to be Woody's female equivelent, maybe not quite as neurotic. Even in a film like The Purple Rose of Cairo when he has every opportunity to escape this "wallowing effect" with the high concept, he still prefers to make Mia into a bumbling insecure wallflower throughout the whole movie, with no solid arc of any type by the end. Not that he always follows the same suit, there are clear differences. But he seems to like to mix a character who goes through a wild arc with one who goes through little change at all (the Woody, or Mia character). But that in itself, while not terribly entertaining in the classic character arc "journey-esque" motif, is totally realistic and really proves to be quite accurate, especially in relationships and the way they workout. Husbands and wives illustrates this to a T. Nobody really undergoes any permanent personality change, they just go through the emotions of a typical relationship and either stay with the same partner or move on, retaining almost the exact same personality traits as when the movie started. What's maybe different is that the arc for the characters is that they change but end up in a similar place to where they started, just maybe with a different partner. And that too is realistic because ultimately, we don't try to change much. We try to change the world around us to try to accommodate us.
SPOILER BELOWHall here pulls a Keaton from Manhattan, and goes back to her sweet husband because of several negative things at once, especially being shot in the hand. This is more of a crescendo though because in Manhattan, it was a wind down from their relationship (not without the midnight call to come kill the spider though, similar to the final meeting between javier and Rebecca).
In the end, VCB is, like most of his films since probably Sweet and Lowdown, a real departure from his earlier techniques, and takes us to a new place that I think most people thought Woody had totally forgotten about - sexy intimacy, but this time without the Woody one-liners like "we could hide the salami".
That's why I wonder if Whatever Works will be a let down to the legions of new fans created by VCB. I seriously doubt Evan Rachel Wood and Larry David are anything like Javier and Scarlett or Cruz (who is?). I just hope Woody listens to the box office for even a fleeting second and makes that new film in Paris hotter than Everyone Says I Love You. Hot, Woody, Hot!
Quote from: Stefen on February 04, 2009, 02:08:43 PM
I found Vicky far more interesting than Cristina. Cristina was just a dumb hoe with no talent, but a decent rack who used her sexuality to befriend people. Vicky actually had a life, a fiance, morals, etc. If I were to ask a girl, "Hey, would you like to have sexual intercourse?" I find the one that hesitates a lot more interesting than the one that immediately answers, "YES"
Not to keep waxing Woody's car but I think thats what makes the pair realistic. Its the "opposites" that make for good cinematic buddies, like in Sideways or any other buddy movie. The easy chicks.. well, lets just say that Juan Antonio is the guy who picks up rich American/British tourists in any foreign country. He's really after a weekender of just wining and dining these two and probably doing them both at the same time. It happens in real life every day. The chicks want a sexy foreign guy for something exciting, and the guy wants a clean chick with no attachments, plus they're easy. I think both Vicky's and Cristina's reactions are exactly what I would expect from those two friends on Vacation.
QuoteI don't know if it was just Scarjo who bothered me or if it was the character of Cristina. I guess it was both. Neither (Scarjo/Cristina) really seemed very honest to me. She reminded me of those girls in high school who are bi-sexual, but not because they're REALLY bi-sexual. You know the ones that just do it for attention? They're at a party and a bunch of soon to be frat boys are all chanting, "MAKE OUT! MAKE OUT! MAKE OUT!" and so the girls do? That's Scarjo/Cristina. Vicky on the other hand is the character who fell in love with a girl in college, moved in together, thought she'd spend the rest of her life with her, then eventually just grew apart/up and then found a male fiance and went right back on the straight and narrow track her parents told her was right. Marriage, children, the white picket fence, etc. I just found Vicky far more honest and real than I did Cristina, who I felt came off as a phony. I doubt that was Woody's intention, but that's how I saw it.
No I think that was sort of the intention here. Cristina, as indicated by Vicky's fiance and others, is simply wandering through life aimlessly. She does exactly have that "I'll try anything and do anything because I'm misguided and want some attention" thing going, and yeah I dated a couple of chicks like that in high school that were fairly hot in sack but f'd up in the head (worse than Cristina). Cristina is a bit non-volatile compared to the real life counterparts, and she comes off as a bit of a sucker for it. The thing I also didn't really buy was Vicky then falling for Juan Antonio through the absolutely predictable "I can't get him out of my mind, so I'm going to question my loving caring fiance so that I can try this guy out". Like, I knew where that was headed anyway so I couldn't really buy it. Maybe I just know Woody's history of characters too well?
Quote from: WideShot on February 04, 2009, 02:52:09 PM
Vicky then falling for Juan Antonio through the absolutely predictable "I can't get him out of my mind, so I'm going to question my loving caring fiance so that I can try this guy out". Like, I knew where that was headed anyway so I couldn't really buy it. Maybe I just know Woody's history of characters too well?
I think in Vicky's case, it was more that she was experiencing something she had never experienced before. A charming foreign man sweeping her off her feet and making her feel good. Let's be honest, her fiance is a total square and up until she experienced something new, she was content with having the type of lifestyle that someone like her fiance brings. Lights off at same time everynight, never anything out of the ordinary.
I don't think Vicky fell in love with Juan Antonio the person as much as she fell in love with the idea of him. I think it was more that he was something that took her away from the reality that is her boring life and soon to be marriage.
Great point, and again thats why I dig Woody Allen, because he cares enough to give his characters a bit more than the average. I didn't mean to imply that she didn't have motivation, I just found it predictable and a bit cliche but even still, you could look at the whole story as four characters who are real, that simply walk right into a cliche for each of them. Because just because its cliche doesn't mean it doesn't really happen.
I want a sequel.
I mixed up vicky and cristina - sorry, everytime I said cristina I meant vicky. I didn't like scarjo or vicky at all.
So you hated both of them?
Scarjo = Cristina
ah stupid. twice in a row. no. I liked vicky/ rebecca hall. I disliked cristina.
Hypochondriac Allen Missed Out On Johansson/Cruz Kiss
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000095/news#ni0669274
4 February 2009 2:00 PM, PST | From wenn.com | See recent WENN news
Director Woody Allen missed the same sex kiss between Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz in his new movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona - because he was busy having a suspicious mole tested. The two actresses were stunned when the filmmaker disappeared as they were preparing to pucker up for the saucy scene.
But Cruz insists he did them a favour, by diverting attention from the nerve-wracking shoot.
The actress reveals, "On the day I had to kiss Scarlett Johansson, all his attention was on this freckle on his hand. He decided he had to leave the set and get it looked at, because the end of the day would be too late. It was good because it divided attention."
Cruz reveals she and the 73 year old bonded on set over their fear of illness.
She adds, "My family and my friends think I'm a hypochondriac. I think I am a little. And when I hang out with another person like me, I have an attraction to that. I want to know all of their fears and obsessions."
This was terrible. Come on, people see a foreign city, some hot chicks, and one cliche 'on purpose' after the other and think its a masterpiece? This was horrible. Boring. Tries too hard to be Woody's cool European flick with foreign actors and it sucks. It took me a long time to see it and I'm fucking disappointed.
kal, I'm always pleasantly surprised by how much you know.
"Let me tell you about my next film: It will be the Woody Allen cool european flick with foreign actors".
Dude, woody allen doesn't even use the word "cool". He probably thought of it as "a knockout love story in a knockout city" or something...
The joy from this film comes from the fire between cruz and bardem, and the sexyness of it all. I mean how many sexy movies are around? really?
He doesn't like movies without a male lead he can project himself onto.