Blue+Jasmine

Director: Woody Allen 5 Films: The Purple Rose of Cairo, Match Point, Scoop, Whatever Works, Blue Jasmine

// 1. For this assignment, think about some of the ** thematic **, and ** stylistic ** motifs that you've seen in the four previous films by the director that you've watched. What do you notice in this film that fits in with this director's body of work? //

Having watched over a dozen of Woody Allen's films now, I've come to realize how similar most of them are, in regards to certain of their themes, music, character traits and narrative tendencies. It's not just that he often recasts the same actors, films in the same location (Manhattan) or revisits the same themes of domestic boredom and 'quests for something more' over and over again; Allen also recycles character types (the Jewish New Yorker, misunderstood intellectual, struggling artist, etc.), plot lines, and even the fonts (EF Windsor Light Condensed) for his titles and credits. In the five movies that I watched for this project, I noticed similar plots, themes, and aesthetic styles amongst each one. The Purple Rose of Cairo is essentially the story of Cecilia, a bored, lonely and miserable housewife who wants something more out of life. She meets Tom, an adventurous and attractive nice man, and her journey is about her finding love, and ultimately ending up alone again, because she had made the decision to live a "real" life, not a "fantasy" one. Blue Jasmine is about a rich Manhattan socialite, Jasmine, who's husband cheated on her and is now in prison for fraud, and who meets an attractive, nice man, Dwight. They fall for each other but she ultimately ends up alone as well, because she had made the decision to lie to Dwight about her past, which he still found out about, and got mad at her for having lied to him. What's interesting about these two films is that they both end on a grim and dark note- both women found love but ended up alone nonetheless- and share similar narrative arcs (the difficulty of relationships, finding love but losing it right away, etc.). Match Point also ends on a very dark note, although the main character, Chris, ends up getting everything he ever wanted (wealth and stability) but doesn't get to be with his love (He killed her in fear that she would tell his wife she was pregnant with his child). It's also very similar to one of Allen's earlier films, Crimes and Misdemeanors, which also involves a man who commits murder to cover up an affair, and gets away with it. Moreover, both Scoop and Whatever Works share similar aesthetic styles, such as voiceover narration, long shots, and jazz and classical music (Match Point and The Purple Rose of Cairo also played non-diegetic jazz music throughout the film). I've watched other films by Woody Allen and they too encompass similar themes (Domestic boredom: Midnight in Paris, The Purple Rose of Cairo, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, Vicky Cristina Barcelona ; Morality and Greed: Match Point, Crimes and Misdemeanors ; Struggling artist: Midnight in Paris, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger...) and often dark, morally ambiguous, endings.

// 2. What are some of the most iconic director's choices that you've seen in any of the five films you've watched? //

Woody Allen's stylistic choices for his films are very important to the overall mood and tone they create. I think there are a lot of iconic moments throughout his movies, that are very effective in producing meaning for them.

1. //Purple Rose of Cairo:// This is not a particularly well-known film, but I still believe it possesses some very interesting director choices, that help advance its plot and narrative sequence. In almost every shot, the characters are wearing brown, coffee-colored clothes and the sepia backgrounds follows that color-scheme as well. Brown is usually a color associated with dullness and nothing special, which is exactly what the protagonist's (Cecilia) life is like. So therefore it is very fitting that most of the shots are of that hue and convey the boring tone that is Cecilia's life. However, once she made the acquaintance of Tom, whom she falls deeply in love with, her wardrobe slightly changes (more reds and yellows) and the lighting has become noticeably brighter. 2. //Purple Rose of Cairo:// Woody Allen incorporated 'familiar' images into the movie, where one shot is very similar to a previous one. The beginning of the film starts off with Cecilia, who seems very happy, in a movie theater. It also ends with that exact image, except this time she is quietly sobbing and looks much more pitiful. This serves to illustrate how the passage of time in Cecilia's life barely had a physical effect on her, as she's seen wearing the same clothes in the same movie theater at the beginning and at the end of the film. Ending the movie with this image is what makes it so dark and sad, because the viewers can contrast the familiar images and realize how bleak Cecilia's life has become. 3. //Match Point:// The protagonist narrates the beginning and ending of the movie, and is quoting passages from Dostoevsky, which is very symbolic because the movie is very dark and very similar to the themes brought up in the books (adultery, greed..). He is also seen reading Crime and Punishment, by Dostoevsky, a couple times throughout the movie, towards the start and the finish, and at one point puts down one of his books for a copy of "The Cambridge Companion to Dostoevsky," which is a key moment because that scene is almost a perfect metaphor for the movie - that reader's guide is doing for Chris the same thing that Match Point is doing for us; it's taking literary themes and spelling them out in an accessible way. I thought this was an interesting way to parallel both stories, that wasn't too obvious to the viewers. 4. //Match Point:// When Chris is about to shoot Nola, a huge plot twist for the film, the shot is oblique- a dutch angle- which gives a weird feel to the whole scene. We don't actually see Nola getting shot, but we hear the sound from the gun and we see, from a slanted angle, Chris' expression as he pulls the trigger. The makes the viewers feel unsure as to whether or not he did shoot her, but the events afterward indicate that he did. 5. //Scoop:// When Sondra and Lyman are on the rowboat, at his countryhouse, the whole scene feels slightly eerie and strange. The bird's eye view shot of them and non-diegetic fast-paced music distances the viewers from the characters in the film and let's us know that something bad is approaching, ie. Lyman is a serial killer and is about to attempt to murder Sondra. I barely ever saw any other bird's eye view shots in Allen's films, so I thought this was both interesting and memorable. 6. Scoop: There are many establishing shots of the city of London in Scoop, probably because Allen usually films in New York, so this is a fairly unusual location for him to shoot. The establishing shots, interspersed sporadically throughout the film, are used to let the audience know where the action is taking place, by establishing the context of the scene, and can grab their attention with new scenery. 7. //Whatever Works:// Like in Annie Hall, the beginning of the film is a narration by the protagonist, Boris, who is literally breaking the fourth wall by looking straight at the camera and talking to us. Boris is walking down the street, walking towards the Dolly/Tracking Camera, filming an American shot of him, which I thought was cool and unusual for a movie to incorporate. 8. //Whatever Works:// Boris' apartment is very dimly lit, which creates a cold and detached mood. But when Melodie, his wife, meets someone new that she likes, the shots have become very saturated and the lighting much brighter, which implicitly show that she's much happier and brighter now that she's met someone closer to her own age and less mean to her. 9. //Blue Jasmine:// This might not be a director's choice, but I thought the acting in this movie is what makes it stand out so much. The story is not spectacular, but the actors playing were great at portraying a wide range of different emotions that made the film seem much deeper and more intellectual than it actually was. Allen has never been particularly generous toward his characters, often leaving the ending as bitter and morally ambiguous for them, and this time he made the protagonist have even more problems than usual stacked on their side. It was interesting to see the downward spiral of the character, and that even in the end of the film she didn't receive a happy ending or any signs of recovery. 10. //Blue Jasmine:// There was a lot of Jazz music in this movie, and I thought it went very well with the tone of the film. Jazz is often considered to be lively and elegant music, which is appropriate because the main character in the film used to be very rich and dresses very elegantly but now she's lost all her money and lives at her sister's apartment. The non-diegetic music compliments the film's plot.