The Very Flexible Diane Keaton

In memory of the late Diane Keaton, I wanted to re-watch one of her films. But which one? Of course I remembered her hilarious teaming with Woody Allen in so many of his early flicks. I can still see the two of them in Sleeper (1973), elaborately pretending to be surgeons charged with cloning an assassinated political leader from his one remaining body part: a nose.  I’m also very partial to Love and Death (1975) and of course Keaton is justly adored for her Oscar-winning title role in the ultimate romantic comedy, Annie Hall (1977).

 In truth I fell for Keaton in her very first film: Lovers and Other Strangers (1970). In this charming ensemble outing, set amid the chaos of a big family wedding, she has the small role of Joan Vecchio, married to the groom’s older brother. Her appearance causes some tension at the festive gathering, because she and husband Richie are seriously thinking of separating. The problem: Joan has discovered that, after several years of wedlock, Richie’s hair no longer smells like raisins.

 Of course Keaton was later to play other wedding scenes, notably in The Godfather, where she was Michael Corleone’s naïve young wife-to-be, meeting the family at the lavish nuptials of Michael’s sister . But as she aged she hardly lost her on-screen sex appeal. In 2003’s Something’s Gotta Give, a wealthy playboy (Jack Nicholson) gives up an attractive young woman in order to woo her mother, played by Keaton, who was then almost 60. Still, the course of true love never does run smooth. In a 1996 comedy, The First Wives Club, Keaton (who in real life never married) is one of a trio of reluctant divorcees determined to get revenge on the husbands who dumped them for much younger cuties.

 Though Keaton was known for her flair for comedy, she also played highly dramatic roles. In 1977, the same year in which the world fell in love with her Annie Hall, she starred as a secretly promiscuous schoolteacher who meets a tragic fate in Looking for Mr. Goodbar. Four years later, she starred with Warren Beatty in Reds, an Oscar-winning epic saga of the Russian Revolution as seen through the eyes of real-life American activists John Reed and Louise Bryant. But I decided to re-visit Keaton by way of a much smaller drama. Released in 1996, it was called Marvin’s Room. And, like Reds, it earned Keaton an Oscar nomination for Best Performance by an Actress.

 If Keaton’s Louise Bryant in Reds was heroic, her Bessie in Marvin’s Room is downright saintly. (That’s a new one for me—Diane Keaton as a saint!) In this story of a medical crisis that brings s fractured family together, Meryl Streep is the bitchy Lee, unhappily raising two misfit kids by herself ever since her no-good husband walked out. (One of her sons, a teenaged Leonardo DiCaprio, has just burned her house down.) She’s received word that her younger sister Bessie (Keaton) has been diagnosed with cancer and desperately needs a bone marrow donor. So Lee and the kids reluctantly drive from Ohio to Florida to help out a relative with whom Lee has had no contact for 20 years.

 Keaton’s Bessie, who lost her first love to an accident many years back, has spent decades of her life looking after her bed-ridden father (Hume Cronyn) and her wacky aunt (an unrecognizable Gwen Verdon). Despite the physical challenge she herself is facing, she has a radiant optimism about the days ahead. In service to others, she finds joy, and we believe every word she says. 

 

Recalling Stardust Memories

The recent passing of Marshall Brickman made me curious about his collaborations with Woody Allen.  The two shared writing credit on such Allen hits as Sleeper, Manhattan, and particularly Annie Hall, which earned the duo an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay in 1977. At my local library I checked out a volume of Woody Allen screenplays from perhaps his most fertile period, the late 1970s.. Two of them—Annie Hall and Manhattan—were written with Brickman’s participation. The other two—Interiors and Stardust Memories—were solo outings by Allen. My not-very-scientific conclusion: when collaborating with Brickman, Woody Allen was more grounded in the here-and-now. I think Brickman brought the hypertalented Allen down to earth,  negotiating with him an effective balance of comedy and genuine emotion.

Of the two screenplays Woody Allen wrote solo, Interiors is considered by most critics and audiences a flop, a lugubrious story of failed romances, lacking the impish humor that has always been Allen’s trademark. Then there’s Stardust Memories (1980), something of a hodgepodge, but a fascinating one. This is Allen (or at least an Allen-like character) confronting his own celebrity as both director and performer, dealing with the fact that both studio execs and film fans strongly prefer his “early funny ones” to his own ambitious goal of capturing human suffering through cinema. 

In Stardust Memories, Allen is Sandy Bates, a well-known comic filmmaker who apparently aspires to be the next Fellini. He’s got a new movie in the can, but the studio honchos are not thrilled by an ending involving two old-fashioned passenger trains. One train car contains Sandy’s character and a clutch of riders who are clearly living lives of quiet desperation. The other, which Sandy stares at longingly through the train window, transports jolly revelers wearing furs and holding up awards statuettes for all to see. They’re having a great time . . . . but suddenly this lively crowd is off the train and picking its way through a garbage heap. Talk about blatant symbolism!

At a Florida hotel where Sandy’s the honored guest for a tribute weekend, he’s constantly surrounded by a swarm of fans, most of them slightly grotesque. Some want to kiss him; some want to kill him. Everyone wants something: a souvenir photo; an opportunity; a contribution to a worthy cause; a roll in the hay. As he struggles to avoid their clutches, as well as the pedantic clichés of some film-scholar types in attendance, he’s simultaneously wrestling (as Woody Allen heroes generally are) with romantic angst. There’s the gorgeous but emotionally fragile Dorrie (Charlotte Rampling), as well as the pretty mother of two cute French-speaking tykes (Marie-Christine Barrault) and a young violinist who considers herself bad news (Jessica Harper). Then Sandy is confronted by a clutch of visitors from Outer Space (they too prefer “the early funny ones”) and is faced with an unexpected life-or-death moment (don’t ask). 

In watching Stardust Memories (which, by the way, is scored with some wonderful Dixieland tunes, including a Louis Armstrong rendition of “Stardust”), I couldn’t help thinking about a movie classic, Sullivan’s Travels  This 1941 film, written and directed by Preston Sturges, concerns a successful director of Hollywood comedies who yearns to work on a serious project about the plight of the downtrodden. Having gone on the road to soak up true Americana, he ultimately comes to realize the value of comedy in soothing people’s harsh daily lives. Ia this what Woody Allen is trying to convey to us in Stardust Memories? Honestly, it’s hard to say. But he’s certainly given us a lot to chew on.  

 

Heading Home with “The Warriors”

New York, New York, a helluva town
The Bronx is up, and the Battery's down
The people ride in a hole in the groun'

 That’s the deathless lyric from On the Town, the Leonard Bernstein/Comden & Green musical delight that was a hit on Broadway and later on the silver screen. There are a lot of references to underground travel in this show, including the fact that its leading lady is first seen on a subway poster proclaiming her as the current “Miss Turnstiles.” (Yes, for years pretty New Yorkers really vied to be named Miss Subways.)

 No question that a lot of great movies are set on the sidewalks of New York, whether we’re talking about romantic comedies like Breakfast at Tiffany’s or crime dramas like Mean Streets or Woody Allen’s quirky valentines to his native city. And the world under the sidewalk is featured in some explosive thrillers, including The Incident (1967) and The Taking of Pelham 123 (1974 and 2009), where much of the action is confined to a subway car under siege. But I just saw a movie that should take the prize for its continual focus on the  ins and outs of the New York transit system.

 Walter Hill’s The Warriors (1979), today regarded as a cult classic, has an unusual origin story. The novel on which it is based was inspired by historical writings from ancient Greece, Xenophon’s Anabasis. This is an account of a Greek army, known as the Ten Thousand, and its desperate struggle to return home from a bloody expedition in Persia. How times have changed! Both the Sol Yurick novel and the film are set among street gangs in New York City. There’s a meant-to-be-peaceful confab in the Bronx, at which a charismatic leader named Cyrus (a nod to the story’s classical roots) outlines a plan for the gangs to join forces in order to outnumber the cops and dominate the city. But, uh oh!, Cyrus is suddenly shot dead by an unhinged punk—who manages to spread the word that the leather-vested Coney Island gang called the Warriors are responsible.

 The nine Warriors on whom the story focuses want only to get back to their home turf in Southern Brooklyn, some thirty miles away. That’s why, late at night, they’re in and out of subway stations, desperately trying to evade the other gangs that are bent on punishing them for something they didn’t do. Along the way they get accosted, get tricked, sometimes make foolish choices, and end up with a young woman who’s as tough as they are. It’s an odyssey that’s sometimes funny, sometimes terrifying, but always exhilarating to watch.

 Director Walter Hill decided early on that a purely realistic story about street gangs wouldn’t work. His choice was to amp up the film’s slightly futuristic dark humor, especially seen in the costuming of the various gangs. Though the central nine look appropriately tough in their leathers, other groups go in for more outrageous garb. Like the bat-swinging group who dress in vintage baseball uniforms. And the hippie types, and the ones in bright orange karate-gi. And (my favorites) the gangsters in white face paint who look like French mimes.

 A comic book fan, Hill added to the director’s cut scene-ending “splash panels” in which the live figures briefly turn into drawn images. They add to the larger-than life sense of a timeless story that’s mostly about going home. The sight of the ocean at the end of their long journey is moving indeed. Kudos to Hill and to the novice actors involved with this low-budget gem.

 

Woody Allen: An Everymensch Steps to the Front

These are not easy times for Woody Allen. This month’s release of a four-part TV documentary, Allen v. Farrow, casts his behavior toward his then-seven-year-old adoptive daughter Dylan in the worst possible light. The series was made by the much-honored documentarians Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering, who have both earned a reputation for getting ugly things right. I’m hardly a Mia Farrow enthusiast, and some of her son Ronan Farrow’s journalistic crusades strike me as grandstanding. But the story of Allen’s troubling behavior toward Dylan—which he continues to hotly deny—leaves little question that Woody Allen’s once brilliant filmmaking career is essentially over.

 For someone who loves Annie Hall, delights in the goofy pleasures of the early Allen canon (Sleeper, Bananas, Take the Money and Run), and respects the moral complexities of later films like Crimes and Misdemeanors, it’s sad indeed to see a professional reputation destroyed by personal bad behavior.  Allen’s case is hardly unique, though: plenty of great artistic talents were heinous individuals. What complicates Allen’s situation, though, is that he can’t easily be divorced from his work. When we look at a brilliant Gauguin painting, we don’t need to focus on the fact that during his romantic Tahitian sojourn Gauguin apparently spread syphilis throughout the islands. But to watch a Woody Allen film is to watch Allen himself, in the fairly unchanging role of a lovable nebbish, one who’s shrewd but not wise, who frequently screws up but is still able to retain our sympathy. In other words, an everymensch.

 Those thoughts crossed my mind as I watched Allen’s performance in the rare Allen film he did not write or direct. The Front is a 1979 movie that takes us back to 1953, that unfortunate time when—thanks to the dark machinations of some power players in Washington DC—lives were destroyed because of past beliefs and associations. During what we now call the McCarthy Era, Hollywood was especially hard hit. Actors, directors, and particularly screenwriters were banned from pursuing their craft, or lived in fear that they’d be denounced in front of a congressional committee. Two and a half decades later, the late Walter Bernstein wrote The Front, and Martin Ritt directed it. Both had been blacklisted back in the day, as had featured actor Zero Mostel and several of the others taking part. And the script contains such grim true-to-life incidents as a beloved but suddenly unemployable performer hounded into suicide.

 In the midst of this disastrous situation, Allen plays a ne’er-do-well cashier (and sometimes bookie) who’s a longtime pal of a blacklisted TV writer. For a 10% cut, he agrees to put his name on his friend’s brilliant new pilot. Suddenly, he’s the hottest scribe in the industry, especially after two more blacklist victims beg him to front for them as well. All this attention means he’s expected to show up at meetings and generally air his genius. It’s a fascinating role for Allen: as a man living (and profiting hugely from) a lie, he’s trying to wiggle his way through a moral dilemma without giving up too much of his newfound creature comforts, which include a politically idealistic TV-exec girlfriend.

  Woody Allen in The Front gets to call upon a lot of his trademark Woody-isms: the thick glasses, the hapless air, the stammer. He’s not the real Allen (he says at one point he can hardly write even a grocery list) but he sure looks and sounds like the Allen we know and love. Or do we really know him? Regarding who he really is, will we ever be sure?

 

Woody Allen’s “Café Society” -- Where Middlemen Rule

Woody Allen’s latest, Café Society, is a tragicomic look at love and regret, set on the fringes of showbiz. The film, gorgeously photographed by three-time Oscar-winner Vittorio Storaro, gives the warm glow of nostalgia to the period in which (while the working class struggled to put food on the kitchen table) Hollywood movers and shakers lived the high life. It’s a world where outsiders can quickly become insiders, but may lose something important in the process. Jesse Eisenberg, as a gawky New York kid who tries going Hollywood, makes a perfect neo-Woody surrogate, and Kristen Stewart has a fresh loveliness that explains why she gets under men’s skin. But I want to focus on Steve Carell, playing superagent Phil Stern. He’s a Hollywood success story, a wheeler-dealer who’s always too busy juggling calls from Ginger Rogers and Adolph Menjou to complete a conversation with whoever’s right in front of him.

I’ve got agents on the brain right now, because I’ve just finished reading a fascinating business book by my friend and colleague, Marina Krakovsky. In The Middleman Economy: HowBrokers, Agents, Dealers and Everyday Matchmakers Create Value and Profit, she argues that we are all middlemen (or, I suppose, middlewomen) in one way or another, whether we work in business, in education, as realtors or as nannies. Using lots of real-world examples, she cleverly categorizes various ethical middleman functions as The Bridge (“Spanning the Chasm”), The Certifier (“Applying the Seal of Approval”), The Enforcer (“Keeping Everyone Honest”),. The Risk-Bearer (“Reducing Uncertainty”), The Concierge (“Making Life Easier”), and The Insulator (“Taking the Heat”). Discussing this last category, she introduces powerful sports agent, Drew Rosenhaus, whose abrasive personality—as used in support of his many star clients within the National Football League—inspired an important character in the film Jerry Maguire. Rosenhaus makes no apologies for his outrageous verbal attacks on team management. He sees these as serving his clients’ interests: on their behalf he can take the heat for his own rants, saving the athletes from burning their bridges with their teams.

Marina deals with the positive outcomes that result from middlemen’s maneuvering. Leave it to Hollywood, of course, to focus on situations in which middlemen find they can’t stomach their in-between position. George Clooney has made something of a specialty of portraying the man in the middle, in such films as Michael Clayton (2007) and Up in the Air (2009). In both he plays a fixer charged with smoothing over something that’s illegal, or at least profoundly unpleasant (like the firing of a firm’s longtime employees). Eventually, of course, his character sees the light. Then there’s Tom Hanks, another of Hollywood’s traditional good guys, who in Bridge of Spies (2015) reluctantly takes on the task of defending a Soviet spy in an American courtroom, and somehow emerges unscathed by the process.

Steve Carell’s agent-character in Café Society doesn’t seem to be doing anything that’s either illegal or profoundly distasteful. But there’s the acute sense that his in-between position has turned him into both a sycophant and a poseur, one who’s forever sucking up to those above him and lording it over those who haven’t reached his level. He gets richly rewarded (romantically and every other way), but perhaps loses his soul. Just like another of the film’s characters: his brother Ben. Ben is a Brooklyn mobster who takes care of business when someone needs to be taught a lesson. If you need help with a noisy neighbor, for instance, just say the word. But I don’t think Marina Krakovsky has this kind of middleman in mind.