丹尼玫瑰

这几天在读《和奥逊威尔斯一起午餐》，奥逊说他不喜欢Woody•Allen这个人，原因很简单，说他拍的每部片子都是为了治自己的病。

然而奥逊算是那种灵光一现的天才，因为纵观他人生为数不多的作品，拿得出手的只有《公民凯恩》和《上海小姐》，除了拉不来投资，晚年的他也直言自己写不出来东西，知道自己能力如此，他的病无药可救，Woody•allen拍电影除了治自己还能治别人，为什么会不被喜欢呢？

这片子由一群社会的上流分子谈论丹尼罗斯开始，用了两个引子，再由其中一人开始主要故事的叙述，接下来罗列一下老伍迪使用的套路。

1.整洁明了：直到主要故事开始，镜头才开始向讲述者拉近，这种镜头运用给观众一种十分工整的感觉，什么是主，什么是次，一目了然。

2.旁白的清晰度：许多片子经常会面临旁白无力，旁白尴尬，甚至旁白多余，类似《纽约提喻法》里，用收音机里的节目来做旁白，旁白是一定要有一个合理的出处的，这里故事讲述者即那群社会的上流分子们则是旁白。

3.画外镜头：逃脱绳索以及卢告诉丹尼要炒他鱿鱼的时候使用了画外镜头，前者是留给观众想象空间以及营造喜剧感；后者则是一种无力感，因为空间中说话的只有丹尼自己，这样比正反打之类的更能体现孤独。

4.拉来投资：众所周知，喜剧比悲剧更容易拉到投资，原因很简单，人生已经够悲惨了，观众走入电影院都想看一个给自己人生以希望的故事，老伍迪很少拍悲剧，开始尝试悲剧应该是“伦敦三部曲”。如果说这部像《卡比利亚之夜》，那么费里尼只在最后让主人公不那么悲痛，这本身就很让观众绝望；而在这部里面，老伍迪却给了一个喜剧的结局，丹尼成名了，饭店里还有用他名字做的菜肴。

5.跳切麦格芬：丹尼被混混架枪了，跳切，丹尼在车上（暗示观众她逃出来了，怎么逃出来的，不知道。）丹尼去拿配方来唤醒喝醉的卢，跳切，卢好好的在舞台上唱他的成名作（暗示观众丹尼的独家配方管用，配方为何管用，不知道。）

丹尼成名了，怎么成名的，不知道。

6.安吉丽娜这种超自然元素

7.最后的感恩节聚会，那些只是打酱油的艺人并不只是打酱油的，他们全出现了，无比温馨。最后街上追回米亚法罗的那个镜头甚至有点像二维的安哲。

说到底，老伍迪的病，不过是原配总是好的，别想着去见一个爱一个，没有好结果。（但没人管得住自己）

Allen’s ‘80s black-and-white features x 2, ZELIG is a gimmick film, a mockumentary germinated from the inventive idea of a “human chameleon”, but the real star is DP Gordon Willis’ Promethean genius of inserting characters into archival footage and the application of rendering the newly shot footage a ’20’s archival veneer, to the astonishing effect of total harmony and verisimilitude (although the one with Hitler is a bust, the actor’s resemblance is wide of the mark), and to that purpose, ZELIG is an exceptional specimen of cinematic alchemy.

Structure-wise, the whole pseudo-documentary format is devised with the full treatment, like Bob Fosse’s raw and edgy biopic LENNY (1974). Apart from punctiliously coaxed archival footage, retro-style home videos, Allen also uses real-life personages and actors (who play the fictional characters) to give their candid interviews of the subject, you almost believe what they say if the words are spoken from Susan Sontag or Saul Bellow, among other authority figures.

That said, ZELIG’s technical extraordinariness (include half a dozen coined Zelig-themed songs penned by Dick Hyman, that can surely widen your smile) cannot belie the script’s prevailing plainness and archness, it is a missed opportunity for Allen not to fully satirize and assess Zelig’s rise-and-fall in relation to the American society at large and elicit more heady reverberations.

Allen plays Leonard Zelig, a mousy, anonymous guy who can transform his appearance according to his surroundings (Allen is not equipped to show you an actual transformation process, what you get is the simple outcome, he can be black, oriental, Hebrew or corpulent, in correspondent with those who are near him), and becomes a national sensation for his inexplicable “super power”, a cash cow for his instant family, but as an individual, he is miserable and neglect, eventually Zelig’s psychological condition is cured by psychiatrist Dr. Eudora Nesbitt Fletcher (Farrow), through quite a lot psychobabble and mesmerism.

When the story heads to a romantic direction, it betrays Allen’s own limits, not everything ought to be nailed down with a man making a conquest of a woman’s heart. Plus the final trans-Atlantic aviation exploit is so far-fetched that he doesn’t even care to arrange any visual stunt to validate that cockamamie bilge. With its succinct length (79 minutes), ZELIG soars high but crash-lands with a whimper.

BROADWAY DANNY ROSE, released one year after, is about another Allenesque character, Danny Rose (Allen), a talent agent touts unpopular entertainers (balloon formers, a musician working with glasses, a stuttering ventriloquist, just to name a few). When one of his clients, a washed-up lounge singer Lou Canova (Forte, a hearty fellow) has a career revival due to the nostalgic fad, Danny needs to act as a beard of Lou’s mistress Tina Vitale (Farrow), so he can bring her to attend Lou’s big gig in the presence of Milton Berle (as himself), it could be a real breakthrough.

But Tina is not a meek kitten, and this innocuous act backfires, after unwisely go to a party of her ex-Italian lover, Tina and Danny soon are on the run from mafia hitmen. As a self-proclaimed landlocked Jew, Danny is foisted to go aboard a ship (how atrocious!), and later, he and Tina must wiggle their way out of being tied up together (who can stand the torture of upward-and-downward close movements?). But there is another hammer blow awaits Danny when they're out of harm's way, does anyone wonder why he always scrapes the barrel?

Allen is his usual gabby alter ego, you might feel amused or scream “shut up” for his persistent quotes of his Jewish relatives and his penchant for “asking permission to interject”. Against her type, Farrow smartly plays this superstitious Italian broad with forcefulness and ambivalence, plus a layer of her uncharacteristic va-va-voom. Tina is a shallow woman, in the same sense that Lou is a shallow man, but after encountering Danny, she is transformed, even sublimed by his immanent kindness and sophistication (and being the high priest of sapio-sexuality, Allen actually put the exact words into Tina’s mouth), her guilt conscience overcomes the temptation of life on easy street, she becomes a fuller human and Danny’s equal.

Here, the frame device is a gathering of several comedians (Jackie Gayle, Morty Gunty, Corbett Monica, among others) lunching at New York's Carnegie Deli, and Danny’s story is recounted as an anecdotal divertissement, Allen always has a knack of such trimmings (remember the Greek chorus in MIGHT APHRODITE, 1995), and both ZELIG and BROADWAY DANNY ROSE has style, scale, wit and profuse amity and gags in offer, they are among Allen’s most innovative works and can put you under a nostalgic spell of the halcyon days.

referential entries: Allen’s THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (1985, 8.2/10); BULLETS OVER BROADWAY (1994, 8.1/10); Bob Fosse’s LENNY (1974, 8.6/10).

Title: Zelig

Year: 1983

Country: USA

Language: English, German

Genre: Comedy

Director/Screenwriter: Woody Allen

Music: Dick Hyman

Cinematography: Gordon Willis

Editing: Susan E. Morse

Cast:

Woody Allen

Mia Farrow

Deborah Rush

Mary Louise Wilson

John Rothman

Susan Sontag

Saul Bellow

Peter McRobbie

Rating: 7.4/10

Title: Broadway Danny Rose

Year: 1984

Country: USA

Language: English

Genre: Comedy

Director/Screenwriter: Woody Allen

Music: Dick Hyman

Cinematography: Gordon Willis

Editing: Susan E. Morse

Cast:

Woody Allen

Mia Farrow

Nick Apollo Forte

Edwin Bordo

Paul Greco

Frank Renzulli

Gina DeAngeles

Herb Reynolds

Sandy Richman

Gerald Schoenfeld

Olga Barbato

David Kieserman

Sandy Baron

Corbett Monica

Jackie Gayle

Morty Gunty

Will Jordan

Howard Storm

Jack Rollins

Milton Berle

Rating: 7.5/10

1.You know what my philosophy of life is? That it's important to have some laughs, no question about it, but you gotta suffer a little too' because, otherwise you miss the whole point to life. And that's how I feel.

2. Just let me say one thing. My uncle Sidney - lovely uncle, dead, completely - used to say three things. He used to say: Acceptance, forgiveness and love. And *that* is a philosophy of life: Acceptance, forgiveness and love.