Woody Allen
Speaking of Woody Allen films, one could well apply the proverb employed by Tolstoy at the beginning of his epic novel Anna Kareninna, and suggest that Allen's aim in dissecting family life lies in noting the fact that, although it is a universal truth that all families are unhappy, every family is unhappy in its own unique fashion. Indeed, it is the uniqueness of the individual quirks and desires of the familial characters that Allen explores with such an extensive and piercing vision that often enables him to accurately portray many individuals in a large and sweeping cast; despite the sometimes imposing size of his casts, his humor and his incisive and trenchant insight into the very machinations that make us human, enables him to portray vivid characters that, in merely a few brief scenes, spring to life. His characters display rich and realistic emotions that betray an uncanny…...

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Bibliography

Brussat, Mary Ann and Brussat, Frederic. "Review of Radio Days.." Retrieved December 4, 2003 at  http://www.rottentomatoes.com/click/movie-1017067/reviews.php?critic=columns&sortby=default&page=1&rid=1173344

From this point-of-view, the characters of Woody Allen may seem closest, but not because they are referring to older times, but because they are so focused on their own existence that they don't take into consideration the idea of potentially changing it.
At the same time, Aristophanes's characters are very involved in the politics world, very important during Antiquity as the main place of the Greek society and where the Greeks exchanged ideas and participated to every day life. Allen's characters are not at all so, as they are more interested in exploring the interconnectivity between individuals and the individual in himself as an entity rather than the public faces of the era. Compared to Aristophanes, the focus remains on the individual, but we also need to understand that in Aristophanes's case, through politics was the best way for people to come together.

Moliere's characters are also social rather than political,…...

Purple Rose of Cairo
oody Allen's film The Purple Rose of Cairo is a Depression-era story about a lonely, daydreaming woman in New Jersey who she seeks refuge from the doldrums of her life at the movies. Mimicking the escapist films produced during the depression, The Purple Rose of Cairo works on two levels, both as a critique of escapist Hollywood films and a lovingly rendered embodiment of those very same films. By approaching its subject matter in this way, the film is able to pay homage to an earlier genre without falling into the uncritical trap of nostalgia.

The film begins on an afternoon like any other when, after her shift at the local diner, the main character Cecilia heads to the local cinema to see for what is evidently the umpteenth time a film called (like Allen's film itself) The Purple Rose of Cairo. The fictional Purple Rose of Cairo…...

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Works Cited

Canby, Vincent. "WOODY ALLEN'S NEW COMEDY, 'PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO." New York

Times 01 Mar 1985, Print.

Grimstead, David. "The Purple Rose of Popular Culture Theory: An Exploration of Intellectual

Kitsch." American Quarterly. 43.4 (1991): 541-578. Print.

In the film, split screening is used to demonstrate how the characters of Annie Hall and Avi Singer perceive each other. For instance, when Annie and Avi go to visit Annie's family, he reminisces that his family is nothing like hers; this is shown through split screening with the Hall family on the right half of the screen and the Singer family on the left. Through their conversation, behavior, and dress, it is clear that the Hall family and the Singer family are vastly different. This technique is also used to show how Annie and Avi interact with their respective analysts. On the right side of the screen, Annie is shown to be talking to her analyst about Avi, while on the left is Avi talking about Annie. This split-screen technique not only allows the audience to see both characters in the same environment, but also allows them to see…...

Film Begets Film And Real Begets Fake: Woody Allen's Zelig
Woody Allen's Zelig represents many classic potentialities and limitations of the mockumentary. Predating the "mockumentary" designation by a full year, Zelig helped pioneer the mockumentary's use of clever parody to entertain, expose the fallibility of "historical" archival footage, prick the conscience and soothe. Simultaneously, Zelig suffered and suffers from the limitations of the mockumentary, as parasite and slave to the documentary, inherent filmed format and key components imitated to the point of triteness. espite Zelig's relatively early techniques and presentation, it remains squarely within the mockumentary mode.

Body: Film Begets Film and Real Begets Fake: Woody Allen's Zelig

The term "mockumentary" is a synthetic word stemming from a comment in 1984's This is Spinal Tap. In that film, documentarian Marty iBergi referred to his work as a "rockumentary, if you will" (oherty 24). In a small leap from that term, "mockumentary" was born.…...

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During Zelig's first wave of celebrity, medical experts -- including psychiatrist Dr. Eudora Nesbitt Fletcher -- unsuccessfully analyze him. Then, upon his return from Italy, Dr. Fletcher takes Zelig to the isolation of the countryside and so successfully "cures" his malady that Zelig attacks an expert because Zelig disagrees with the expert's correct statement that it's a nice day. A "cured" Zelig now travels the U.S. with renewed celebrity status, giving motivational speeches about "being yourself." In addition, Zelig and Dr. Fletcher -- who is also famous due to Zelig's cure -- announce their engagement, at which point multiple women come forward to claim that Zelig married them while he was in one of his chameleon forms. Now that Zelig is accused of bigamy and adultery, the easily manipulated public turns against him, pressuring him to return to his chameleon disease and disappear. Dr. Fletcher searches for Zelig and finds him in a newsreel of Hitler; consequently, she travels to German and sees that Zelig is in Hitler's inner circle. Seeing Fletcher, Zelig comes out of his chameleon existence once again and they both return to America. The gullible and manipulated public now celebrates Zelig with a ticker tape parade in New York City. Zelig and Fletcher then marry and fade into obscurity.

Ideally, the mockumentary has several powerful potentialities. Typically, it is a clever, provocative parody of the documentary genre (Grossman 271-2). Zelig, for example beautifully imitates the black-and-white documentaries of the 1970's which purported to give an accurate and complete history. Without the benefit of digital film or CGI, Allen inserts himself as Zelig in numerous historically important scenarios. Zelig's revisionist history, just this side of reality in that Zelig poses with real historical characters (Doherty 24), "incinerated" the naive reliance on archival film as an accurate conveyor of history. Furthermore, to buttress the supposed historical reliability of his mockumentary, Allen used a then-key innovation that has been used ad nauseum: real experts such as Susan Sontag and Saul Bellow, to lend superficial credence to the truthfulness of his mocking historical account (Doherty 23). By almost seamlessly inserting Zelig into archival footage, the film shows the fallibility of film as genuine history.

Zelig also succeeded in fulfilling another potentiality of the mockumentary: parodying the modern concept of celebrity and human nature, particularly modern man's wish to conform, assimilate and belong (Genter). Through the use of comedy and keen historical mockery, Zelig succeeds in cultural critique of those facets, prompting audiences to "self-conscious analysis" of our tendency toward those human weaknesses (Grossman 272). By raising Zelig to celebrity, then lowering him to despised status, then raising him to celebrity, then relegating him to obscurity, the film forces the audience to examine our gullibility, easy manipulation and persistent problem in distinguishing fact from fiction in our celebrity-obsessed, image-obsessed culture (Grossman 283). Consequently, even as the audience laughs at the

As he himself admits, "I have a very grim perspective. I do feel that it's a grim, painful, nightmarish meaningless existence, and the only way to be happy is if you tell yourself some lies. One must have some delusions to live" ("Cannes 2010: oody Allen on Death -- 'I'm Strongly Against It'"). hat Midnight in Paris is for him (and us), therefore, is a kind of distraction from the reality that at some point the final credits will roll.
Malick's Tree of Life, then, is a kind of answer to Allen's melancholy. It is, of course, a religious answer told through an impressionistic and indirect medium. Nonetheless, unlike Allen, Malick is willing to embrace the spiritual side of man and explore its meanings and possibilities. For Malick, life is a spiritual journey that can lead one either upwards to the good or downwards to the bad. Allen's film may…...

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Works Cited

Allen, Woody, dir. Midnight in Paris. Los Angeles: Sony Pictures Classics, 2011.

Film.

Augustine. City of God. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1888. Print.

Augustine. The City of God against the Pagans. Cambridge University Press, 2002.

And Sellers plays the repressed social engineer Strangelove, the timid Merkin Muffley, and the persevering Mandrake -- all with mechanical precision. Kubrick's unflinching camera acts as a character, too, slyly observing the exposition of humanity in all its grimly humorous glory.
This film belongs to a culture that has rejected the status quo -- the quaint picturesque comedies of the 1940s and 1950s; it belongs to a culture that is bordering on nihilism, anarchy, revolution -- anything that will help it to get away from the culture that has brought us the faceless, nameless idiots running the ar Room in Dr. Strangelove. The film offers no solutions -- it only asks us to present ourselves to world with fresh eyes, a pure soul able and willing to laugh at its human foibles and failings, and begin to meditate upon a new direction, a new solution perhaps to the problem of…...

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Works Cited

Aristotle. Poetics. Sacred-texts. 13 May 2013. Web. < http://www.sacred-

texts.com/cla/ari/poe/poe06.htm>

Bergson, Henri. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. NY: MacMillan,

1914. Print.

saw two houses: one in the suburbs and one in the center of town. he suburban house was less expensive than the one in town so there must be something wrong with it.
he fallacy present in this remark revolves around the notion that when something costs less, it's as a result of some sort of flaw. While there is an expression "you get what you pay for" this expression is not always absolute. Many times there is a host of reasons why something might cost less than something else, and many of these reasons will have nothing to do with flaws or something being "wrong" with the house. For instance, the house might be priced less because it is further a way from the center of town, or might have an undesirable view or might be on a street where some tragic act of violence occurred. Regardless, none of…...

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The fallacy of this statement is that it seeks to separate human actions from religion. The reality is that man human actions are motivated by their spiritual beliefs and it might be sound in theory to attempt to separate them, but that is not realistic.

20. Socrates is a man. All men are mortal. Therefore, all men are Socrates. (Woody Allen Love and Death 1975)

The fallacies of this statement cannot even be stated. It is illogical and absurdist.

Allen is saying that all of the wonders of technology can never replace tow people connecting and trusting each other. I completely agree with these concepts and given Mr. Allen's wit and comedic sense, am thankful it was made. Finally any film made during a specific period of time can't help but reflect the values of society at the time. The open discussions about sexuality and sex make light of society's open and free attitudes about these areas of the human experience in 1973.
Why Sleeper is a Classic

Sleeper will always be a classic because it combines Mr. Allen's slapstick and vaudevillian comedic approaches while integrating his favorite music, which is jazz and ragtime. In addition the triumph of the human spirit and human emotions, as chaotic and mercurial as they can be, will always be superior to technology. The use of technology as a means to coerce and control…...

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References

George O'Har. "Technology and Its Discontents " Technology and Culture 45.2 (2004): 479-485.

As a testament to the respect he garners in the neighborhood, however, he is allowed to pass by without being sprayed by the water.
Radio Raheem's warrior status is first challenged in the film by a group of Latinos hanging out on their front stoop. They are listening to the radio, which is blasting Latin music. Suddenly, Radio Raheem appears, with his ghetto blaster pumping out Public Enemy. The Latinos react in anger, and turn up their music in order to drown out Radio Raheem's. This contest goes on for a few more takes, but it is ultimately Radio Raheem who emerges victorious in attaining maximum volume. The "fight" against the "power" has been won - at least momentarily. As Radio Raheem marches down the street, leaving his victims behind, a small black child runs up next to him. Radio Raheem gives the child a high five.

In another important scene,…...

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Bibliography

Calvino, Italo. 1974. Invisible Cities. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Cannon, Damian. 1997. "Mean Streets (1973)." Movie Reviews UK. Retrieved April 24, 2008 from: http://www.film.u-net.com/Movies/Reviews/Mean_Streets.html.

Ebert, Roger. 2003. "Mean Streets." Retrieved April 25, 2008 at  http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20031231/REVIEWS08/401010340/1023 .

Friedman, Lawrence S. 1997. The Cinema of Martin Scorsese. New York: Continuum.

Westerns soon developed into a staple of TV land. The independence and strength of the characters epitomized the ideals that made America so unique. Families sat down with their TV dinners to watch such shows as " Gunsmoke," the Lone Ranger," the Rifleman," Have Gun, Will Travel," and " Maverick." You were not anybody unless you could sing the theme songs of each show.

Moviegoers were also being drawn into the theaters by the monster/science-fiction movies. About 500 film features and shorts were produced under this broad theme in the 1950s and early 1960s, explains the 50s B-Movie website. ne might argue convincingly that never in the history of motion pictures has any other genre developed and multiplied so rapidly in so brief a period. As Paul Michael comments, "n a sheer statistical basis, the number of fantasy and horror films of the 1950s... has not been equaled in any country…...

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Our American Century: The American Dream, the 1950s.. Editors of Time Life. Richmond-Virginia, Time Life, 1997.

Ross, Kelly. Existentialism. 2003. Retrieved from website April 19, 2005.  http://www.friesian.com/existent.htm 

Western Movie Encyclopedia. Western Movie. Retrieved from website April 18, 2005. http://www.localcolorart.com/search/encyclopedia/Western_movie

In "Crime's" conclusion, set at Ben's daughter's wedding, Ben, who is the film's true just and loving man, copes with inevitable blindness, dancing sightless with his daughter the bride, as self-important Judah justifies the "crime" he has committed -- albeit told to Stern at the wedding, in a folkloric way). Judah has literally gotten away with murder. It is bleak, grim and evil triumphs. It is Allen at his darkest and yet, as a film, "Crimes" succeeds. It is entertaining and thought-provoking, yet the audience ultimately identifies with a killer.

And here is where the aforementioned "mis-step" has relevance. Where he so clearly was successful in telling the "Crimes & Misdemeanors'" tale, Allen is less so in "Match." "Match's" Jonathan Rys-Myers' Chris, a social-climbing tennis instructor, is, right from the start, less sympathetic than Landau's Judah. Judah is a healer, he has saved sight, he has done some good; in no…...

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) came in a time when the public became fond of funny westerns. The editors carefully made the movie's beginning and its end in order for it to have an exceptional result consequent to the audience viewing it. The silent beginning and the freeze-frame ending gave the movie an exceptional character, showing the public something that they had never seen before.
In times when the whole world filmed in color, a number of directors reached the conclusion that it had not been the color that made the difference between a good movie and a bad one, as it had been the script and the movie crew. Peter Bogdanovich, the director of the Last Picture Show (1971), had been influenced to film the movie in black and white because of a conversation that he had with Orson elles. The two concluded that it had been…...

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Works cited:

1. Annie Hall. Dir. Woody Allen. United Artists.

2. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Dir. John Foreman. 20th Century Fox.

3. Friedrichsen Mike, Vorderer Peter, Wulff Hans J. (1996). "Suspense: Conceptualizations, Theoretical Analyses, and Empirical Explorations." Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

4. Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. Dir. Guy Ritchie. Universal Pictures.

Woody Allen's Annie Hall

Music is hardly used at all throughout the course of Woody Allen's classic comedy film Annie Hall. Like the great Ingmar Bergman, a director that Allen has idolized throughout the course of his career, Allen chose to leave a music score out of the film altogether.

Allen has always been known for his unconventional use of music in his films. He has never commissioned an original score for any of his movies; rather, he prefers to use established jazz and classical music recordings. But in a lot of his films, these jazz scores can be heard constantly in the background. Not so in Annie Hall.

One of the few uses of background music to be heard in Annie Hall include a boy's choir Christmas melody that features in a scene where the characters are driving through Los Angeles. In another instance, Mozart's Jupiter Symphony can be heard in another…...

filmmakers have quite a few options. They may choose to place a character in a realistic spaceship; they may choose to shoot their film from dynamic angles which push the limits of filmmaking; they may choose to have a dinosaur wander through the city or they may choose to shoot the movements of micro-bacteria. They may also make the choice as to whether they wish to shoot their film in black and white, in color, or in a combination of the mediums.
Films such as Schindler's List and Pleasantville are excellent examples of films wherein the filmmakers understood that the juxtaposition of color and black and white have an effect on the audience. In Schindler's List, the audience watches a small girl in a bright red jacket flee Nazis during a raid. She draws the eye and as a result has a profound effect on the audience.

In Pleasantville, black and…...

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Bibliography

Taradji, Nima. Colorization and the "Moral Rights" of the Artist. 1998.  http://www.taradji.com/color.html 

Creative Rights Statement. 1987. Cinema Studies. http://www.cinemastudies.org/creat.htm