Hannah and Her Sisters written, directed by and starring Woody Allen http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/01/war-and-peace-by-leo-tolstoy-with-fun.html - 9 out of 10

 

Hannah and Her Sisters written, directed by and starring Woody Allen http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/01/war-and-peace-by-leo-tolstoy-with-fun.html

9 out of 10

 

 

Woody Allen used to be worshipped some decades ago, when his films were the quintessence of chic, savoir faire, erudition, amusement, refined intellectualism and he became an idol, a legend, before Cancel Culture, Woke Waves hit the movie scene and now he could be a sort of pariah, an exiled old man, from a different generation, one that is not only passé, but quite noxious, to be avoided.

 

Somehow, I feel no need to jump to his defense – yeah, right, as if this mosquito here would do anything with its trunk, for or against the film maker – and there is a sort of nostalgia, when seeing again some of his work http://realini.blogspot.com/2019/09/husbands-and-wives-written-and-directed.html

Yet, for all the joy he has brought and the gratitude that needs to be expressed – or doesn’t it maybe – the once revered artist has a long list of accusations against him, and the evidence may be there, for all to see…

 

I do not know the details, but he has had a relationship – I guess they are married now – with the adopted daughter of his ex-wife, Mia Farrow, and though he denies it, the latter says that he started ‘grooming’ the present spouse when she was still under age, which will make him a felon, if proved in court…

Mia Farrow is a character, and she had been the spouse of…Frank Sinatra, and we have a spicy, amusing story about this connection in the ravishing The Kid stays in The Picture http://realini.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-kid-stays-in-picture-by-robert.html by Robert Evans, himself a legend

 

Robert Evans has started as an actor, and then he would be a producer – so he could say The Kid Stays in The Picture – and head of Paramount Studios, the one that gave cinephiles  The Godfather (he is actually mentioned for that in…Barbie) Chinatown, Rosemary’s Baby, Love Story, The Great Gatsby and many other landmarks and classics

For Rosemary’s Baby http://realini.blogspot.com/2021/01/rosemarys-baby-by-ira-levin-10-out-of-10.html he brought from Europe the now reviled Roman Polanski (well, admired at the same time, but for his cinema, not the sex he has had with a girl that was what, fourteen) and enlisted Mia Farrow.

Her then spouse, the capricious, sometimes mobster-like Frank Sinatra, was upset when the film was not finished on schedule and thus he demanded that his wife ends her activity on the set and comes home.

 

Mia Farrow did not want that, went on to finish what is now one of All-TIME 100 Best Movies, which had an immense success, while the movie Sinatra finished then was a flop, so according to Bob Evans, Mia Farrow wanted him to take an ad in Variety or another major film publication, which would have on one page the box office of Rosemary’s Baby (which was colossal) and opposite, the takings of Sinatra’s bomb

Think about this, how could one be intimate with Sinatra, a phenomenal artist – probably the inspiration for that figure in The Godfather, who comes to the head of the Mafia to ask for influence, so that he can get roles again, and in consequence we have Robert Duvall visiting, as consigliore, and then  the movie mogul complains, he is told to take on the ‘fake Sinatra’ and when he does not accept the ‘offer he could not refuse’, he has that unforgettable head of his beloved horse, Khartoum, as in the capital of Sudan, now in a civil war for months, in his bed, which is filled with blood, one of the best known and horrifying scenes in classic cinema- but quite a mobster in behavior at times?

 

And at the same time, or just a little later, fall for someone like…Woody Allen, I mean you could not get two more opposing fellows if you searched around the earth, and yet, the ‘penny dropped’ just now, for there you have it, if Sinatra congregated with the goodfellas, he had some objectionable side, dark corners and all, then Woody Allen had this obsession with younger women, that is exposed in his work actually

Future critics, film lovers may be harder on Allen than on Sinatra, with roles reversed, if Woody Allen would have been seen as ‘innocent, gullible, easy prey and so on’ decades back, now we could see him and the films with another lens, from a different angle, he was often the much older man, with an interest in a virginal girl

 

Take Manhattan, wherein Muriel Hemingway was as young as you can get, and the character she played was a girl without defense, who falls in love with…Woody Allen, and yes, the male personage keeps on saying that he is older and all that, but the script takes the connection to…intimacy, and that could not be right, could it?

We have a marvelous book to read, Intellectuals http://realini.blogspot.com/2014/06/intellectuals-by-paul-johnson.html by Paul Johnson, from where we find about Leo Tolstoy, Ernest Hemingway, Henrik Ibsen, Jean Jacques Rousseau and others, who have been massive creators and thinkers, but as humans…give me a break

 

Hence we need to make the separation, in the case of Woody Allen, perhaps enjoy his films and not think (too much) about his character, or lack thereof, and then who am I to proselytize here, one way or the other?

 

 

Now for a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world  – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

From To The Heritage:

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life. As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality. Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’