Like clockwork, Woody Allen winds up a film every year, and with each film, we’re left wondering if – Annie Hall and its Oscars notwithstanding – Stardust Memories isn’t the director’s definitive work. In that 1980 feature, the character played by Allen, a filmmaker, is torn between fame and obscurity, and between his hunger to make sombre, “important” films and his audience’s appetite for junk food, which is how he appeared to regard his early comedies. Allen’s contempt for the people who watch (and review) his films was never in fuller bloom than in this much-maligned comedy (or was it really a drama with killer zingers?), patterned after Fellini’s 8 1/2. (It was even shot in black-and-white.) Watching To Rome With Love, it’s hard not to shake off the feeling that Allen is sneering, yet again, at the ticket-buyers who made such a huge worldwide hit of last year’s Midnight in Paris. “You enjoyed that wafer-thin, one-joke skit? Here’s more,” he seems to be saying. “I’ll even throw in bons mots about Ozymandias and Kierkegaard so you can pat yourself and feel clever as you trickle out of the theatre.”
Early on, the narrator describes the average middle-class Roman – embodied by Leopoldo (Roberto Benigni), a mousy clerk who rises every morning at 7 a.m. – as “dependable, agreeable, predictable.” The same things could be said about this film, which is composed of a quartet of unrelated storylines. There’s not a moment of surprise in To Rome With Love – though, as the title suggests, there’s certainly a lot of love. Hayley (Alison Pill), an American tourist in Rome, falls for a local named Michelangelo (Flavio Parenti). Jack (Jesse Eisenberg) is in love with Sally (Greta Gerwig), until he meets Monica (Ellen Page), Sally’s best friend and “self-obsessed pseudo-intellectual” (his words). Newlyweds Antonio (Alessandro Tiberi) and Milly (Alessandra Mastronardi) move to Rome from the provinces, in search of better prospects. And Leopoldo is transformed, overnight, into a celebrity when the media decides, on a whim, to shower love on him, professing rabid curiosity about everything from the breakfast he had to the way he shaves. (Stardust Memories, too, indulged in meditations on celebrity.)
These stories are enacted by a clutch of remarkable actors. (Nothing surprising here, either.) Among the stars, Alec Baldwin is hilarious as John, Jack’s burly conscience. “With age comes wisdom,” a chastened Jack says, towards the end. John counters dryly, “With age comes exhaustion.” Penélope Cruz, in a body-hugging red dress, makes the most of the part of Anna, a delectable prostitute who invades Antonio’s hotel room and, subsequently, his life. As Phyllis and Jerry, Hayley’s parents, Judy Davis and Woody Allen display the unfussy chemistry that comes from years of working together. (He’s an opera director who once staged Rigoletto with the entire cast dressed as white mice. The critics, naturally, hated him. Or to go by Stardust Memories, they just didn’t get him.) And Benigni echoes the exquisite befuddlement of Allen in his prime, minus the heavy-duty existential hand-wringing. There’s even a hint of Jewishness in the script; we read “schmuck” in the subtitles that translate the Italian often being spoken on screen.
The four narratives are linked broadly in theme – by Allen-like characters (Leopoldo, of course, but also Jack, who is scared of adventure, and Antonio, scared of his own shadow) who commit adultery and experience, briefly, a new and exciting kind of life before being deposited back into a mundane existence. But there’s nothing beyond – or beneath – these surface similarities. Even the one-liners sound tired. (“I was never a communist. I would never share a bathroom.”) As engaging as some of this is – and even entertaining, in the deliciously absurd scenes featuring Michelangelo’s father (played by the real-life tenor Fabio Armiliato), who belts out thrilling grand opera while in the shower – we wonder what prompts Allen to keep making these ultra-light entertainments, which, by now, he must be able to write in his sleep. Phyllis, perhaps, has the answer, when she tells her husband (the Allen character), “You equate retirement with death.” And so he keeps chugging on, adding trifling tailpieces to one of the most memorably autobiographical careers in the cinema.
An edited version of this piece can be found here.
Copyright ©2012 The Hindu. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
bollyaddict
September 8, 2012
Come on, don’t be so hard on Woody! I always find, that even his weaker films are still so much better than lots of the other stuff, Hollywood churns our. I’m grateful for my annual dose of Woody’s humour, an hope, he will live and go on making films for many more years to come … This film is light and fluffy – agreed, but its still intelligent entertainment.
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chronophlogiston
September 8, 2012
Stardust Memories is for me a surprisingly ‘grown up’ film for a director to have made at such an early stage in his career. I would have expected such a film to be made as a semi-autobiographical film towards the end of his days. That in itself shows Allen’s genius…to be able to do justice to the emotions and perspectives of an older filmmaker.
On another note, I don’t think Charlotte Rampling or Meryl Streep have ever looked as good on film as they did in Stardust Memories and Manhattan respectively.
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venkatesh
September 8, 2012
I sometimes wonder, morbidly , if certain directors, writers, singers etc. should just stop. Reach a point and then stop. Create that one film,book,song and then stop – go away from public eye , refuse to be photographed or appear in interviews or whatever.
I sat through Midnight in Paris and it was ok but his other films just kept intruding while i am watching the film – you just can’t see a “Fresh” Allen film anymore – you feel like you are meta-watching the movie.
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Arjun
September 8, 2012
“Jack’s burly conscience..”? for a moment there i thought that was a reference to fight club…. 🙂
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brangan
September 8, 2012
venkatesh: Nice thought, and I’m going to see if I can spin a column out of it. Thanks 🙂
Arjun: hahaha!
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aneek
September 8, 2012
@venkatesh
“I sometimes wonder, morbidly , if certain directors, writers, singers etc. should just stop. Reach a point and then stop. Create that one film,book,song and then stop – go away from public eye , refuse to be photographed or appear in interviews or whatever.”
one such movie was “L’Appartement”. but after watching it,i am not sure the director should have stopped making movies. it was a splendid film.
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vijay
September 8, 2012
BR, you might be more successful in spinning out that column if you are going to focus more on desi or more locally, Tamil film artists where the problems are more serious than in Hollywood(bharathiraja, KB, IR, Balumahendra,Vaali…..long list to rant about:-) )
I have this strange notion that back here our artists seem to have this retiring-from-a-govt-job mindset where when they hit late 50s or 60s, theyare content to sit back and talk about their past work while still churning out work that makes most of their hardocore fans cringe. An example like say, Clint Eastwood, who could reinvent himself as a serious director/composer with consistency in his seventies after being a matinee idol in his hey days, is very rare here.
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Karthik
September 9, 2012
I haven’t seen stardust memories, thanks for the recommendation. Also, his recent movies remind me of KB’s last few movies, which made you wonder if it was the same person that doled out gems back in the 70s and 80s. Still I would watch a Woody Allen film over a lot of other romcoms that we get today.
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Ludwig
September 9, 2012
“Among the stars, Alec Baldwin is hilarious as John, Jack’s burly conscience.”
Was it just me, or was it the other way round? i.e. the Eisenberg character was the imagined one. Meaning older Alec Baldwin found the neighbourhood he lived in, sat on a bench, and let his mind wander to the days when he lived there, with commentary/advice in hindsight on what he should’ve done back in the day?
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venkatesh
September 9, 2012
BR: Very welcome 🙂
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venkatesh
September 9, 2012
aneek: I don’t think i meant with one film as such , it has to be a substantial body of work and there has to be a clear pattern of repetition or worse laziness with the latter works, so much so that you don’t look forward with anticipation to the new work but dread it, and eventually when you do see/hear it you immediately start analysing it unfavourably with the artiste’s past works.
That’s the stage i am talking about.
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aneek
September 10, 2012
@ venkatesh i totally understand where you are coming from.a typical example that fits it is RGV. heres a guy who is one of the two film makers(the other being mahesh bhatt) who brought out a change in the mainstream bollywood industry in terms of content. he made films that were edgy and dark when all films were riddled in melodrama(not necessarily always a bad thing, neither it is that all RGV films were gems). each time his movies came out during the late 90s early 2000s i was curious. but now look at him,hes a laughing stock. he became a caricature so much so that people really are not buying into him even if hes delivering not so bad stuff (i woulld prefer a raktacharitra any day over dabang,ready,bodyguard ,ek tha tiger).
however,without antagonizing you,i would like to point out that woody allen is not somebody yet whose work you will be “dreading”. if he makes a movie,how bad can it be? even if he makes a movie that doesnt reach his lofty standards that would still be so much better in these times of mediocrity than the usual fare. for example FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA’S new movie is coming.even if that misses more than it hits,rest assured you will still take away more from that experience than most of his peers. as i read this in another blog” if “pratidwandi” is SATYAJIT RAY’S worst movie,his worst is so much better than others’ best.” just my 2 cents.
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venkatesh
September 10, 2012
Agreed on RGV, what a tragic downturn. Mind you, i watched the much maligned Department and RC-1+2 and even sort-of liked RC-1.
The problem for me is not so much the comparison with other directors but with their own previous works. That’s the intrusion i am talking about. I have a different mindset when watching a RGV film versus to that of a Ready or Bodyguard or Rowdy Rathore. I guess its a question of expectations.I know what i am getting with Ready. If i get something more, then i am pleasantly surprised else i am still satisfied. With an RGV film i want to be surprised, delighted, thrilled. If i am not, then i look back at the old favorites which did surprise me and compare the new offering unfavorably. Its a very subconscious thing.
As an example of what i am talking about , soundtrack of NEPV. I went in fresh without reading any reviews , impressions and such like and tried listening to it without any conscious pre-conceptions, as best as i could , but his old songs just wouldn’t let me do that. In some ways, i didn’t really care if the composer is giving me something new or not as long as it grabbed me. I approach all my listening, viewing in the same vein – it has to grab me/get to me one way or the other.
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brangan
September 13, 2012
Karthik: “Still I would watch a Woody Allen film over a lot of other romcoms that we get today.” Oh, there’s no doubt about that. It’s just that we’re talking about a very high bar set here, and these trifles (for all their pleasures) seem a bit… unworthy.
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Anon
September 14, 2012
Branga – heard that Richard Gere is awesome in Arbitrage. do check it out.
Btw, any thoughts here on love and death – my favorite Woody Allen, not many people have watched it though?
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Karthik
September 14, 2012
i agree
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prasun
September 14, 2012
I’m sure Woody Allen hates his own movies more than you guys do 🙂
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Anjali Singh
September 15, 2012
The greatest film director of all time is surely ingmar Bergman.
woody allen is fun to watch….made some nice films…but even the worst of bergman or godard is a lot more deeper than the best of woody allen.
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radhikac
September 16, 2012
As bland as his recent movies maybe, I really would not want Woody to stop making movies. Even the one off lines in his movies are better than sitting through crap that is churned out today in the name of movies 🙂 I can still watch ‘Manhattan’ and ‘Everybody says I love you’ just as many times as I can watch ‘Scoop’.
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chronophlogiston
November 17, 2012
I am halfway through ‘To Rome with Love’…it is definitely one of his weaker entries. I guess it’s too much to ask to produce a great film every year!
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