Woody Allen :: essays papers

arborescent AllenA plethora of people have written about Woody Allen, John Lahr saidand they either like him or dislike him. But no one has yet managed, Ithink, to interpret him. Woody Allen has been revered as one of thebrilliant artists of the twentieth century and at the homogeneous time calleda pervert. His works have been called jokes but also masterpieces. Manycritics have tested to explain why Allen writes the things he writes butnot one has had success. The drive and brilliance of Allen has notbeen understood yet. Seeing his movies gives us two opposing views. wholenessis the screwball comedian who is obsessed with death and sex while theother is the serious artist commenting on and criticizing our society.The latter view is more difficult to labor but is nonetheless there.Through different film techniques Allen mocks our society and filmindustry without us even realizing. His most widely used technique todo this is the film within a film. In movies such as The Purple Ro se ofCairo, Play It Again Sam and Hannah and Her Sisters Allen uses thistechnique to show us his ruling on a particular subject, and also usesit as a driving force behind his movies.The most notable use of filmwithin a film in Allen?s movies occurs in, The Purple Rose of Cairo.The time is The Depression and the scene a small town. Cecilia (MiaFarrow) is the central figure in the movie. She is married to anscurrilous gambler and heavy drinker. To cope and escape her problems,Cecilia constantly goes to a nearby movie theater called The Jewel.There she spends hours on end watching movies, sometimes the same onemore than three times. When she gets fired one day from her job, shegoes to The Jewel and watches a movie called The Purple Rose of Cairoat least cardinal times (Blake 117). On her fifth time watching themovie, Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels) jumps out from the movie and entersthe theater telling Cecilia that he has noted her faithful presence andis attracted to her. As they leave th e theater together, the musicians inthe movie aimlessly wonder around bewildered by what had justtranspired. Deeply concerned is the real life actor of Tom Baxter, GilShephard because this misfortune could wreck his blossomingcareer(Kauffmann 37). To add to the trouble, other cities havereported that the Baxter character has stepped out of The Purple Roseof Cairo in various theaters and has disappeared. Why would Woody Allencreate such a unrealistic movie critics called the most innovative