Last Movie You Watched

[vandermolen]

Its' entirely probable that a 'historic' film contains at least some accuracies.

Ha! Yes a very good point. The fractionalisation of History is worrying.

[Karl Henning]

Quite right Karl. I like to throw in a few deliberate mistakes just to check that the other members are on the ball.

Very glad not to appoint you, old bean.

[Karl Henning]

Really, a movie I am soon to watch again . . .

Annie Hall contains more intellectual wit and cultural references than any other movie ever to win the Oscar for best picture, and in winning the award in 1977 it edged out Star Wars, an outcome unthinkable today. The victory marked the beginning of Woody Allen's career as an important filmmaker (his earlier work was funny but slight) and it signaled the end of the 1970s golden age of American movies. With Star Wars, the age of the blockbuster was upon us, and movies this quirky and idiosyncratic would find themselves shouldered aside by Hollywood's greed for mega-hits. Annie Hall grossed about $40 million--less than any other modern best picture winner, and less than the budgets of many of them.

[snip]

Alvy is smarter than the ground rules of Hollywood currently allow. Watching even the more creative recent movies, one becomes aware of a subtle censorship being imposed, in which the characters cannot talk about anything the audience might not be familiar with. This generates characters driven by plot and emotion rather than by ideas; they use catch-phrases rather than witticisms. Consider the famous sequence where Annie and Alvy are standing in line for the movies and the blowhard behind them pontificates loudly about Fellini. When the pest switches over to McLuhan, Alvy loses patience, confronts him, and then triumphantly produces Marshall McLuhan himself from behind a movie poster to inform him, "You know nothing of my work!" This scene would be penciled out today on the presumption that no one in the audience would have heard of Fellini or McLuhan.

[Baron Scarpia]

Alvy is smarter than the ground rules of Hollywood currently allow. Watching even the more creative recent movies, one becomes aware of a subtle censorship being imposed, in which the characters cannot talk about anything the audience might not be familiar with. This generates characters driven by plot and emotion rather than by ideas; they use catch-phrases rather than witticisms. Consider the famous sequence where Annie and Alvy are standing in line for the movies and the blowhard behind them pontificates loudly about Fellini. When the pest switches over to McLuhan, Alvy loses patience, confronts him, and then triumphantly produces Marshall McLuhan himself from behind a movie poster to inform him, "You know nothing of my work!" This scene would be penciled out today on the presumption that no one in the audience would have heard of Fellini or McLuhan.

Nonsense! I've never seen a Fellini film, I have never heard of McLuhan and to this day I have no idea who he is. The gag was funny anyway. And I think the gag would have been improved if he had used someone with some name recognition, like Margaret Atwood or Philip Roth, etc, rather than McLuhan, whoever he is.

And, didn't Rodney Dangerfield use a similar gag in "Back to School" when he hired Kurt Vonnegut (?) to write a term paper about his own work, which got a C (if I remember right).

[Karl Henning]

Nonsense! I've never seen a Fellini film, I have never heard of McLuhan and to this day I have no idea who he is. The gag was funny anyway. And I think the gag would have been improved if he had used someone with some name recognition, like Margaret Atwood or Philip Roth, etc, rather than McLuhan, whoever he is.

Aye, you are underscoring the point.

[Baron Scarpia]

Aye, you are underscoring the point.

Underscoring what point? Would have been penciled out by whom?

[Karl Henning]

"This scene would be penciled out today on the presumption that no one in the audience would have heard of Fellini or McLuhan."  One possible presumption is, that the viewer would need to have done that homework to find the buts funny, therefore the scene should be struck.  But as you demonstrate, the scene is funny, regardless.

(Penciled out by . . . the producer?  A firm answer is not needed, any more than you need to know McLuhan's work.  One of the takeaways from the documentary about Casino Royale is that Allen called one of the suits a "murderer," because he wanted to pencil out his funny scenes. But one of the directors reassured him that the scenes would stay in.  And thank heaven, because his scenes go a great ways to redeeming the endeavor  )

[Ken B]

Nonsense! I've never seen a Fellini film, I have never heard of McLuhan and to this day I have no idea who he is. The gag was funny anyway. And I think the gag would have been improved if he had used someone with some name recognition, like Margaret Atwood or Philip Roth, etc, rather than McLuhan, whoever he is.

And, didn't Rodney Dangerfield use a similar gag in "Back to School" when he hired Kurt Vonnegut (?) to write a term paper about his own work, which got a C (if I remember right).

McLuhan HAD name recognition. He had something more important: puffed up intellectual credentials. The best remaining example of those is Ulysses by Joyce. 

[Baron Scarpia]

"This scene would be penciled out today on the presumption that no one in the audience would have heard of Fellini or McLuhan."  One possible presumption is, that the viewer would need to have done that homework to find the buts funny, therefore the scene should be struck.  But as you demonstrate, the scene is funny, regardless.

(Penciled out by . . . the producer?  A firm answer is not needed, any more than you need to know McLuhan's work.  One of the takeaways from the documentary about Casino Royale is that Allen called one of the suits a "murderer," because he wanted to pencil out his funny scenes. But one of the directors reassured him that the scenes would stay in.  And thank heaven, because his scenes go a great ways to redeeming the endeavor  )

I'd try to provide a counter example, if I could think of a film I've seen recently. In this age of proliferating programming sources and internet streaming sophisticated visual storytelling is done in television series. The only thing that's left behind in cinema is comic book movies. I think the humor I see in 'literary' television series is at least as sophisticated as anything Woody Allen did.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Nonsense! I've never seen a Fellini film, I have never heard of McLuhan and to this day I have no idea who he is. The gag was funny anyway. And I think the gag would have been improved if he had used someone with some name recognition, like Margaret Atwood or Philip Roth, etc, rather than McLuhan, whoever he is.

Interesting trivia point: this part was originally supposed to be played by Luis Buñuel, but he was unable to do so for some reason. McLuhan was Allen's second choice.

McLuhan HAD name recognition. He had something more important: puffed up intellectual credentials. The best remaining example of those is Ulysses by Joyce. 

Actually McLuhan is very interesting to read nowadays, in the Internet age. I have an anthology of his writings - some of it is dated and stuck in the 60s, but some of it remains quite thought-provoking. He deserves his quiet, posthumous revival.

[kishnevi]

Nonsense! I've never seen a Fellini film, I have never heard of McLuhan and to this day I have no idea who he is. The gag was funny anyway. And I think the gag would have been improved if he had used someone with some name recognition, like Margaret Atwood or Philip Roth, etc, rather than McLuhan, whoever he is.

And, didn't Rodney Dangerfield use a similar gag in "Back to School" when he hired Kurt Vonnegut (?) to write a term paper about his own work, which got a C (if I remember right).

To be fair, my knowledge of McLuhan is limited to two quotes, one of which is not even a full sentence:  Global village and The medium is the message.

But Fellini....at least try

[André]

That  tobacco counter hides some hilarious and hot stuff indeed. « I can't breathe !  »

What a scene !! 

[vandermolen]

Ha! Yes a very good point. The fractionalisation of History is worrying.

Another boo-boo - I meant 'factionalisation' of history - the dangers of predictive text.

[Karl Henning]

Interesting trivia point: this part was originally supposed to be played by Luis Buñuel, but he was unable to do so for some reason. McLuhan was Allen's second choice.

It's a great moment, like Errol Flynn appearing in the Bugs Bunny short.

[Karl Henning]

Another boo-boo - I meant 'factionalisation' of history - the dangers of predictive text.

If I have missed this, pardon a chap . . . have you seen Dunkirk, Jeffrey?  Thoughts, as an English historian?  Or, as a private citizen? 

[Karl Henning]

I'd try to provide a counter example, if I could think of a film I've seen recently. In this age of proliferating programming sources and internet streaming sophisticated visual storytelling is done in television series. The only thing that's left behind in cinema is comic book movies. I think the humor I see in 'literary' television series is at least as sophisticated as anything Woody Allen did.

Okay.  I do not watch much new TV, so I cannot say.  But your counter-example may still underscore Ebert's point about big-studio movie-making.

[Karl Henning]

Or:  Ebert's remarks date from 2002.  Perhaps the environment has changed . . . .

[Ken B]

Grace of Monaco

This was actually better than it had any right to be.

[Karl Henning]

Grace of Monaco

This was actually better than it had any right to be.

A win, then.

[vandermolen]

If I have missed this, pardon a chap . . . have you seen Dunkirk, Jeffrey?  Thoughts, as an English historian?  Or, as a private citizen? 

Hi Karl,
Yes indeed I did see it at the cinema. Thought it was a great film with a fine soundtrack (playing non-stop). There were complaints that it ignored the French but French soldiers are featured fighting on at the start whilst the British head for the beaches. Some controversy over the role of the RAF, who faced criticism from the soldiers being straffed on the beaches for not being in evidence. The RAF were there, however, keeping the Luftwaffe off as far as possible although this wasn't always seen from the beaches. I think that Admiral Ramsay who coordinated the evacuation featured more in 'Darkest Hour' than in 'Dunkirk' but like 'Darkest Hour' I thought that 'Dunkirk' successfully conveyed the spirit of those momentous weeks in 1940 despite inevitable historical oversights and inaccuracies.