CELEBRITY
Written and directed by Woody Allen
With Kenneth Branagh, Judy Davis, Joe
Mantegna, Leonardo DiCaprio
113 minutes, 1998, USA
Originally written November, 1998
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CELEBRITY illustrates, more than any of his other films, how Woody Allen is
one of America’s most gifted filmmakers yet one of its laziest screenwriters.
His latest film embodies all of the characteristics of some of his best work:
dreamy black-and-white cinematography, eccentric casting, incisive dialogue,
and a portrayal of the human condition at its most riotous and painful. Though
what is most painful, and not at all funny, is the way Allen continues to
repeat situations and gags from previous scripts and make references to his own
work, to a point where it has gone beyond amusing to grating.
Kenneth Branagh and Judy Davis occupy the
two principal roles (Allen does not act this time around) in what is otherwise
an elaborate ensemble piece. Branagh plays a middle-aged travel writer who
cruelly dumps his uptight wife of 16 years and takes up celebrity journalism,
believing that a life of screwing models and partying with teenage movie stars
will satiate a lifetime of unfulfilled desires. Davis, as the jilted wife,
inadvertently and uncomfortably becomes enmeshed in celebrity culture herself,
as her TV-producer boyfriend (Joe Mantegna) helps her break out of her shell to
become a hack gossip reporter on a local newscast. Both actors clearly relished
their roles and their bold performances gave the film most of its depth.
Davis in particular is a standout. It’s
clear why she’s recently Allen’s actor of choice and is perhaps one of the best
results of his split with Mia Farrow, who could not play such nervous
characters with the sly wit Davis brings to her roles. She is a joy to watch,
as she transforms from a frazzled, greying English teacher who is so
uncomfortable in her own skin that she feels immense guilt for finding pleasure
in life, to becoming the ditzy TV personality with an outrageous blond makeover.
Some of Allen’s most acerbic lines seem written for her voice, which drips with
cynicism: “I’ve become the type of person I always hated, but you know, I’m
really happy.”
Assuming his mentor’s nervous stutter and
jittery mannerisms, Branagh took his role in this film very literally.
Basically, he does a toney Woody Allen impression, a schtick that would have
looked trite coming from another American comedian, but having a charismatic,
English Shakespearean actor pull off such a peculiar giddy performance is
perversely exciting.
Branagh is himself an auteur of sorts, best
known for his grand screen adaptations of Shakespeare, and director of DEAD AGAIN and PETER’S FRIENDS. His first stab at
both writing and directing was 1995's A
MIDWINTER’S TALE, which itself was a small, pretentious black-and-white
film that garnered comparisons to Allen by the handful of people who actually
saw it. Having displayed this reverence for Woody, Branagh must have found it
irresistible to now play Woody in a
film directed by Woody, and in black-and-white no less.
Perhaps it would have been more appealing
to see Branagh invent a distinctive character. Yet you could also argue that he
brings realism to a role that Allen could have only played as slapstick.
Take for instance a scene in a nightclub
that draws a subtle parallel with Allen’s PLAY IT AGAIN SAM, where in both films its characters try
desperately to pick up beautiful women by dancing with affected suave
personalities. Allen played the scene for straight laughs in 1972 and, because
of his nerdy looks, could never do it any other way. Today, Branagh does the
same routine with stark authenticity. In that singular moment, he becomes
someone we have all known, the narcissist whose behaviour is so pathetic and
transparent that it’s both comical and sad to watch.
True to that narcissism, Branagh trades in his Volvo for an Aston
Martin, an affectation that he believes will help him score with the chicks.
Driving him further down the road of shame is his lack of journalistic ethics.
With his notepad barely open, he’s attempting to either screw or pitch
screenplays to his interview subjects. Branagh is perfect as the flawed,
desperate character whose infantile behaviour eventually destroys himself and
the people who love him. The final frames of the film are poetic. A chance
meeting with his ex-wife shows him that she has become exactly the person he
left her for; beautiful, famous, and content. As he sits silently with the look
of a bitter, broken man, a fleeting image before him brings his story full
circle and elegantly sums up his life and mental state. It’s a deft piece of
writing that required a skilled actor.
The title is a bit of a misnomer, though, since
most of Allen’s films relate, in one way or another, to the phenomenon of
celebrity. The stock lead character in most of his films is commonly a writer, director, or performer of some kind.
CELEBRITY itself has only
little more to do with the subject than ANNIE
HALL or PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO.
In fact, this movie could have been called HUSBAND AND WIFE, as its story covers the same territory of
Allen’s HUSBANDS AND WIVES (with
one less couple and half the urgency). The themes of philandering, emotional
turbulence, bad behaviour, and insecurities of being single are reworked over a
new setting.
This is not a satire on celebrity status. Celebrity
culture provides the backdrop, and while questions are mischievously posed
about why people who do little of much use become famous, this is more of a
motif than commentary. I don’t believe Allen is capable of making any
significant comment on the subject and it’s just as well he didn’t try.
It’s difficult to criticize a filmmaker who
has crafted one film per year for three decades with such a high degree of
artistic success. The prolific output is admirable, but it must be pointed out
that his films of late have suffered from writing that appears rushed and
poorly constructed. CELEBRITY,
like DECONSTRUCTING HARRY
before it, is a good film that could have been excellent if Allen had the
patience to spend time refining his script before rushing into production.
Re-hashing themes and situations from
previous stories is both his trademark style and the reason he can quickly
churn out scripts. He works, it seems, within an insular world of New York's cultural elite that bears little
resemblance to anyone’s reality except his own. It’s quaint how you will never
find one of his characters using a computer (typewriters only) and there will
always be a reference to somebody’s analyst. Allen’s narrow focus has often been a
forgivable and delightful quirk because he usually draws something original,
sometimes profound, from his familiar stories about angst-ridden Big Apple intellectuals.
But CELEBRITY
marks a new and annoying low in Allen’s penchant for self-reference. A
defining example is a portion of dialogue that is re-written from one of his
films of two decades ago, in a segment about a woman who is “polymorphously
perverse.” It’s the first time I’ve noticed Allen blatantly plagiarize himself
and I was bothered when I recognised the dialogue but couldn’t immediately
place its origin. (A quick scan of the memory bank the next day and a review of
the DVD confirmed the source as ANNIE HALL.) “Where have I heard this before?”
is not the sort of thing anyone should be thinking while trying to enjoy
a movie.
Allen draws attention to his body of work
in other subtler ways. In a scene where Joe Mantegna takes Davis to a posh
premiere of a foreign film, he comments about the fictitious Greek director,
“He’s one of those pretentious assholes who shoots everything in
black-and-white.” The joke is meant to appear as self-deprecating, although it
serves the opposite. The filmmaker in question is probably someone Allen would
admire in real life, and the comment is his reminder to the audience that he’s
the only major American director who regularly shoots in the colours of
cinema’s origins (his sixth time in 19 years). He’s an indulgent artist who
compensates for his pretensions by making films about other indulgent artists.
There are other brief but distracting
moments that made me question Allen’s comedic judgment, mostly awkward bits of
screwball comedy that seem inappropriate for the tone of the film. For
instance, a scene in which Branagh faces his worst fear – a confrontation with
an esteemed book critic who hated his two novels – and faints. Fainting is a farcical
device that does not happen in real life to healthy adults. It’s a writer’s
cop-out. Allen could have found a more poignant way to end the scene had he
paused and given it some thought. What’s more puzzling is that this is the
second film in a row in which Allen has a character sigh, roll the eyes, and
flop to the ground simply because they were flustered. That happened in DECONSTRUCTING HARRY, which also featured some stale jokes about lawyers
and aluminum siding salesmen residing in Hell. A writer of this caliber
believing that people could actually laugh at such hackneyed material is
evidence that he needs to read what comes out of his typewriter before he
rushes it in front of a camera.
Despite my reservations about Allen’s
slipshod writing, I still enjoyed CELEBRITY
a great deal. There is a strange nuance to it that’s absorbing. The glamorous
settings and black-and-white cinematography (by Sven Nykvist, who has
previously worked with both Allen and his idol Ingmar Bergman) captured the
mood of two people immersed in a world where they are out of place and out of
touch.
On its own merits, this is a relatively
good film. As a fan of Woody Allen, though, it’s difficult to watch without
thinking of his superior films such as MANHATTAN
or HUSBANDS AND WIVES. CELEBRITY reminds us that Woody Allen is indeed a
great talent, but that ultimately he has nothing new to say about the themes
he’s treated more effectively in better works.
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Post script, 2012: Out of the few people I know who've seen this film, I'm the only one who found it even remotely enjoyable despite its flaws. I saw it twice in the cinema, and both times the friends I was with just shook their heads. At the second screening, there was only one other couple in the audience (it wasn't a word-of-mouth sleeper hit, obviously), seated severals rows ahead of us. At the end of the film, one of them turned toward us and hollered back, "What the fuck was that?! Did you like that? I mean, seriously, what THE FUCK!"
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