Cruz Wins Oscar

Oscar Press Photo

In advance of the Oscars, Vanity Fair is running a Penelope Cruz/Woody Allen photo that is easy on the eyes.

Cruz has been in the press lately, exchanging platitudes and pleasantries with the chattering class. We've not linked to many of her VCB-related interviews because they're mostly trivial. No offense to her, but you can only do so much with same inane questions. And although we're trying to keep up with the award march, we take the entire season with a grain of salt. It means something and it doesn't. Rightly understood, it's more of a marketing expo than an ascription of prestige.

Nevertheless, Cruz is very positive about her experience with Allen. We suspect that this is not their last project together.

Woody Allen's 10 Finest?

I demur. Stardust Memories must be included. And Zelig. And Radio Days. And why does everyone slag off on Anything Else? Husbands and Wives gets honorable mention. That's a great movie. Penelope Cruz says her favorite is Deconstructing Harry. It's a headache. You try for a list of 10. Nevertheless, Paste Magazine has put together a good list of Woody Allen's 10 Finest Films. Jeremy Medina also attaches a nice read to the endeavor. Make your way over.

Our most faithful reader sent this information along. Also included in the email was a note that Vicky Cristina Barcelona has surpassed Match Point as Allen's highest grossing film. It will likely become Woody Allen's first 100 million dollar earner. Studio heads take note, Allen can make a buck.

Rebecca Hall: Nice

We're sorry for the over load of VCB stuff, but it is that season. This is somewhat trivial, but there is a decent portrait of Rebecca Hall in the Johannesburg Times. We'd let it slide into binary heaven, if not for this kind line: “I think working with Woody Allen was the pinnacle. It’s all downhill from here. "

VCB: Oustanding Film for Wide Release

Vicky Cristina Barcelona is nominated for yet another award, by the folks at GLAAD this time around.

Penelope Cruz Receives Oscar Nom

We we're a little surprised that Vicky Cristina Barcelona did not receive more consideration, but we're happy to report that Penelope Cruz did come away with a Best Supporting Actress Nomination.

Isagani R. Cruz Drops In

Well, sort of.

We were delighted to receive an email from the playwright/critic alerting us to a short blog post regarding Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Happy reading.

A Dapper Dude in Smart Spectacles

File this under novelty. Woody Allen gifted Penelope Cruz with a pair of his trademark glasses. All things considered, there are worse gifts a person could receive.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona Wins Golden Globe...

...for Best Comedy or Musical. Woody Allen, surprisingly, was not on hand.

Woody Allen in the Times Online

“The love I feel for people is more important than the art I create. If you have an unhappy love life, it is much more painful than putting out a movie nobody likes. I am very happy right now.”

Allen Receives 19th WGA Nomination

It's all in the post title. Vicky Cristina Barcelona continues to receive critical acclaim. We're not sure if Allen has the most career WGA nominations, but we're thinking he must be close. Any ideas as to who might have more noms than Allen? If so, let us know in the comments.

Banking on Barcelona

A friend writes to say, "Just thought I'd let you know Vicky Cristina Barcelona is only $630,000 behind surpassing Match Point in domestic (North American) grosses and it's up to nearly $70 million worldwide now, with it opening in the UK this week, where it should do very well." we hadn't been tracking the grosses, so it was welcome news. Just after receiving this email, we discovered that Reuters was reporting that Vicky Cristina Barcelona had brought in a "bounty".

(HT: Tim, as always)

Golden Globes, LA and NY critics

Vicky Cristina Barcelona continues to rake in recognition.

Penelope Cruz won both an LA and NY film critics award for her work in VCB.

Elsewhere, the VCB cast and crew will have to wait on the Golden Globe folks to make up their minds: Vicky Cristina is nominated for best comedy, Cruz for supporting actress, Bardem for supporting actor, and Hall for actress in a lead role.

ISA Nominations and Tidbits

After a couple slow weeks, the Woody Allen-related universe is back to the business of expansion. Vicky Cristina Barcelona has been given an actress (Cruz) and screenplay (Allen) nomination by the ISAs.

Woody Allen's character Maria Elena continues to bring laud and honor in Cruz's direction. Dennis Hopper recently remarked,

"To me, she’s the best actress around right now.”

“She gives good performances this year - one in Woody Allen’s film Vicky Cristina Barcelona and one in Isabel Coixet’s Elegy - and they’re two of the best performances I’ve seen in years.”

We're willing to bet that this is not the last Allen-Cruz collaboration.

Elsewhere, VCB cast member Patricia Clarkson raves about working with Woody Allen on consecutive films:

"I love working with Woody [Allen], and I did another film, Whatever Works, with Woody after Vicky Cristina, so I got to work with Woody twice in the span of 10 months. I'm like the luckiest person alive," she gushed.

"Whatever Works is a completely different film but it's still classic Woody Allen. I can't even talk about it too much so I can't tell you about it, but it's very funny. I think it's going to be hysterical. I mean, it's Woody Allen and Larry David. Whereas Vicky Cristina's more soulful, beautiful, lyrical and sexual."

Finally, something more for our Talent Imitates files, comes another great review of Alex Holdridge's In Search of a Midnight Kiss, which continues to draw positive comparisons to Woody Allen's Manhattan.

It's a Los Angeles love story, photographed in black and white, considered by many to be this generation's response to Woody Allen's "Manhattan."

While Allen's characters are seen and heard against a background of a sleek Big Apple and the music of Gershwin, Holdridge's are photographed against an often faded looking downtown L.A., with much of the music provided by a United Kingdom group called Okkervil River.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona Wins Gotham...

...for best ensemble performance. Congratulations to the cast for their good work.

Truffaut's Jules and Jim

A little while back we used this space to suggest a connection between Jules and Jim and Vicky Cristina Barcelona. At a time when Allen is being accused of plagiarism by a Spanish novelist, it seems providential that Bright Lights Film would run an essay praising Vicky Cristina Barcelona for, among other things, its beautiful reflection of Truffaut.

Woody Allen is a shameless thief, after all.

Thanks for your work, Tony Macklin.

VCB Accusation

Spanish novelist Alexis de Villar is accusing Woody Allen of plagiarizing his 1987 novel Goodbye Barcelona as source material for Vicky Cristina.

For the time being we'll wait for more than an accusation before taking the charge more seriously. We're also interested to hear Allen's response, if any.

It doesn't appear that Goodbye Barcelona has ever received an English translation. Allen doesn't know Spanish--it's part of his long-standing and principled conviction to never share a native language with his DP. The more on-set translators, the better. He believes that working through intermediaries gives his films an added texture and restricts his knowledge of language to English and a single nearly extinct Inuit dialect, of which he is fluent, much to the chagrin of the Alaskan Cameraman's Union. Forced to the fringes by a Brooklynite, they like to say.

Joking aside, we would be surprised if much came from Alexis de Villar's claims. If you see any further developments, please post them in the comments.

A Line at the Door?

This is somewhat frivolous, but it comes up enough in print to warrant a short comment. For years, Woody Allen has insisted that the notion of Hollywood A-listers falling over themselves for the chance to work with him was the stuff of high comedy. For an example of Allen's response to this misunderstanding, try the video below at the 5:55 mark.



For a large portion of his career, Allen worked with a repertory. During this period, casting was the matter of a simple phone call. During the 90s, this pattern fall apart. Since then, we've no reason to doubt Allen's sincerity. Actors were not clamoring to work with him. There wasn't a line at the door. At points, his films suffered from the constant turnover and inability to get the best people for his characters.

But we're starting to wonder if the tide has not shifted. Allen is nearly 73. Opportunities to work with him are diminishing. Two recent films--Match Point and Vicky Cristina Barcelona--have turned a profit; we're assuming VCB will meet or excel Match Point in terms of award recognition. Allen has momentum.

In a sense, Allen's career has already had its three acts. The first act was comprised of stand up routines, first plays and stories, and "the early, funny" films of the 70s. The second act began in earnest with Annie Hall and continued through Husbands and Wives. This stretch of films marks a period of accomplishment very few, if any, writer-directors have ever enjoyed. The third act corresponds to the loss of a steady troupe and his falling out of favor with the press. From 1993 to 2008 Allen has continued to turn out mostly good work. Even in this much-ballyhooed "period of decline" Allen has created better films than nearly all of his peers. Bullets Over Broadway, as one example, is a masterpiece film that most filmmakers would die to have made. Everything in perspective.

Nevertheless, Allen's first act was endearing, the second heroic, and the third had tragic undertones. But now the third act has come to a close, the curtain is drawn. Vicky Cristina Barcelona marks its end. We believe this for a number of reason.

Allen is now in the place of being fashionable again. He doesn't care either way, no doubt. But funding is affected by whether or not you're a critical darling. Producers and actors are more likely to work with you if the reviews are positive. But beyond this, Allen is moving back in the direction of a repertory. Scarlett Johansson and Patricia Clarkson constitute the seed-bed of this resurgence. We're hoping that his increased budgets allow him the flexibility to maintain a cinematographer, whether Javier Aguirresarobe, Harris Savides, or otherwise.

This is another way saying that in our estimation, Whatever Works signals the beginning of the encore stage of Allen's remarkable career. From this point forward, it's all gravy. That mythical line at the door might incarnate. Such an incarnation blossomed into Vicky Cristina Barcelona:

Woody Allen: "I had the idea about two women going away on a summer thing some place. Someone called from Barcelona and said, 'Would you like to make a picture here? We’ll finance it.' That’s always the hardest part of making any picture, is getting the financing. Writing it, directing it, or anything else is easier than getting the financing for it, so I said, 'Sure, I would do it.'"

"I had no idea for anything for it and then about a week or two later I got a call from Penelope Cruz. I didn’t know her; she wanted to meet and she was in New York. I had only seen her in Volver and nothing else ever. I thought she was great in it, and she said that she knew I was doing a film in Barcelona and she would like to participate. I started out with Barcelona, with Penelope, and in the back of mind I was going to go to Scarlett. Then I heard Javier [Bardem] was interested, so gradually it took shape. I was writing for these people. I was deliberately writing for these people. I didn’t know Rebecca Hall at all. Juliet Taylor, my casting director, discovered her. She said that she was great, I should read her, and look at some film on her. I did and she was right. I put the thing together for the people almost, as I did it, and did the best I could."

Adding to this, we find Kevin Spacey in print last weekend with a could-be familiar refrain:

"Well, look. If I'm not producing, then I'm an actor for hire. It ends there. That doesn't mean you're not working with a director and other actors and a writer to make the best movie you can, but it's a temporal experience, you'll be together for a couple of weeks or months and then you're done."

So is there really nothing left in the cinema that excites him? He pauses. "Well, I keep waiting for Woody Allen or Martin Scorsese to call me ..."

Vicky Cristina Barcelona Nominated

VCB has received two Gotham Independent Film Award nominations. Rebecca Hall has been nominated as Best Breakthrough Actor and the cast has been tapped for Best Ensemble Performance. In addition to the ensemble nomination with Johansson, Bardem, and Hall, Penelope Cruz will receive an honorary tribute award for her work in film.

The award ceremony will be held in December.

Ozu and Allen

Jeffrey M. Anderson has done film fans a service with this short take of Vicky Cristina Barcelona. He writes:

In my review of Vicky Cristina Barcelona, I compared it to the work of Yasujiro Ozu, who is perhaps the greatest of all Japanese filmmakers. Ozu is very highly revered for at least one film, Tokyo Story (1953), which routinely ranks near Citizen Kane as one of the greatest films of all time. Yet it becomes greater still the more familiar one is with Ozu's other works (to date 15 Ozu films are available on Criterion DVDs). Ozu almost always used the same opening titles, the same cinematography and editing, the same actors, the same stories and even the same titles (even fans have trouble telling the difference between Late Spring, Early Summer, Late Autumn and The End of Summer). In working through the same themes again and again, Ozu was able to plumb much deeper into them than any other filmmaker could do with a single film. While he often dealt with family issues, his ultimate conclusion was that families break up, that life is disappointing, and that there's a kind of comfort in realizing and accepting that.

This issue of working through the same "themes again and again" is often misrepresented as a failing. But such criticisms are problematic on a few fronts. First, nearly every major writer or director works through the same themes--Fyodor Dostoevsky or Flannery O'Connor, as two random examples, are lauded for working through the same themes through out their careers. This is the precise reason they are celebrated. That is, because of their masterful resilience in asking the same penetrating questions of the world through a thoughtful network of plots and characters.

The second problem here is lazy criticism--one treatment of a particular theme can be very different from another, even from the same artist. The films of Allen's eternal justice trilogy--Crimes and Misdemeanors, Match Point, and Cassandra's Dream--share basic plot points, characters motivations, and each explores the theme of whether or not there is really such a thing as justice in the universe. Yet, each film supplies a very different response to this set of controls. Identifying the difference is a central task of the viewer.

Allen is a jazz musician. When you see repeated themes in his movies, think of theme as the melody line and each new film riffing on this theme or that theme as an instrument playing harmony. Sometimes the movie represents a great sax solo and other times it's simply a piano that has a little prominence in the bridge. Multiple treatments of the same theme provide colorful nuance. If you're able to identify recurrent themes, push yourself a little harder by asking how its treatment differs from or improves upon its previous occurrence(s). We've encouraged readers to do this with Annie Hall and Anything Else.

But the recurrence of theme also allows us to compare Allen to those filmmakers who share his questions of the world--filmmakers like Ozu. To what extent is Vicky Cristina Barcelona a thematic interaction with Tokyo Story? Is Allen consciously building off of Ozu, or is it a happy coincidence? Is the connection superficial or substantial? Does VCB better compare to Jules et Jim? What do Tokyo Story, Jules et Jim and Vicky Cristina Barcelona share in common? Etc...

For the casual movie lover, this is too much to ask, we understand. But for those who see film as something more than a time filler, these comparisons (the discovery of repeated themes, the possibility that a film fits within a broader stream of thought or family of films/filmmakers) are stimulating.