In a sub-series: Backtracking thru the Woodland
Eighteenth in a series: Post–Soviet Union Adventure, Days of Clintons Past: A recollection of cultural
ephemera of the 1990s
Later “Summer Lite” entries this season won’t be as fancy as this.
Subsections below:
Allen singing? Come on! And a group dancing dressed like Groucho Marx?
A brief scorecard of the family
A rich family headed by ever-ebullient Alan Alda
In Part 2 (on my other blog):
Political hay made, in passing
Allen turns a corner foreshadowingly, with time in Europe
Young love as a central plot feature (with low vinegar content)
The death-addressing sequence
Allen’s Joe’s dalliance with Julia Roberts’ Von
[Edit 4/27/15. Edits 4/28/15.]
The idea of Woody Allen making a
musical may seem as likely to many—of different generations—as him fronting a
heavy metal band (temporarily, before he gets pelted by a ton of rotten
vegetables). And a lot of people today, especially younger, film buffs, on
starting to watch this, will readily file it under “WTF?!” (When I got the VHS
tape from a library system—the tape is old, and is the only one in the repositories
of that upstate New York system, showing how un–in-demand it is—it wasn’t fully
rewound, and it had been stopped at a scene where I think a lot of people would
have rolled their eyes, muttered “I’ve seen enough,” and turned their players
off.)
If you’re about my age (53) and
older, you probably grew up—when young, and when most tolerant of popular-art
forms that would look silly later—having watched, on TV (and mostly because
your parent or parents wanted to see it), the likes of the film version of Oklahoma! (1955) at least once, and,
certainly more fun for kids (and seen numerous times), The Wizard of Oz (1939). Some of the old songs (“Oh, what a
beautiful morning!”) are etched on our brains forever, even if—as with the film
of The Sound of Music (1965), whose
turning 50 received media coverage this year—some of the lyrics are so quaint,
they readily inspire humored coverage in a comic like Dustin (not one I usually read), where the attitudes of different
generations toward the lyrics are made hay of, based on the fact that bromides
such as “These are a few of my favorite things” can inspire a slightly bemused
smile in just about anyone with a heartbeat and some healthy sense of humor.
Further, the genre of film
musicals (which means that songs, in their lyrics, help advance the plot)—in
terms of popularity, and really, much Hollywood
drive to make them—ran out of steam by the early 1970s. Fiddler on the Roof (1971) is charming, and The Blues Brothers (1980) is a late variation on the form that is
helped by its hipness about music and flophouse-and-roadrunning-oriented
comedy. But the likes of Disney’s Bedknobs
and Broomsticks (1971) only puts into relief a weirdness that was always, many
would say, inherent in the form. (The popularity of the likes of the recent
film Frozen shows that musicals are
much more tolerated today if they’re animated.)
Everyone Says I Love You is by
no means top-flight Allen—the Wikipedia article is misleading, saying it was
“well received” and quoting an apparently hoodwinked-in-1996 Janet Maslin (who
was maybe taken by surprise by the weird film, and gave it the benefit of the
doubt)—and it’s the most shallow non-satirical thing, in its story, that Allen
had done since Radio Days (1987). But
Allen fans will find it worth looking at (while the three out of four stars it
got from both Leonard Maltin and Videohound
have to be from the overall positive vibe and the memorable classic show songs
[not written by Allen], more than anything else).
But it is the sort of work that,
even for diehard fans, requires indulgence. It is somewhat like Paul
McCartney’s album Ram (1971), which
by the broader standards of rock music is weak and sometimes inspires derision,
but in terms of the artist’s own standards, it has some decided strengths (in
Macca’s case, in craft and confection qualities) and, overall, can grow on you
with exposure.
Allen had essential help for
this film from Graciela Daniele for
choreography and Dick Hyman (yes—no disrespect
intended—that’s his real name) for music, as he did for Mighty Aphrodite (1995). Believe me, these aspects of the film come
across as quite professional.
Allen singing? Come on! And a group dancing dressed like Groucho Marx?
Let me start by saying that, in
this film known for having the major actors sing (even those without great
singing voices), Woody Allen himself sings at one point—and he’s definitely not
a singer. I think he joined in the challenge to sing because, in requiring
actors whose careers aren’t built on singing to risk embarrassment and worse
(e.g., damage to their careers) by doing so (End note 1), he would show himself a good sport and take the same
risk. Some might say that his strange, tentative-seeming attempt at singing (only
in his case, the musical instruments are mixed somewhat loudly, and some trace
the melody, as if to hide-and-accent his singing) underscores what a weird
vanity project this film amounts to.
But if you approach this film—being
an Allen fan is probably a necessity—while keeping an open mind, and realize
that this larky outing is just for entertainment, it isn’t as bad as Allen’s
almost-consensually worst films. And I say this not being a fan of old-time musicals myself (though the songs stick
in my head after each time I watch it—it must be the getting-old 50-something
in me). But how you can get enjoyment out of this film is very qualified, and
to understand this, it helps to look at its droll details.
Another thing about this film
that may get eyes reaching new heights of rolling is the selection of actors,
fitting a premise of a big, rich Upper East Side
family (a fact that itself can raise hackles today among the young). When you
see the cover of the VHS tape and see a picture of Alan Alda [URL 1—see list at
end] hugging Goldie Hawn [URL 2]—the central parents of the story—in a sort of
stagy posture, with another picture of a demure-looking Drew Barrymore [URL 3] putting
on an earring, you might get the impression this movie must be like those
foreign-made films that pathetically try to imitate flashy American genres, like
a fireball-flecked action picture or some labyrinthine spy movie, and yet seem
to us Yanks as silly as the impoverished sole knockoff choice for a camel-surrounded
movie theater in Tajikistan. (End note 2)
And then there’s the Jean Doumanian–era
[URL 4] feature of a slew of stars of the time. I haven’t, throughout my
reviews, talked about what Allen seems to be routinely meticulous about,
casting actors in terms of how suited they are to certain parts, especially
with the script-based image of the character Allen has in mind (somewhere in Eric
Lax, Conversations with Woody Allen
[Knopf, 2007], there is a description of this process: Allen peers at an actor,
while he or she reads for a part, with Allen’s eyes probingly looking between
his fingers, or such; Peter Sarsgaard in the 2014 DVD for Blue Jasmine talks about the process being a sort of “X-ray”). If
we accord Allen respect for how his method of making casting choices, with
longtime help from casting agent Juliet Taylor, seems to work out for the majority
of his films, we can still say that Everyone
is weird not least in how famous faces are cast for certain parts.
Not far below, I will list the
actors and actresses, which is good not just to help understand this film with
its almost-absurdly large family (to say nothing of how the ethnic mix is
almost comical: by looks, you’ll muse over how dad Alan Alda and mom Goldie
Hawn could have spawned some of these children as a group). But the film also
offers a chance to appreciate some stars for their “odd layover” in this film—for
some, in early phases of their careers; for others, partway in the more
conspicuous phases of their careers…while we can also see some casting choices
are “weird in an innocuous way” while others are “weird in an (almost-) offensive
way.”
A brief scorecard of the family:
Alan Alda is the father, Bob Dandridge (a lawyer by trade); Goldie Hawn is the
mother, Steffi (a rich noblesse oblige
type). All the kids are in the same household. Bob has two children from an
earlier marriage: the kids are Drew Barrymore as Skylar Dandridge, and Lukas
Haas [URL 5] (who played the boy in Witness
[1985]) as Scott Dandridge. (What Skylar’s and Scott’s ages are relative to
each other, I don’t know.) The household has a daughter from Steffi’s earlier
marriage to Joe Berlin, Djuna Berlin
(Natasha Lyonne [URL 6]), who narrates the film (Djuna should be several years older
than the two youngest girls but doesn’t seem like it, though she seems earthier
and more free-spirited than the other two). (Joe Berlin is played by Woody
Allen—don’t get your eyes rolling too much yet; more food for that is coming.)
And lastly, there are the two peas-in-a-pod daughters born to both Bob and
Steffi together, Lane (Gaby Hoffman [URL 7]) and Laura (Natalie Portman [URL 8]),
both about 14.
That’s the family, and you’ve
only begun to appreciate the weirdness of this film. (If you get to the end and
see the scene of a slew of partygoers dancing and singing while dressed like
Groucho Marx, your weirdness detector will go off the charts.)
If you wonder now, “Did people
in 1996 say, ‘Who asked for this
film?,’” the answer is reflected in its not doing well at the box office (in
the U.S.,
anyway), despite a budget (per Wikipedia) of some $20 million. Allen said the
film was “popular in Europe and especially well loved in France, and it was [language-wise,
presumably] hard to follow” (Lax, p. 158). (You mutter: “Throw a ton of money
at a fancy production and work-starved actors, and any Shmoe will dance in a group dressed like Groucho Marx!”)
A rich family headed by ever-ebullient Alan Alda
But perhaps with this outing of
Allen’s, if you don’t just dismiss it as a high-water-mark of Allen’s occasional tendency to
self-indulgence (End note 3), you
can set for yourself this test: if you can get your mind around how this family
is populated, and by what actors, then any other weirdness in the film can be
more readily “accepted” as “more innocuously routine” with an eyes-roll, a
laugh, a cough, or whatever else.
As I’ve indicated, the film is
about a rich family complete with the results of divorce and remarrying. Here,
Allen isn’t interested in an opportunity for commenting sensitively on the
trials and nuances of marital trouble and other interpersonal challenges; the
idea is just to have a generally happy family with lots of kids allowing
various social situations that permit certain song-and-dance segments. (The
fact that Allen can incorporate already-made [and recognized] show tunes helps
him here a lot, covering up the “sins” of weakness in some of the non-singing
story.) So, as preposterous as some of this is:
Alan Alda as Bob, the father of
the big family, is a lawyer and had grown up poor, according to the narration
of his stepdaughter, Djuna. Hence his liberalism is well earned and not colored
by bitterness. (Alda, with his clearly projecting voice, resonant fatherly
gestures and vivacious moving around, and loose-limbed dancing and
actually-good singing voice, almost provides half of what the musical needs
just by himself.)
Goldie Hawn as the mother, Steffi,
is the one historical constant in the family nexus; she came from a rich
background, and likes to do good works such as heading fundraisers for
hospitals and advocating for better treatment for prisoners. (One fateful
choice is her advocating for the release of an incarcerated felon on the
argument he has paid his debt to society; he is one Charles Ferry, who will
provide some comical consequences for the family.) Steffi was first married to
Joe Berlin (Woody Allen; in Lax, the character is misrecorded, except after a
first mention, as “Gabe” in a summary of the film’s plot on p. 96), and it was
between the two of them that Djuna was born (their only child, it seems).
The presence of Joe, by the way,
is a story affectation that Allen apparently valued here not so much as an
old-time-musical thing as reflecting, from the modern day, the type of maritally
mutated family he wanted to portray. This means, for example, that the family has
an ex-husband who is still friends with his ex-wife, and also is friends with
her current husband. In one scene, the three parents are chatting together and
sharing some wine, while Joe is getting some solace and advice from the other
two on his problems with finding a suitable mate following the painful loss of
a girlfriend (she dumped him). Alda’s Bob, in accord with Allen’s philosophy
seen through many of his films, sums up Joe’s inability to find a suitable mate
yet to “bad luck.” He feels Joe will find somebody. At the end, Steffi gestures
lovingly to what she calls her “two men.” A real twist on an Allen
marital-alteration situation.
(Among the domestic servants and
such, Trude Klein is present as a loudmouthed Germanic-voiced maid named
Frieda, who can be called, not unfairly, a comical version of a “sour
kraut”—Djuna’s narration is not too different in describing her, but refers to
Hitler—but who seems to speak a little too loudly once or twice—i.e., to come
on too strong for the comic aim.)
Among the kids, Gaby Hoffmann (I’d
forgotten about this actress; while she still seems to work enough, I only
recall her as occasionally turning up in 1990s films) is Lane, one of the two
daughters borne by both Bob and Steffi who also happen to be close with each
other. This film features a lot of family-filled shots (some shots of multiple
people, as Leonard Maltin pretty much reflects, are weirdly “blocked”—i.e., where
actors are positioned within shots—and busily framed/composed)—Allen, as ever,
does a lot with master shots here, not using too any interposed close-ups on
people—and because of this, Hoffmann happens to be one who is almost never
shown clearly enough for us even to see her face when she’s the only one
speaking. As a result, she doesn’t make a strong impression in this film.
Natalie Portman as Laura, the
other of the two Bob/Steffi daughters (End
note 4), comes off better. In my film consciousness, I first noticed
Portman in about 1997, when I saw newspaper coverage of her performing in a
stage version of The Diary of Anne Frank;
and in Allen’s Everyone she seems to
show her talent enough that, unlike Hoffmann, Portman seems to stand out, and in
one scene is even given a chance to sing—in her real voice.
With hindsight, it’s interesting
to consider Portman’s being used for a silly, stereotypical role in this film;
she has not only gone on to have an illustrious film career (interposed with a
stint in college) for many years (think of, to name just a few, Garden State [2004], Black Swan [2010], one of the Wachowski
sibling films in about 2006, and the 1999-2005 Star Wars outings), but she also has still had the looks to be
featured in a major perfume ad campaign very recently. She’s an example of a
film actress with a long shelf life—which is rare as a function of the ruthless
youth-and-sexiness values of the business. When we see her here in 1996, we can
appreciate how she grew beyond a small part in such treacle.
Hoffman hasn’t turned out quite so
lucky, and Lyonne—whom I never even heard of before I saw this film—has had an
even less stellar career (though that all could be a function of, as Allen
would say, luck as well as talent, and
these actresses might not feel their careers turned out so anticlimactic).
(On the visual look of this
film: As used as you get to the cinematography of Carlo Di Palma in so many of
Allen’s middle-period films, there is a certain banality to the look,
especially of several of the Doumanian-era films. I mean, I understand that
Allen gets fine work from longtime production designer Santo Loquasto, with the
busy urban-life interiors, and Allen’s aim for the camerawork is “warm
colors”—an emphasis on reds, browns, yellows—which extends into his work with
other cinematographers in the new millennium. And Di Palma seemed to do his
best to accommodate Allen with less-is-more camera movement to get in the
relevant action in the master shots Allen always tried to use. But Di Palma
seemed to use less light than other cinematographers for Allen, and he seemed
to use deep focus too; so some of the group shots, especially of a busy family
as in this film—and seeing this in VHS form makes the effect worse—is like
seeing a quite flat but very busy, almost too-cluttered shot, with the variety
plus the dull coloring making for a patience-testing visual approach [you have
to be extra alert to ferret out who to look at, sometimes]. Also, as is
peculiar to this film, as I said just earlier, the blocking is often odd, with
people’s faces not facing the camera when they speak, or some characters
passing very close to the film while others are in a longer view. If you have
an eye for this, be prepared for the visually erratic quality of this film.)
Continued on my other blog.
##
End note 1.
Allen: “When I was making it,
the people in the music department were saying, ‘They can’t sing!’ And the
distributors were saying, ‘They can’t sing!’ And I kept saying, ‘Yes, I know, that’s the point. If they sing like they do in the shower, like regular
people, that’s the idea. I don’t want Edward Norton to start singing and sound
like Pavarotti.’ [And he doesn’t, we find.] I wasn’t casting for singers. I was
casting for believable actors.” Only Drew Barrymore among the actors maintained
she couldn’t sing well at all, so she was the only one he dubbed. Lax, p. 156.
Harvey Weinstein, executive of
Miramax, which was Allen’s distributor at the time, “hated” the film on first
seeing it, according to Allen (Lax, p. 217).
End note 2.
Allen: “The idea to do a musical
had been floating around for years. I wanted to do a musical about rich people
and the Upper East Side of Manhattan and I wanted it to be one of those old
musicals, with families, but in today’s Upper East Side it would be very
different: a combination family from divorces and prior husbands and prior
wives [which is pretty much what he provides in the film]. I wanted it to be
unabashedly about rich Upper East Siders because I thought that would make a
nice atmosphere for a musical.” Lax, p. 205.
“It was not like Meet Me in St. Louis, where everybody
was very good. They [in Allen’s film] were a modern family. The parents were
limousine liberals who had their causes and went away for the summer to the Hamptons and girls from
the divorce would come and be with their father. […] And I wanted to include
psychoanalysis because that was one of the features of these people’s lives:
the Hamptons, Zabar’s [a food emporium]…, Frank Campbell [a funeral home on
Madison Avenue popular with the wealthy [note
made in original, in italics] ] because death is also a part of this
equation.” Lax, p. 216.
End note 3.
Allen remarks on making this
film to satisfy his drive to keep in the business in the same breath as
explaining why he did Shadows and Fog
(1991), when he said, “I do all my films for my own personal reasons, and I
hope that people will like them and I’m always gratified when I hear they do”
(Lax, p. 127).
End note 4.
In the context of talking about
the few times he has had to give explicit direction on how actors should handle
a part, Allen: “I remember the three young girls [Natalie Portman, Gaby
Hoffmann, and Natasha Lyonne] in the musical I did…, when they [Portman and
Hoffmann only] were in the store and the handsome guy walks in [actually, he’s
already there]. I had to kill myself
to say, ‘No, you guys have to do it like this’
[mimics near hysteria]. Sometimes the acting is tentative because the actor is
insecure or he can’t believe I mean him to be that broad. My instinct in
broadness is very strong. […] So I expected the kids to act that way and they
didn’t. They were much milder, much more inhibited. I finally got them to do it
and it looks funny on the screen.” [italics removed from some of the bracketed info, which comes from original] Lax, p. 262.
##
URL 1:
URL 2:
URL 3:
URL 4:
URL 5:
URL 6:
URL 7:
URL 8:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalie_Portman
