His contribution to the script of Roberto Rossellini’s Open City (1945) won for him what would be the first of twenty-three eventual Academy Award nominations during his career. Through his work on this magazine, Fellini met a number of scriptwriters, and he proceeded to make major contributions to films associated with postwar Italian neo-realism. After moving from the provincial town of Rimini to Rome, Fellini began to make regular contributions to Italy’s most important humor magazine- Marc’Aurelio-writing gags and humorous essays and contributing cartoons and sketches. Reality and illusion become one in September, an ultimately failed attempt at communication.Federico Fellini (20 January 1920–31 October 1993) was not only the most famous Italian director of the 20th century, but also an accomplished scriptwriter, humorist, and cartoonist. Perhaps the responsibility for the completion of this project lies with the audience. Allen has talked of filming it a third time. Even after two attempts, this supposedly finished film seems embryonic. To comprehend September it might be necessary to remove the film’s soundtrack and watch the actors move around one another and stake their ground. Like an overlong lesson in phonetics, the words lose all meaning and become abstractions for larger meanings and emotions. Allen is attempting to convey something, but what that something is is anyone’s guess. How any of its parts got there is a mystery, and the mystery is apparently the point. Now its focus appears to have shifted to the remaking of the history of his own cinema. There was a time when his project as a filmmaker alluded to the remaking of the history of postwar Western cinema. In any case, September is most valid as a desktop reference book to Allen’s oeuvre: it seems to contain every gesture, reference, scene, character, movement, and glance from a slew of earlier Allen films.
Woody allen on federico fellini full#
He is perhaps bemoaning the false nature of his art form, or presenting us with a film full of concepts. After finishing the first, Allen made several cast changes, shifted certain actors from one role to another, and then made his film again. The September that we see is in fact the second version of an already completed film. As one of Allen’s imperfect beautiful creatures, Lane’s eyes point fingers all over the place. Because of the way Allen has structured his script, we see everything and everybody from Lane’s disturbed point of view. September often touches on some crucial matters of the heart and mind, including the fragility of relationships and the suffocating effects of affection, but, about halfway through, the screenplay gets so muddled that it is impossible to locate any of these issues. Like a group of film actors trapped in a theater set, Allen’s cast appears to be rehearsing rather than acting their roles. Her every gesture and move are completely false in that respect, she is no different from everyone else in September. As distanced as Lane is from herself, she is dead for us. Unfortunately, the character is so overwrought and overwritten that it is impossible to react to her or feel for her.
Allen seems to see her as the eternal victim, a springboard for other people’s actions. As she encounters her mother, her best friend, her stepfather, her suitor, and the man she thinks she loves, we sense the tenuous state of her psyche. With each passing scene, we see Lane’s life get away from her. Portraying this victim of a traumatic childhood at the hands of a brazen, alcoholic mother, Mia Farrow plays Lane as if she were making up her lines as an afterthought. At the film’s core is Lane, a distraught young woman recovering from a failed suicide attempt. Set in the dark reaches of a Chekhovian country house in the final days of summer, the film is about domestic turmoil, familial resentments, and the emotional hold of childhood. In its own vacuous way, September is both.
Like Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini, his spiritual mentors, Allen has devoted much of the past 20 years to creating a rich visual landscape with a team of technicians and actors and a strong repertory of characters, concerns, plots, and themes.Īllen’s films generally fall within two different though not disparate categories: madcap parody and the more serious personal film. His films are ultimately highly personal statements about life, death, love, and relationships. Unlike so many of his American colleagues, he is not interested in big budgets, all-star casts, or high-tech special effects. Woody Allen is perhaps the most important filmmaker currently working in the English language, a true auteur.
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