丹尼玫瑰

看完《丹尼玫瑰》，我想起了杨德昌的一句话，电影让人类的生命长度变成了原来的三倍。

电影虽然可能只有短短的90分钟，但对观众的影响，却是在这90分钟之外，更可能是900分钟。

这句话用在《丹尼玫瑰》上，真的太贴切了。

看完电影之后，我陷入了一种情绪之中。

但同时觉得可笑的是，我是一个从小到大都学理科的人，文字之流对于我来说其实并不擅长，而本应理性的我，却偏偏喜欢上了用感性去发言。

我觉得，《丹尼玫瑰》是伍迪少有的感性代表之佳作，我打心底里给这片五星。

伍迪的电影，基本看了一大半了，主题大多都是在爱情和道德之间游走，而且总是充斥着大量的讨论和思考。但在《丹尼玫瑰》中，我却看见伍迪少有的回归到了一种非常朴素单纯的感性表达之中。

如果说其他作品的伍迪是一团熊熊燃烧的烈火，那《丹尼玫瑰》里的伍迪，可能更像是一片温柔克制的湖水，我从来没有见过这么柔情似水的伍迪，或者说，跟伍迪那永远不变的碎碎念比起来，里面的老头更可能是一个孤独的人。

用电影里的情节来说的话，大概就是：

作为经纪人的danny总是在倾尽自己的所有去捧红别人，最后却总是一无所获，被人弃之而去；

danny捧红了无数的名人，最后感恩节却还是只能和一群我们称之为无名之辈的路人演员过着孤独的感恩节；

哪怕danny最后成为了百老汇里最出名的经纪人，却也依然只是上流社会茶余饭后的有趣谈资。

明明这是一个关于孤独患者的悲情故事啊，但是却被别人形容为最有趣的事情。

电影里的danny，他也已经习惯了身边人的不停离去，习惯了没有朋友，习惯了独自一人。

哪怕tina最后跟他道歉并希望成为朋友时，他也觉得现在的自己真实倒霉透了，不敢接受这一份道歉和友谊。

还好，在电影的最后，一个飘着零星小雪的冬天，伍迪温柔的让danny勇敢的跑出门外，追上了tina，并邀请她一起度过感恩节，此情此景，给这会儿的冬天带来了一丝暖意。

最后伍迪和米亚法罗的这一幕，也让我想起了《安妮霍尔》里的最后一幕，艾维虽然失去了安妮，但他在自己的剧本里为相似的两人角色安排了一个美好的结局。

这些类似的结局的处理，让我坚信无论如何碎碎念，无论如何吐槽讽刺，伍迪还是那个有着赤子之心的柔情之人。

然后，剧情仅仅如此的话，《丹尼玫瑰》还不一定能值得五星。

伍迪很聪明的使用黑白画面，更是让电影具有一种非常耐人寻味和意味悠长的质感。很多画面的构图非常有美感和诗意。

更重要的是，电影的画音结合，配合着温柔的剧情发展，达到了一种非常和谐的默契。伍迪的很多作品里，其实是有点喧嚣的，甚少安静平和。但在这里，很多画面，很多配乐，都在传递着一种“遗世而独立”的美感，一些人物的特写，让人物内心跃然而现。

伍迪和米亚在车里相顾无言，跟《花样年华》的经典一幕非常相似

若有所思的米亚，也是不知道该跟伍迪说什么

最后伍迪看到米亚的时候，一切尽在不言中吧

主角三人被安排在了右下角，左方的人群和此时被抛弃的伍迪形成了强烈对比

伍迪独自一人去看望刚被他坑完的朋友，然后从医院里缓缓走出的一幕，天空正在下雨，伍迪从远方缓缓走来，诉说着愧疚和无奈

电影结局，伍迪追上了米亚，并邀请共度感恩节，此时远景构图，天空正在下雪，路上行色匆匆，凸显了一种意味深长的寂寥，同时也让人感觉这个下雪的冬天有着一丝暖意

可能因为我也是跟danny类似的人吧，所以看到这样的片，感觉就像是在看自己的故事，也是在直面自己的内心，然后，也就更容易地陷入到一种不可言状的情绪之中。

这部《丹尼玫瑰》，我觉得是伍迪献给孤独患者的一首诗。

1.You know what my philosophy of life is? That it's important to have some laughs, no question about it, but you gotta suffer a little too' because, otherwise you miss the whole point to life. And that's how I feel.

2. Just let me say one thing. My uncle Sidney - lovely uncle, dead, completely - used to say three things. He used to say: Acceptance, forgiveness and love. And *that* is a philosophy of life: Acceptance, forgiveness and love.

Allen’s ‘80s black-and-white features x 2, ZELIG is a gimmick film, a mockumentary germinated from the inventive idea of a “human chameleon”, but the real star is DP Gordon Willis’ Promethean genius of inserting characters into archival footage and the application of rendering the newly shot footage a ’20’s archival veneer, to the astonishing effect of total harmony and verisimilitude (although the one with Hitler is a bust, the actor’s resemblance is wide of the mark), and to that purpose, ZELIG is an exceptional specimen of cinematic alchemy.

Structure-wise, the whole pseudo-documentary format is devised with the full treatment, like Bob Fosse’s raw and edgy biopic LENNY (1974). Apart from punctiliously coaxed archival footage, retro-style home videos, Allen also uses real-life personages and actors (who play the fictional characters) to give their candid interviews of the subject, you almost believe what they say if the words are spoken from Susan Sontag or Saul Bellow, among other authority figures.

That said, ZELIG’s technical extraordinariness (include half a dozen coined Zelig-themed songs penned by Dick Hyman, that can surely widen your smile) cannot belie the script’s prevailing plainness and archness, it is a missed opportunity for Allen not to fully satirize and assess Zelig’s rise-and-fall in relation to the American society at large and elicit more heady reverberations.

Allen plays Leonard Zelig, a mousy, anonymous guy who can transform his appearance according to his surroundings (Allen is not equipped to show you an actual transformation process, what you get is the simple outcome, he can be black, oriental, Hebrew or corpulent, in correspondent with those who are near him), and becomes a national sensation for his inexplicable “super power”, a cash cow for his instant family, but as an individual, he is miserable and neglect, eventually Zelig’s psychological condition is cured by psychiatrist Dr. Eudora Nesbitt Fletcher (Farrow), through quite a lot psychobabble and mesmerism.

When the story heads to a romantic direction, it betrays Allen’s own limits, not everything ought to be nailed down with a man making a conquest of a woman’s heart. Plus the final trans-Atlantic aviation exploit is so far-fetched that he doesn’t even care to arrange any visual stunt to validate that cockamamie bilge. With its succinct length (79 minutes), ZELIG soars high but crash-lands with a whimper.

BROADWAY DANNY ROSE, released one year after, is about another Allenesque character, Danny Rose (Allen), a talent agent touts unpopular entertainers (balloon formers, a musician working with glasses, a stuttering ventriloquist, just to name a few). When one of his clients, a washed-up lounge singer Lou Canova (Forte, a hearty fellow) has a career revival due to the nostalgic fad, Danny needs to act as a beard of Lou’s mistress Tina Vitale (Farrow), so he can bring her to attend Lou’s big gig in the presence of Milton Berle (as himself), it could be a real breakthrough.

But Tina is not a meek kitten, and this innocuous act backfires, after unwisely go to a party of her ex-Italian lover, Tina and Danny soon are on the run from mafia hitmen. As a self-proclaimed landlocked Jew, Danny is foisted to go aboard a ship (how atrocious!), and later, he and Tina must wiggle their way out of being tied up together (who can stand the torture of upward-and-downward close movements?). But there is another hammer blow awaits Danny when they're out of harm's way, does anyone wonder why he always scrapes the barrel?

Allen is his usual gabby alter ego, you might feel amused or scream “shut up” for his persistent quotes of his Jewish relatives and his penchant for “asking permission to interject”. Against her type, Farrow smartly plays this superstitious Italian broad with forcefulness and ambivalence, plus a layer of her uncharacteristic va-va-voom. Tina is a shallow woman, in the same sense that Lou is a shallow man, but after encountering Danny, she is transformed, even sublimed by his immanent kindness and sophistication (and being the high priest of sapio-sexuality, Allen actually put the exact words into Tina’s mouth), her guilt conscience overcomes the temptation of life on easy street, she becomes a fuller human and Danny’s equal.

Here, the frame device is a gathering of several comedians (Jackie Gayle, Morty Gunty, Corbett Monica, among others) lunching at New York's Carnegie Deli, and Danny’s story is recounted as an anecdotal divertissement, Allen always has a knack of such trimmings (remember the Greek chorus in MIGHT APHRODITE, 1995), and both ZELIG and BROADWAY DANNY ROSE has style, scale, wit and profuse amity and gags in offer, they are among Allen’s most innovative works and can put you under a nostalgic spell of the halcyon days.

referential entries: Allen’s THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (1985, 8.2/10); BULLETS OVER BROADWAY (1994, 8.1/10); Bob Fosse’s LENNY (1974, 8.6/10).

Title: Zelig

Year: 1983

Country: USA

Language: English, German

Genre: Comedy

Director/Screenwriter: Woody Allen

Music: Dick Hyman

Cinematography: Gordon Willis

Editing: Susan E. Morse

Cast:

Woody Allen

Mia Farrow

Deborah Rush

Mary Louise Wilson

John Rothman

Susan Sontag

Saul Bellow

Peter McRobbie

Rating: 7.4/10

Title: Broadway Danny Rose

Year: 1984

Country: USA

Language: English

Genre: Comedy

Director/Screenwriter: Woody Allen

Music: Dick Hyman

Cinematography: Gordon Willis

Editing: Susan E. Morse

Cast:

Woody Allen

Mia Farrow

Nick Apollo Forte

Edwin Bordo

Paul Greco

Frank Renzulli

Gina DeAngeles

Herb Reynolds

Sandy Richman

Gerald Schoenfeld

Olga Barbato

David Kieserman

Sandy Baron

Corbett Monica

Jackie Gayle

Morty Gunty

Will Jordan

Howard Storm

Jack Rollins

Milton Berle

Rating: 7.5/10