Cassandra's Dream (Woody Allen, 2008)

Discussions of specific films and franchises.
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
John Cope
Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2005 5:40 pm
Location: where the simulacrum is true

#101 Post by John Cope » Thu Jun 05, 2008 4:49 pm

Wow, that's really high praise. You're going to need to expand on that a bit though. I can't quite go there with you.

And what's with all the hate lately for the Lumet picture? I thought it was terrific.

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

#102 Post by domino harvey » Thu Jun 05, 2008 5:07 pm

Cassandra's Dream almost feels like a film Allen didn't want to tell at all, but sharing the same compulsion as the Ferrell character, Allen does tell it, though in as "small" a way as possible. The fantastic long takes (I doubt there are more than 100 shots in the film) force the viewer to associate with the characters and their decisions, almost making us complicit in their plans-- a move which also makes it easier to "take sides" when the moral questions arise. The camera moves away from every act of violence and the film refuses to show us any of the emotional "moneyshots" that a viewer would expect in a film of this nature. The reason primarily being that this isn't a film "of this nature"--

Unlike Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, which thinks it's awfully clever and shocking, and wastes no time in grabbing the audience's wrist with such a desperate cry for attention. I knew I was in trouble with that first "shocking" scene, and throughout the movie Lumet tries so hard that the film practically sweats. Allen's film captures the questions raised by the themes of guilt, atheism, luck, and family with such class, such tact compared to the frustratingly idiotic third-act of Lumet's film that for me it was a revelation. Cassandra's Dream prompts thought, reflection, appreciation, and ultimately hushed awe at how expertly Allen has executed the film; In comparison to the high art of Cassandra's Dream, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is merely an obscene rant.

montgomery
Joined: Thu Sep 15, 2005 6:02 pm
Location: Brooklyn, NY

#103 Post by montgomery » Thu Jun 05, 2008 7:14 pm

I'm an Allen fan (though I find most of his recent work rather poor) and not a Lumet fan, so I was surprised when I enjoyed Before The Devil, and not all that surprised when I found Cassandra to be mediocre. However, on viewing them both a second time, I tend to agree with you. Before the Devil struck me as flashy and overbearing, whereas Cassandra's Dream now feels to me like Allen's best work since, at least, Sweet and Lowdown (I believe his last masterpiece is Husbands and Wives).
I do not think it is without several flaws. The performances are uneven, there are many details that don't quite make sense (this bothered me less on the second viewing), the dialogue, as usual in Allen's recent output, is hit-or-miss and filled with Allen cliches (I swear, "my head is spinning!" must be used in every Allen film in the last 15 years); Hayley Atwell's character seemed poorly conceived and generally out of place, and the third act was a little plodding and unbelievable.
Despite that, it is still his most engaging and well-structured film in years, and the cool, distanced viewpoint really works in its favor, although it threw me off the first time around. This is one of the only recent Allen films that seems to get better with each viewing.

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

#104 Post by domino harvey » Thu Jun 05, 2008 7:35 pm

SPOILERS:
Atwell's character became problematic for me towards the end when she proclaims her love, which seemed really out of character. The whole sequence with her parents, which is supposed to "un-whore" her for the viewer, doesn't really work for me either, probably because it's a lot more damning for MacGregor if she is the opportunistic shallow actress she clearly is at the beginning of the film.

I actually thought the actress playing Ferrell's girlfriend (wife?) was really well-written, especially in how she defies the movie logic that once you hear a confession you buy it. Her reaction is wonderfully realistic, in that if my girlfriend woke up in the middle of the night and started obliquely alluding to her part in a murder, I would think she was having emotional problems too, not confessing. How she is unwilling to even consider that violence could enter her life gives a stark contrast to how easily it permeates the lives of some of the other characters.

montgomery
Joined: Thu Sep 15, 2005 6:02 pm
Location: Brooklyn, NY

#105 Post by montgomery » Thu Jun 05, 2008 7:56 pm

I agree that Ferrell's wife/girlfriend was a more interesting character than Atwell, and that her performance was also stronger than Atwell's.

(spoilers:)
The scene where she declares her love is definitely out of character, but then again, I didn't think anything about her character worked. However, on second viewing that very scene was, for me, the most devastating. When she tells him she loves him, McGregor is going on about how his brother has been talking about suicide. When I saw it the first time, I assumed McGregor was just preoccupied and trying to find an excuse for his brother's behavior (and in the process, not listening to Atwell's confession of love). What I missed (even though it seemed obvious the second time around) is that McGregor is spending the whole scene desperately planting the alibi for the murder he's about to commit.
I missed a lot of things like this the first time because Allen seems to have an affinity for the brothers. Most reviews I read describe the two characters as generally likable and good-hearted, but who took a wrong turn. I think this view of the characters is facilitated by Allen's distance (and by the seemingly close relationship between the brothers. I mean, they're together nearly all the time, and at first glance, seem to have nothing but love for each other). It was only the second time I around that I realized that these characters are deeply flawed people, and McGregor's character especially is acting selfishly, immorally, almost pathologically from the start of the film.
I also didn't notice on first viewing how McGregor is called, by his mother, the one with a conscience (and brains), when he seems to have no conscience at all. I suppose it is supposed to be ironic when Ferrell is the one who really has a conscience, and that it ends up being his undoing. On the other hand, I'm not sure that a feeling of guilt (which is more accurately what he develops) constitutes a conscience (just as I don't think getting away with murder constitutes luck, in Match Point).

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

#106 Post by domino harvey » Thu Jun 05, 2008 8:22 pm

Still Spoilers:
I dunno, it was easy to understand the mutual appeal between Atwell and MacGregor, who both think they're "dating up," and that he's pissing away all this attention on a girl who clearly doesn't deserve it makes his trajectory more tragic than if he's screwing over a faithful woman-- this role's already filled in the movie by the far superior Sally Hawkins (I IMDB'd the girlfriend/wife), so I think it does make her the weak link by the film's end. Yet her shallowness is really where the appeal lies for MacGregor, isn't it? He's always going on about her looks, it's pretty obvious that he's trophy wife hunting even before he has the means to purchase a mantle.

One thing that struck me was how perfectly slimy Wilkenson's performance was. I know it feels artificial and a little phoned in, but I think it actually works for his role. He's playing this part of the absent yet "caring" uncle who sets up this hit, yet later in the film his response to rubbing out another character is almost exactly the same justifications ("There's no other way"). It's like he's on autopilot, and I suspected he'd been through this speech with more people than just his nephews. He chose them because they were in London and so was the mark, which makes his continued justification of "family" instead of the true attraction, money, all the more objectionable. Ferrell correctly recognizes that the brothers are doing the deed for money, but MacGregor sheepishly just parrots what their uncle said about "family," which is ironically turned back at him when his uncle strong-arms him into murdering "family."

montgomery
Joined: Thu Sep 15, 2005 6:02 pm
Location: Brooklyn, NY

#107 Post by montgomery » Thu Jun 05, 2008 8:35 pm

One of the reason Atwell's character didn't work for me is because she was the typical Allen neurotic actress, and even though I understood her function in the story, her lines felt recycled from other Allen films, whereas the other characters, being working class, felt like something a little different. I also found the relationship a little unrealistic. It was unclear if she ever doubted Ian, who was faking his status through the whole film. How did Ian pull it off? Did she even know he worked in a restaurant? I understand that details like this might be unimportant to the main story, but the whole thing struck me as unbelievable, even if I understood what Allen was going for. I guess the idea that Atwell was somehow a catalyst for the murder and produced this overwhelming sense of urgency for Ian never really seemed earned. Her role was ultimately superficial and I was never sure how much Allen intended her to influence (however indirectly) the events that followed.

As for Wilkinson, I was sold on his performance with his sarcastic delivery of the line (I'm paraphrasing) "...or we can just sit here and curse our fate." For some reason, I found that moment very disturbing and revealing, and imbued with more meaning that it probably had in the script.

User avatar
Highway 61
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:40 pm

#108 Post by Highway 61 » Thu Jun 05, 2008 10:17 pm

domino harvey wrote:The fantastic long takes (I doubt there are more than 100 shots in the film) force the viewer to associate with the characters and their decisions, almost making us complicit in their plans

I haven't seen Cassandra's Dream yet, but I wanted to add that Allen's bold and effective use of long takes throughout his career has been sadly unappreciated. The running joke is that Allen has the visual skills to film characters walking down a street in one take and nothing more. Exaggeration, yes, but Allen's writing was always presumed to be his legacy, not his direction. However, with long takes becoming increasingly appealing to serious moviegoers, it wouldn't surprise me to see Allen's body of work reevaluated and admired on a deeper level.

User avatar
Tom Hagen
Joined: Mon Apr 14, 2008 12:35 pm
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah

#109 Post by Tom Hagen » Mon Jul 21, 2008 1:32 pm

I finally watched the DVD last night and I largely enjoyed the picture. My enthusiasm was tempered somewhat by the sense that I had seen this all before from Woody. (The comment about squashing a person like an insect, taken as it were from the mouth of Martin Landau in Crimes and Misdemeanors, was particularly grating for some reason.) However, there were enough new twists in the formula this time around to keep me interested throughout.

My highest praise for the film is that for the first time -- I don't know, maybe ever -- Woody actually wrote a screenplay about characters that are neither intellectually nor culturally elite. It was so fucking refreshing to have a main character in a Woody Allen film that knows nothing about the theatre, and more importantly, doesn't really care to know anything more. These London films have been so refreshing simply for their change of location from Manhattan, this film all the more so because of its shift away from the urban haute bourgeois. I am not a Brit, but Woody's working class dialogue never seemed tin-eared, a problem that plagued many of his recent films. And the two lead performances were great.

Spoilers

My biggest problem with Cassandra's Dream is that I was never fully convinced that Ian and Terry had a realistic motivation to satisfy Uncle Howard's request. Murder for hire seems like such a ludicrous avenue for Ian and Terry to take. Uncle Howard was hardly convincing that he was in genuine, mortal danger from Martin Burns (indeed, it is never explained what, precisely, Burns knows and is prepared to testify about Howard). The brothers' abruptly unanswered queries on this point are met by anger and derision from Howard. Additionally, it was never made clear why the brothers felt a moral obligation to perform such an audacious favor for Howard simply because of his past and future beneficence to the family (as they both repeatedly note to Howard and to themselves). Moreover, it was entirely bewildering that the ambitious and (seemingly) smart Ian would be the chief proponent of the murder scheme, especially since, unlike Terry, he had no mortal need for an immediate and large sum of money from Uncle Howard. Weirder yet is the fact that Ian's scheming is largely in pursuit of an ambitious, sexually manipulative, largely emotionally unattached woman who seems, if anything, ambivalent about his plans throughout most of the picture.

My problem is that Woody purposely plants all of the above stumbling blocks in the screenplay, and then elides over all of them by having the brothers decide to go ahead with the plan after one sleepless night and phone call. Perhaps Woody is making a thematic point about the banality and simplicity of choosing an evil act. Perhaps Woody is interested in examing the moral consequences of an evil choice (the point after a line is crossed as Terry would suggest), rather than in parsing the details of the original moral choice. But as far as plot development goes, nothing in the screenplay convinces me that Ian has a proper motivation to go along with the plan, or that the extremely reluctant Terry could actually go through with the plan.

Fielding
Joined: Sat Dec 01, 2007 5:19 am

#110 Post by Fielding » Mon Jul 21, 2008 10:30 pm

Tom Hagen wrote:My highest praise for the film is that for the first time -- I don't know, maybe ever -- Woody actually wrote a screenplay about characters that are neither intellectually nor culturally elite.
Ah. I take it, then, that you have not yet seen Take the Money and Run, Bananas, Play It Again Sam, Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask, Sleeper, Love and Death, A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, Zelig, Broadway Danny Rose, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Radio Days, Oedipus Wrecks, Shadows and Fog, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Mighty Aphrodite, Sweet and Lowdown, Small Time Crooks, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion and Scoop? My, you've got a lot of "fucking refreshing" viewing ahead of you!

User avatar
Highway 61
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:40 pm

#111 Post by Highway 61 » Tue Jul 22, 2008 12:17 am

Please. Many of those films may not have intellectual characters, but the drama and humor depend on an urbane, cultured audience. Even the "early, funny ones" feature extensive homages to Bergman, Eisenstein, Antonioni, etc. And Zelig? Come on. It's not like Allen cast Saul Bellow and Susan Sontag for the Star Wars crowd.

User avatar
MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: Worthing
Contact:

#112 Post by MichaelB » Tue Jul 22, 2008 1:48 am

Tom Hagen wrote:I am not a Brit, but Woody's working class dialogue never seemed tin-eared
To say that most British viewers disagree with you on that score is putting it very mildly indeed...

User avatar
Tom Hagen
Joined: Mon Apr 14, 2008 12:35 pm
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah

#113 Post by Tom Hagen » Tue Jul 22, 2008 2:44 am

That's really disappointing. Not at all surprising per se, but disappointing nonetheless.

(Speaking of course about Woody's tin ear, not the opinions of Michael or other British folks!)
Last edited by Tom Hagen on Tue Jul 22, 2008 3:02 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

#114 Post by domino harvey » Tue Jul 22, 2008 2:49 am

Woody Allen > British people

User avatar
MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: Worthing
Contact:

#115 Post by MichaelB » Tue Jul 22, 2008 4:33 am

Tom Hagen wrote:That's really disappointing. Not at all surprising per se, but disappointing nonetheless.
The biggest problem is that you have a New Yorker writing dialogue for an Irishman and a Scotsman, and they all have to somehow pretend to be convincing Londoners. Given that Allen also works fast and is notorious for not giving his actors much direction, is it any wonder that the result sounds so clunky to native London ears?

Damning evidence on YouTube for those who haven't seen it. To my ears neither the dialogue nor the accents sound remotely convincing - Farrell is an utter disaster on every level (the final line in that clip, "Yeah, well don't forget it!", is particularly toe-curling - just listen to the way he self-consciously glottal-stops the last two words with an emphasis that would be quite alien to any Londoner of my acquaintance), and although MacGregor's better in small doses, he'd clearly be more comfortable playing an Australian.

User avatar
jorencain
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 1:45 am

#116 Post by jorencain » Tue Jul 22, 2008 7:42 am

MichaelB wrote:Damning evidence on YouTube for those who haven't seen it. To my ears neither the dialogue nor the accents sound remotely convincing - Farrell is an utter disaster on every level (the final line in that clip, "Yeah, well don't forget it!", is particularly toe-curling - just listen to the way he self-consciously glottal-stops the last two words with an emphasis that would be quite alien to any Londoner of my acquaintance), and although MacGregor's better in small doses, he'd clearly be more comfortable playing an Australian.
Well, "babes412" on youtube has to disagree with you:

"wow they are both excellent at doing English Accents. Espeically Colin considering his real accent is sooo different then that."

There's no arguing with that.

Fielding
Joined: Sat Dec 01, 2007 5:19 am

#117 Post by Fielding » Tue Jul 22, 2008 9:46 am

Highway 61 wrote:It's not like Allen cast Saul Bellow and Susan Sontag for the Star Wars crowd.
Woody has never made movies for the Star Wars crowd, thank God.

Anyway, you and Tom Hagen are referring to two different things. He's referring to the characters in the films and makes the wild claim that with Cassandra's Dream Woody has for the first time made anti-intellectual rubes his main characters. You, on the other hand, are referring to the various intertextual references Woody sprinkles throughout his films; in fact, by your reckoning, Cassandra's Dream is actually just as elitist as all the others because it is rooted in and cites Greek tragedy.

User avatar
Faux Hulot
Jack Of All Tirades
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 11:57 am
Location: Location, Location

#118 Post by Faux Hulot » Tue Jul 22, 2008 1:08 pm

MichaelB wrote:To my ears neither the dialogue nor the accents sound remotely convincing
Ugh, that was an earsore. Does anyone in real life actually refer to their conversational partner by name in nearly every single sentence, they way "Terry" and "Ian" do? Easily one my top ten screenwriting peeves.

User avatar
MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: Worthing
Contact:

#119 Post by MichaelB » Tue Jul 22, 2008 3:13 pm

Fielding wrote:Woody has never made movies for the Star Wars crowd, thank God.
No, but he has consciously targeted upmarket arthouse audiences in London and Paris, which is why it's so curious that he's gone to such lengths to alienate the former group - or at least render his London-set films impossible to watch on the level he presumably intended (seriously, the clip I linked to is so painfully dissonant to my ears that I find myself completely distracted from whatever the scene's supposed to be about).

You'd have thought after the critical drubbing that Match Point underwent in Britain (in dramatic contrast to its reception in the US) he'd have stepped back and thought "OK, maybe I need a co-writer or dialogue coach on this" - and I'm surprised that he didn't consider going down that route, given that he's been happy to collaborate on the likes of Annie Hall, Manhattan and Bullets Over Broadway.

And the fact that Scoop wasn't picked up for distribution in Britain despite being set there speaks volumes.

Larry Lipton
Joined: Fri Feb 29, 2008 10:44 am

#120 Post by Larry Lipton » Wed Jul 23, 2008 8:52 am

MichaelB wrote:You'd have thought after the critical drubbing that Match Point underwent in Britain (in dramatic contrast to its reception in the US) he'd have stepped back
No, never. Allen seems to be perfectly happy with Match Point and he never listens to critics anyway.
Just glad that I am not a Londoner and could enjoy Scoop for what it was. :D

User avatar
MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: Worthing
Contact:

#121 Post by MichaelB » Wed Jul 23, 2008 9:15 am

Larry Lipton wrote:Allen seems to be perfectly happy with Match Point
Yes, but with the greatest respect to him, he cannot possibly have the same ear for the nuances of British English that a British viewer would have, either in terms of scripted dialogue or appreciation of its effective delivery.

So the reason why he's "perfectly happy" is that he literally cannot see - or rather hear - what's wrong with it!

Larry Lipton
Joined: Fri Feb 29, 2008 10:44 am

#122 Post by Larry Lipton » Wed Jul 23, 2008 9:32 am

Oh yes, absolutely. I was merely pointing out that if somebody wanted to advise him about filmmaking he would have better done so back in 1969. Now he just does what he wants. Works for me (mostly ...).

User avatar
MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: Worthing
Contact:

#123 Post by MichaelB » Wed Jul 23, 2008 9:45 am

Larry Lipton wrote:Oh yes, absolutely. I was merely pointing out that if somebody wanted to advise him about filmmaking he would have better done so back in 1969. Now he just does what he wants.
Actually, he's been very happy to take advice from more experienced mentors, as cinematographer Gordon Willis and (especially) editor Ralph Rosenblum have readily confirmed - the latter in particular was considered so valuable that he was sometimes credited as associate producer, despite not doing much more than simply suggesting ideas (using Prokofiev instead of Stravinsky on the soundtrack of Love and Death, comprehensively reworking Annie Hall). And he's also been happy to share a writing credit on several occasions.

Which is why it's very odd that he didn't seem to think it was worthwhile working with a British co-writer on his London projects given that he was obviously working outside his comfort zone - or even letting an uncredited one give the script a polish to get rid of the more egregious howlers. Because I assure you that Faux Hulot's "earsore" reaction will be mirrored by almost every Londoner who watches that clip!

I appreciate it's difficult to get across what we hear when listening to it, but I'm not best qualified to come up with an American equivalent - so can someone nominate a film set in a recognisable American city, directed and scripted by a Briton or Australian, and cast by people who clearly aren't comfortable with either the local accent or the dialogue that they're expected to shoehorn into it? There must be loads!

Larry Lipton
Joined: Fri Feb 29, 2008 10:44 am

#124 Post by Larry Lipton » Wed Jul 23, 2008 4:27 pm

MichaelB wrote:Actually, he's been very happy to take advice from more experienced mentors, as cinematographer Gordon Willis and (especially) editor Ralph Rosenblum have readily confirmed
Yes, but those two collaborations had their roots in the earlier formative years of Woody's career. I don't have the Lax book here with me, but I believe that Rosenblum was suggested by the studio, which then still meddled with his productions. Willis' advise was accepted because Woody knew that he needed it. Obviously this isn't the case now.

I am not disagreeing with you - a co-writer could certainly have made his London films a lot better - I am saying that critical reception will do nothing to change Woody's confidence in his writing abilities. My second reply was sloppily worded in that regard.

User avatar
chaddoli
Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 11:41 pm
Location: New York City
Contact:

#125 Post by chaddoli » Wed Jul 23, 2008 6:20 pm

I appreciate it's difficult to get across what we hear when listening to it
I understand how inauthentic dialog would come off as grating to you, but as a person who does not know the difference, it doesn't matter. I love the film, and I'm sure it would be better if the characters spoke more authentically, but if my ears don't hear it it's a non-issue.

Post Reply