Post by sciwriter on Jan 26, 2006 1:03:14 GMT -7
Recently we saw "Match Point (2005)," Woody Allen's latest movie which positions murder and succeeding in avoiding punishment under the Law is necessary for social climbing and survival under Capitalism and is due partly by luck. I offer the following commentary. Carl:
Match Point
ae.philly.com/entertainment/ui/philly/movie.html?id=513926&reviewId=19871
"A drama, not a comedy. a cast of Brits, not Americans, and shot in
London, not New York. And no sign of the corduroyed, bespectacled,
whiny hypochondriac quipster. Not even a surrogate Woody, a John
Cusack or a Kenneth Branagh flailing around in nervous, neurotic,
tics-and-shtick mode.
"Match Point" is a very different Woody Allen film than we've
come to expect.
"Although there are elements of his greats: 'Crimes and Misdemeanors'
and 'Hannah and Her Sisters'--adultery, despair, the worship of the
landed gentry, and landed gentile-- there are echoes, too, of
'A Place in the Sun' and 'An American Tragedy' both movies based on the Theodore Dreiser novel: A Place in the Sun.
"And the scene
that introduces Scarlett Johansson - the cast's lone American - as a
sultry woman sucking on cigarettes, is both a direct nod to Lauren
Bacall's 'You know how to whistle' moment in 'To Have and Have Not.'
"Johansson's Nola Rice is a struggling expat actress, going up for
auditions (and mostly blowing them) and sidling up to Tom Hewett
(Matthew Goode), the dashing upper-crust scion of an investment
king. Nola and Tom are an item, all smiles and public displays of
affection .
Enter Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), an ex-tennis pro who
coaches Hewett, then meets his sister Chloe (Emily Mortimer) and
their wealthy parents (Brian Cox and Penelope Wilton). Through
talent, charm and wiles, Chris insinuates himself into the family.
And thereby, into the frequent company of Nola, whom he can't keep
out of his mind.
"A story of lust, love and the lure of money, Match Point is so
thoroughly compelling, and so deftly acted by all parties concerned,
that it turns and churns deep in the gut. Even the plot's more
familiar aspects assume a gravity, and tension, that is unexpected.
At the center of all this is Rhys Meyers, whose Chris is bright,
ambitious, and maybe more than a little evil.
Crime and Punishment
IMO "Match Point" is influenced by Dostoyevsky"s novel: "Crime and Punishment" in which Raskolnikov, a poor student in 19th Century St. Petersburg, Russia, kills his landlady because he couldn't pay the rent:
www1.umn.edu/lol-russ/hpgary/Russ3421/lesson9.htm
There are Nietzschean overtones in the novel that a superior person can kill an inferior one and not be subject to punishment under the law.
Compulsion
And there's the movie: "Compulsion (1959), a Nietzschean drama:
www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/leoploeb/LEO_COMP.HTM"
"Compulsion was the title of a fictionalized account of the Leopold and Loeb trial , written in 1956 by Meyer Levin. The story concerns two wealthy Chicago teenagers, Judd Steiner and Artie Straus, who kidnap and murder a young boy, become suspects because of glasses found with the boy's body, confess, and are defended by a brilliant lawyer: Jonathan Wilk.
"Compulsion contains many other parallels to the real Leopold and Loeb story, including Steiner's (Leopold's) obsession with the philosophy of Nietzsche, the theft by the boys of a typewriter used to type the ransom note, the inadvertent destruction of the boys' alibi by the Steiner family chauffeur, and the use of verbatim passages from Darrow's trial summation.
"Nathan Leopold said that reading Compulsion made him ‘physically sick,’ c1aused him to feel ‘terrific shame, and induced a 'mild melancholia.' He felt as 'if he were exposed stark-naked under the strong spotlight before a large 1audience.' He also complained that the book depicted the murder in sexual terms. Steiner saw the murder as a way to kill the girl within himself. Leopold dismissed such a motive in his own case as preposterous. In 1959, Leopold filed suit against the producers of the movie Compulsion, and his suit was dismissed eleven years later.
“The success of the book led quickly to a Broadway play and acquisition of screen rights in 1957 by Darryl F. Zanuck. Director Richard Fleischer cast Dean Stockwell as Steiner (Leopold), Bradford Dillman as Straus (Loeb), E. G. Marshall as District Attorney Horn (Crowe), and Orson Welles as Jonathan Wilk (Darrow). Compulsion received mostly positive reviews and was a modest financial success, finishing 48th on Variety's box-office charts for 1959.
In conclusion...
"Whether it's simply the change of locale, or a change in Allen's
psyche, something is up in ’Match Point.’ With a dark view of
humankind, and of the vagaries of chance - bad luck, good luck, dumb
luck - the filmmaker has crafted a wicked, winning gem."
-
Match Point
ae.philly.com/entertainment/ui/philly/movie.html?id=513926&reviewId=19871
"A drama, not a comedy. a cast of Brits, not Americans, and shot in
London, not New York. And no sign of the corduroyed, bespectacled,
whiny hypochondriac quipster. Not even a surrogate Woody, a John
Cusack or a Kenneth Branagh flailing around in nervous, neurotic,
tics-and-shtick mode.
"Match Point" is a very different Woody Allen film than we've
come to expect.
"Although there are elements of his greats: 'Crimes and Misdemeanors'
and 'Hannah and Her Sisters'--adultery, despair, the worship of the
landed gentry, and landed gentile-- there are echoes, too, of
'A Place in the Sun' and 'An American Tragedy' both movies based on the Theodore Dreiser novel: A Place in the Sun.
"And the scene
that introduces Scarlett Johansson - the cast's lone American - as a
sultry woman sucking on cigarettes, is both a direct nod to Lauren
Bacall's 'You know how to whistle' moment in 'To Have and Have Not.'
"Johansson's Nola Rice is a struggling expat actress, going up for
auditions (and mostly blowing them) and sidling up to Tom Hewett
(Matthew Goode), the dashing upper-crust scion of an investment
king. Nola and Tom are an item, all smiles and public displays of
affection .
Enter Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), an ex-tennis pro who
coaches Hewett, then meets his sister Chloe (Emily Mortimer) and
their wealthy parents (Brian Cox and Penelope Wilton). Through
talent, charm and wiles, Chris insinuates himself into the family.
And thereby, into the frequent company of Nola, whom he can't keep
out of his mind.
"A story of lust, love and the lure of money, Match Point is so
thoroughly compelling, and so deftly acted by all parties concerned,
that it turns and churns deep in the gut. Even the plot's more
familiar aspects assume a gravity, and tension, that is unexpected.
At the center of all this is Rhys Meyers, whose Chris is bright,
ambitious, and maybe more than a little evil.
Crime and Punishment
IMO "Match Point" is influenced by Dostoyevsky"s novel: "Crime and Punishment" in which Raskolnikov, a poor student in 19th Century St. Petersburg, Russia, kills his landlady because he couldn't pay the rent:
www1.umn.edu/lol-russ/hpgary/Russ3421/lesson9.htm
There are Nietzschean overtones in the novel that a superior person can kill an inferior one and not be subject to punishment under the law.
Compulsion
And there's the movie: "Compulsion (1959), a Nietzschean drama:
www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/leoploeb/LEO_COMP.HTM"
"Compulsion was the title of a fictionalized account of the Leopold and Loeb trial , written in 1956 by Meyer Levin. The story concerns two wealthy Chicago teenagers, Judd Steiner and Artie Straus, who kidnap and murder a young boy, become suspects because of glasses found with the boy's body, confess, and are defended by a brilliant lawyer: Jonathan Wilk.
"Compulsion contains many other parallels to the real Leopold and Loeb story, including Steiner's (Leopold's) obsession with the philosophy of Nietzsche, the theft by the boys of a typewriter used to type the ransom note, the inadvertent destruction of the boys' alibi by the Steiner family chauffeur, and the use of verbatim passages from Darrow's trial summation.
"Nathan Leopold said that reading Compulsion made him ‘physically sick,’ c1aused him to feel ‘terrific shame, and induced a 'mild melancholia.' He felt as 'if he were exposed stark-naked under the strong spotlight before a large 1audience.' He also complained that the book depicted the murder in sexual terms. Steiner saw the murder as a way to kill the girl within himself. Leopold dismissed such a motive in his own case as preposterous. In 1959, Leopold filed suit against the producers of the movie Compulsion, and his suit was dismissed eleven years later.
“The success of the book led quickly to a Broadway play and acquisition of screen rights in 1957 by Darryl F. Zanuck. Director Richard Fleischer cast Dean Stockwell as Steiner (Leopold), Bradford Dillman as Straus (Loeb), E. G. Marshall as District Attorney Horn (Crowe), and Orson Welles as Jonathan Wilk (Darrow). Compulsion received mostly positive reviews and was a modest financial success, finishing 48th on Variety's box-office charts for 1959.
In conclusion...
"Whether it's simply the change of locale, or a change in Allen's
psyche, something is up in ’Match Point.’ With a dark view of
humankind, and of the vagaries of chance - bad luck, good luck, dumb
luck - the filmmaker has crafted a wicked, winning gem."
-
