Sunday Review: The Place beyond the Pines

Where is that?

By Morris Dean

The phrase "the place beyond the pines" is the translation of the Iroquois term for Schenectady, NY, the locale for the 2012 movie The Place beyond the Pines (directed by Derek Cianfrance). The theme of the movie is compelling, and important: sons generally need to connect with their fathers. The movie tells the story of such a son in a poignant, memorable way...

Always on Sunday: Woody Allen and others

Sunday's regular movie review.

I didn't think that I'd missed any of Woody Allen's nearly fifty films (other than his latest, To Rome with Love, which I intend to watch soon), even if I've not liked all or even most of them very much. I thought that many of them had suffered from a central character portrayed by Allen himself as a self-absorbed, nattering, whiny neurotic, who I always assumed was a version of the actor himself. I did not much enjoy the stories in which these characters figured.
    One of the gifts of Robert B. Weide's recent film, Woody Allen: A Documentary (which took him years to get Mr. Allen's permission to undertake), is that I now know that Woody Allen, in an interview at least, isn't much like those neurotic characters. Never, in the many minutes of interviews included in this long film, does he seem any more neurotic than I am myself. Maybe he's outgrown it (he'll be 78 his next birthday).
    Mr. Allen himself doesn't seem to like a lot of his films. And a number of them he disliked as soon as he had finished them. They just didn't come out the way he had hoped. Someone suggested that maybe if he took two years to make a film, rather than one year, then he could make one that lived up to his expectations. No, he wasn't having any of that. He says that he'll just keep making lots of movies, hoping that occasionally he'll make a good one. He's more interested in getting home on time and playing his clarinet.
    Robert B. Weide's documentary is excellent, We enjoyed it immensely. I was prepared to watch half an hour (less than a quarter of one of the two DVDs in the box) and return the movie to my local library. But both my wife and I were mesmerized by the tour through Allen's oeuvre, learning about his childhood, his parents, his sister, his wives (all of whom are interviewed), some of his friendships (particularly with Diane Keaton), and his long-time association with the producers and the cinematographer and others who have collaborated with him on most of his films. A very informative, even enthralling film. Excellently edited with many interviews interspersed topically.
    I learned that I'd missed quite a few of his films over the years. So far as I could remember, I hadn't seen You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010), Whatever Works (2009), Anything Else (2003), Hollywood Ending (2002)—whoa, this is getting ridiculous, I'm only a quarter of the way down the list, and there seem to be quite a few I haven't seen, even several I've never heard of.  [I've not provided links to any of these titles, you can find them in the Internet Movie Database, in the list of films Allen directed.] 
    Have I been believing that I care more about Woody Allen films than I actually do care? Perhaps, but, well, there have been quite a few that I really liked: Midnight in Paris (2011), Match Point (2005), Sweet and Lowdown (1999), Husbands and Wives (1992), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), September (1987), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Zelig (1983), Interiors (1978), Annie Hall (1977), and Sleeper (1973). At least I think I did, it's been a long time.
    I'll plan to check out the ones we haven't seen and maybe watch again a few that I think I remember with affection. In most cases, I mean "check out" in two senses, one of them being that I'll borrow the movies from a library.

The others besides Allen that I'm going to mention are Nicolas Winding Refn and Assaf Bernstein, whose films Drive and The Debt, respectively, we also watched this week—both of them also borrowed from our local library.

    I expected to enjoy Drive (2011) simply because of its cast, including Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Albert Brooks, and Bryan Cranston [who plays methamphetamine manufacturer Walter White in the compelling TV program Breaking Bad, now in its fifth of sixth announced seasons]. But it was better even than I expected, an outstanding thriller. I have to rate Drive ExtraOrdinary.
    Gosling's character is a criminal, but with otherwise impeccable moral principles, which is what gets him into big trouble, primarily in the form of having to deal with a big mobster—Brooks's first role in which he kills people.

    HaHov, HaChov [The Debt] (2007) is an Israeli film, with subtitles. It is not a first-rate film, but its story kept my wife and me spell-bound, about the apprehension of "The Surgeon of Birkenau" by three young Mossad agents. The Surgeon is a Nazi monster who was never brought to trial in Israel.
    The official reason that he was not brought to trial was that he was shot in 1965 as he attempted to escape his Israeli captors. But today, 35 years later, a small article appears in a minor newspaper in Kiev, Ukraine announcing that The Surgeon is alive and admits his crimes....I rate The Debt Very Good.
    Don't overlook your local library as a source of laudable movies. DVDs include bonus material, you know. How else did I find out that Albert Brooks had never killed anyone before?