With Woody Allen’s 21st Century films, you should already know you’re not getting a tectonic shift in cinema. You’re getting Woody’s take on current cultural shifts, packaged inside his brand of filmmaking. But some films stand a part from others when the chemistry of the actors shines, the dialogue dazzles, and the overall mise en scene delights. A Rainy Day in New York has all these in spades. From the main character’s naming choice (Gatsby Welles, a pun on Jay Gatsby and Orson Welles), to the disgruntled film director named playfully after Roman Polanski, to the sultry soundtrack, all the New York City on location shooting, and just a lovely stroll with these conflicted characters riffing on themes of love, attraction, affairs, ambition, NY socialites, art over commerce, longing, and self-discovery.
When two people who clung to self-reliance discover a love that feels obsessive, their emotional journies are as epic as the desert in total. The thrill. The fear. The sacrifices.
What most critics miss is that JUST LIKE the affected spoiled-emotionally troubled Gen Xers, the film TRIES to be iconoclastic, brash and poignant while saturating itself in neatly resolved relationship tropes.
The 90s pre- and actual teens found emotional cover in assuming, fatuously, their dysfunction was just as rooted in socio-political culture as the 70s teens, all while the “give your kids everything” parenting model added to the pointed confusion and guilt trip.
This movie totally gets the wayward MTV-cum-Larry Clark generation that treated their need for their pain to be taken seriously alongside their expectations of happy endings as cake they could have AND eat too.
Both audiences knew the ending. Pre-destination was understood. The allure was discovering more about the heroes and villains, what their hopes and plans were, how they reacted to preset circumstances, and the catharsis of being reminded that some things are out of our control.
King Henry IV: “For all my reign hath been but as a scene”
Basically, my reign has been like a play.
Interesting use of self-consciousness by Shakespeare. A character in a play calls attention to the topic of plays as a metaphor for his life. Tropes of postmodernity seem to have been prevalent in Shakespeare.
Ever wonder about the ending of My Own Private Idaho? The movie famously includes Henry IV intertextuality, and lots of asides about roads. The ending includes the observation that “this road” looks like a messed up smiley face. During the time of Shakespeare a “road” was a whore. The characters of Idaho are of course male prostitutes, and when Scott says this road looks like a fucked up smiley face, I now can interpret that to mean his experiences as a whore. Took me 23 years to make the connection now that I’m reading Henry IV part 2.