Word: clef
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Annie Hall. Even though it's based on his real-life relationship with co-star Diane Keaton, Woody Allen's latest--and arguably best--film is far more than cinema a clef. Allen's sensitive, sometimes painfully realistic portrait of a failed love affair between a neurotic but lovable New York Jew and a flaky midwestern WASP marks a generally successful departure in thematic approach; "Annie Hall" hoes much farther in exploring human relationships than any of Allen's previous films. Still, the best moments in the film are the deliberate send-ups in which Allen unleashes his scathing...
After completing another spy novel, A Small Town in Germany?also underrated by critics?the author attempted a "serious" work, The Naive and Sentimental Lover. The knowledgeable thought it a roman à clef, a riposte to Some Gorgeous Accident, written by Cornwell's close friend, the late novelist James Kellavar. Both books concerned misadventures of two men in love with the same woman. Lover had not a belted trench-coat in sight?and the book proved the sole bomb of the Le Carré career. It also coincided with the end of the Cornwell marriage. "Like all divorces, it was awful...
Annie Hall. Even though it's based on his real-life relationship with co-star Diane Keaton, Woody Allen's latest--and arguably best--film is far more than cinema a clef. Allen's sensitive, sometimes painfully realistic portrait of a failed love affair between a neurotic but lovable New York Jew and a flaky midwestern WASP marks a generally successful departure in thematic approach: Annie Hall goes much farther in exploring human relationships than any of Allen's previous films. Still, the best moments in the film are the deliberate send-ups in which Allen unleashes his scathing...
...hour mélodrame à clef has started a vigorous debate about the propriety of taking fictional liberties-including some extreme ones-with painful, important events of recent political history (see Newswatch). Though they watched it with fascination, many viewers felt that Behind Closed Doors trivialized what it piously intended to portray: a sordid and tragic interlude in national politics...
...should be noted, if only for the record, that the opus is officially billed as fiction. The basic source is John Ehrlichman's roman à clef, The Company, and all the famous names have been changed to protect the guilty. Even so, it is not hard to identify such major characters as President Richard Monckton (Jason Robards), ex-President Esker Scott Anderson (Andy Griffith), CIA Chief William Martin (Cliff Robertson) or National Security Council Head Carl Tessler (Harold Gould). Lesser Watergate lights-from Hugh Sloan to Howard Hunt-should be recognizable to anyone who has seen All the President...