Word: en
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...fleet and the way that dollars shrivel like cheap bacon when they go abroad, has begun to work changes in the way that Americans are approaching their annual ceremonies of leisure. Many vacations this year are being curtailed, especially the traditional summer trips that Americans en masse have taken since the early '50s-the long cross-country excursion by car. Now, having glimpsed the mortality of the machine, many Americans are planning trips no more than a tankful of gas away from their homes...
...stage. Even comedies of the 30's (including those made by the Marx Brothers which were unique in their own way) continued to exploit non-verbal, absurd gags. More contemporaneous comedians such as Jerry Lewis, Peter Sellers and Mel Brooks also rely heavily on verbal puns and physical mise-en-scene, yet still with no attempt made to convey it in cinematic terms. In contrast, Woody Allen has gradually and continously cultivated a singular approach to the comedy genre, stimulating laughter by auditory-visual devices which contribute a unique dimension and meaning to his films. Allen's work, consequently, marks...
...film narrative, but also with specific cinematic devices which convey the film's content and message in a cinematic way. Accordingly, Interiors marks the crucial point in Allen's directorial evolution, expressing much of the script's meaning through purely auditory/visual means instead of via dramatic situations, mise-en-scene, dialogue and acting. Like Chaplin (in A Woman of Paris ), Allen, too, decided not to participate as an actor in Interiors, a decision which permitted him to concentrate on directing the film. In a further parallel, while Chaplin appropriated certain stylistic features of the "Lubitsch Touch," Allen conceived his film...
...characters, the other compact with decorative objects (sculptures, pictures, ironwork and flashing neons), or architectural detail (walls, windows, panels and storefronts). In these moments the camera often remains stationary while the actors and actresses perform and move within the flat surface of the image, creating a mise-en-frame (which is the cinematic equivalent of a painting). For example, in the sequence in which Allen talks to his girlfriend in his apartment and then climbs a spiral staircase, the concept of mise-en-frame is presented in a most effective fashion: at the beginning the screen is predominantly dark, with...
MOST OF THE cinematic dynamism in Manhattan is contributed by camera movement: it is the major expedient by which Allen transforms mise-en-scene into mise-en-shot (i.e., the kinesthetic interaction between the camera's mobility and the movement of objects or characters within the shot). The tracking camera ideally relates to the theme of this film, merging into the film's content. If any environment can be epitomized by incessant and omnipresent movement-both physical and psychological-then that locale must be New York. As a New Yorker (perhaps even more as a Brooklynite who observed the "pulsating...