A Few Words About A few words about...™ Interiors -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[titch]

Is it possible that Woody Allen feels that each work should speak for itself;
or that he doesn't want to impose definitives through his own commentaries?
Or is it, that he's so busy writing that doing 40 plus commentaries would simply remove the creative juices from all that's ahead?
Either way, it would be nice to see him support Film Restoration.
Certainly, he couldn't be opposed to the preservation of Gordon Willis' work;
or, for that matter, Ingmar Bergman's.
After all, if memory serves me correctly, "The Sorrow and The Pity" was financially restored or, at least, cleaned up for re-issue through Mr. Allen. Right?

Woody Allen has stated repeatedly that he has absolutely no interest in revisiting his own films after they are done. The quote on the back of the Tom Shone book states: "Other people finish a film. It's over and it's successful. They read the reviews. They have a party. There's some kind of relief. For me it's like stamping out cookies. I finish a film and go on the next one." He's made 46 feature films since 1969, not counting filming September twice with two different casts. Time constraints alone would probably make it challenging for him to devote any sort of attention to his older movies, even if he was interested. Spielberg's movies don't have commentaries either, neither do David Lynch's, the Coen brothers' (although they wrote the script for the fantastic spoof commentary for Blood Simple), Clint Eastwood's, or Terrence Malick's - to name a few other American auteurs. For someone so enamored of old classic movies, like Woody Allen is, it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect him to step up to the plate like Spielberg and Scorsese, and champion film restoration and preservation. However, he has nowhere near the clout and influence that those other two have.

There was a re-release of The Sorrow and the Pity in 2000 but I have no idea whether Woody Allen did anything other than "present" it.

 

[Powell&Pressburger]

It's a shame the commentary was not included but it doesn't surprise me with MGM. I have a love hate relationship with them. I can't imagine the Kirgo / TT commentary being complimentary to the film and it's technicians like Gordon Willis.

MGM For whatever reason must be scared to death of lawsuits. They edited out aspects of commentaries for Poltergiest II and III which were confirmed and while I agree a couple of instances I can see why they cut out specific info other times such and location shooting info it just seems really odd. Whatever happened to a commentary not being the beliefs etc of the the company.

 

[PMF]

[...] He's made 46 feature films since 1969, not counting filming September twice with two different casts. [...]

Thanks for your informative input, which covered so many bases.
I was wondering if you could expand on the "September" film being shot twice.
Fascinating; as I am now wondering if there are two different versions in existence, that I didn't know about, or if he scrapped one in mid-filming.

 

[titch]

Thanks for your informative input, which covered so many bases.
I was wondering if you could expand on the "September" film being shot twice.
Fascinating; as I am now wondering if there are two different versions in existence, that I didn't know about, or if he scrapped one in mid-filming.

Very few directors have had such total freedom to make their films, as Woody Allen has. When he sent his script of Interiors to his editor, Ralph Rosenblum - who he had worked with for ten years - Rosenblum declared it "indescribably dreadful". United Artists also hated it - the chairman, Arthur Krim, reasoned that Interiors was something "Woody needed to get out of his system" and felt that, "in the long run, something good would come out of it". UA's Steven Bach said that the green light for Interiors was "one of the rare instances in modern American movie history in which an artist has been allowed to make a picture because of what it might mean to his creative development, success or failure". Allen himself said, "I was not going to do a little bit of drama or a conventional drama or a commercial drama. I wanted to go for the highest kind of drama. And if I failed. I failed. That's OK". It only made back $4.6 million of its $10 million budget and was panned by the critics. But Woody Allen subsequently went straight on to make Manhattan in black and white, with the same crew, without any interference from the studio.

As detailed in Tom Shone's Woody Allen: A Retrospective, September was a muddle from the start, with the script delayed by repeated reshoots for Radio Days. Every single scene was reshot four or five times as they went along, major scenes were rewritten overnight or at lunch and the cast were scrambling to learn new lines. Parts were recast - Cristopher Walken was replaced with Sam Shepherd, who Woody Allen didn't get along with. When he finished his first edit, Allen hated it. "The first time I saw September, I knew I had to do it over", he said, "So I said to myself, "Well, as long as I'm going to to do four weeks or reshooting, why not reshoot the whole thing and do it right?". The same executives from United Artists, who had nurtured and supported Allen, had jumped ship with him over to Orion studios and they were devastated. "But we weren't going to destroy a relationship over that one thing", said executive Eric Pleskow. Allen rewrote the whole script, recast almost every major part, and filmed the entire thing a second time. For the first time, Allen more than doubled his production costs and came in well behind schedule. "I knew full well it wouldn't make a dime", he said. It took in only $486 000 at the box office and remains Allen's lowest grossing movie. And then of course, he went and made Another Woman. The first version of September was in all likelihood destroyed - it has certainly never been released.

 

[PMF]

I've got a title and a concept for a Woody Allen book.
The book, itself, will have to be written by someone else.
All I ask in exchange for this idea is that the future author gives me a credit within their book.
The Concept: To solely explore those deemed failure films that played a part in Mr. Allen's artistic journey.
The Title: INFERIORS

 

[titch]

I've got a title and a concept for a Woody Allen book.
The book, itself, will have to be written by someone else.
All I ask in exchange for this idea is that the future author gives me a credit within their book.
The Concept: To solely explore those deemed failure films that played a part in Mr. Allen's artistic journey.
The Title: INFERIORS

You might enjoy this:

http://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/deconstructing-woody-a-year-with-a-filmmaker

 

[PMF]

You might enjoy this:

http://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/deconstructing-woody-a-year-with-a-filmmaker

I will delve into this thoughtful article that you contributed to this thread, at the days end.
From where I started, I already know that others who've enjoyed Woody Allen will also find this of interest.
Bonus to this article was the authors ranking of Mr. Allen's 52 films; which was quite an endeavor.
Short of "Sleeper" being ranked at #23, it feels on-balance with that give-take ratio of our own individual tastes.
Thanks, titch.