Love and Death
Last time, when we debated whether to see “Shadow and Fog” or “Love and Death”, we ended up choosing the former. In retrospect, I have absolutely no idea why. While I really love silent films, if I have the choice between the parodies of silents and Russian novels, I’d normally have chosen the latter without fail. I really liked the humor in “Shadow and Fog”, but overall I think “Love and Death” was more amusing. It is only in those early movies that Woody Allen allows his women to be complicated, free-spirited and witty. (This praise might not be entirely justified, “Love and Death” is probably Allen’s only early movie in which Keaton’s character does not pose her trademark question “Do you think I am stupid?”). It is Keaton’s character who is the biggest source of the film’s amusingness. She is always a little silly, a little aloof and finally she is not really that into Woody Allen’s character. I also thought she was surprisingly likable for an early Woody Allen character, probably due to lack of the usual neuroticness.
One unique element of “Love and Death” is the parody of 19th century novels within his dialogue pieces. The metaphysical discourses are obviously ridiculous, but so they are in those novels sometimes. I actually enjoyed those tidbits much more than the name-dropping of Karamasov or the ‘plot-dropping’ of feeling guilty for murdering someone. Speaking of references, I really liked the end which evoked Bergman; somehow I thought it was a scene from “Cries and Whispers” but Imdb says it’s “Persona”.
Sometimes I wish the humor wasn’t so absurd. Films in which everyone is kind of idiotic only work when they were made by the Marx brothers. When Woody Allen has a murder plan, then comical elements like characters being too stupid to get the pistol to shoot are just downright painful. But next to these kind of idiotic seeming scenes, there are other scenes (such as the one in which Allen’s character did not get saved in the end) which suggests a clever storywriting.
At the end of the day, the film was enjoyable because of the many small details (basically one-liners) the film offered and because I thought it was quite refreshing. It has its ups and downs, making it one of Woody Allen’s better but certainly not best films. Certainly a must for any fan!