9/16/13
ANXIETY: Woody Allen releases his newest film about an anxiety-ridden divorcée.
By Cole Nelson, Diversions Editor
Woody Allen was a comedian before anything else; at the age of 15 he began selling one-liners to newspapers. Movies came later. While Allen typically packs his movies with aspects of his own character, Blue Jasmine lacks the most notable trait: his comedy.
Blue Jasmine is much darker than the typical character study Allen film. It focuses on an aging woman, Jasmine (Cate Blanchett), caught between the luxury of the lazy upper class and the devastation of the complacent middle class.
Recovering from a recent divorce–Jasmine was previously married to a man of money and business (Alec Baldwin) and she didn’t have to work a day in her life–she now finds herself living with her sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins), who bags groceries for a living, in a quaint, but not “substantial,” San Francisco apartment. The two despise how the other lives. Jasmine is used to bathing with a seaside view and stressing about what to wear to her next champagne dinner; Ginger deals with subpar, drunk boyfriends and financial problems. The two are polar opposites but are somehow related.
Jasmine suffers from anxiety and paranoia, similar to a number of Allen’s lead characters. She empties Xanax bottles as if they are candy. Instead of laughing at the mental instability and hesitance of her character, as you would with Allen’s own Alvy Singer in Annie Hall, Jasmine acts in such a way that is miserable to watch. Her ignorance, caused from the cruising high life, creates her resulting anxiety. There is no hope for her. When we think she might have a chance with an aspiring politician, she introduces herself with lies and never rights her wrongdoings.
To emphasize Jasmine’s downfall, she is juxtaposed with her fruitless inner-city sister. Ginger, who has the looks of Shelley Duvall, is also a divorcée struggling to survive in the dating world. However, she has a more positive aura than her sister. Although her boyfriend Chili (Bobby Cannavale) is a somewhat uneducated grease monkey who drinks his fair share of beer and makes a scene of her in public, Ginger finds assurance (what she calls “love”) in him. Her life is less desirable than Jasmine’s, yet Ginger is able to adhere to what she has; anything less than the best for Jasmine will not suffice.
Blue Jasmine is a stitching together of past and present, similar to the structure of The Godfather Part II. One scene is of Jasmine living her extravagant life in the past and the next is of her in the present, often reminiscing of the past. This is one of the many similarities that Blue Jasmine has with Allen’s most popular film Annie Hall. The two can be connected in many aspects: structure, situation, the marital and relationship troubles of the lead character and even a bridging between New York and California.
However, it is worth stating again that Blue Jasmine is executed in a much darker manner than any previous Woody Allen movie. By this point in his career, Allen has his style mastered and defined. He always makes himself present in his movies, whether it’s through a physical presence or through the words of his characters. I can only assume that a line written by Allen in Blue Jasmine is in retrospect of himself; “She [Jasmine] couldn’t stop babbling about her life!” In this case, Allen is played by a middle-aged woman. This might mean, then, that Allen may be the same person but with a much more contemptuous or simply senile look towards his subject matter.
Blue Jasmine did not have the typical wit, situational comedy or narrative speed that Allen so often delivers. It was heavily loaded with scenes carried by fast, casual dialogue; language is a key player in presenting the differences between culture and class. Allen’s dialogue is often so quick that you are left craving a breath (something that may be intentional provided that Jasmine, in any given moment, would benefit from a long inhale-exhale).
Although experimenting with new tones, Allen shows no signs of slowing down from his strict one-film-a-year schedule. At 78, Woody Allen is still a highly influential and personal filmmaker, garnished with attention and acclaim time and time again.