Another Woman

Rating:
Summary: Enthralling
Review: "Another Woman" vies for my favorite film of all time. I never tire of watching it, and I have watched many times by now. It is a fascinating account of a woman's re-assessment of her life after having a series of enlightenments. In some ways similar to the novel "The Address Book" by Anne Bernays, the film explores in serious ways what Allen's "Alice" looked at in comedy. "Another Woman," however, uses excavation of the past and reframing of one's perspective to accomplish the change. As the character wonders at the conclusion of the film, "is a memory something you have, or something you've lost?"

While the themes may be familiar in Allen's work, his inspiration for this project was, of course, Bergman's "Wild Strawberries." The context for Allen's project is the upper class New York setting of multiple marriages, shrink's offices, classy restaurants, and art. Klimt's "Hope," Satie's gymnopedie, and German philosophy provide rich symbols for the psychology of Gena Rowland's character.

Disciplined and somewhat constricted, she has accomplished a good deal and made true on her father's driving hopes for her achievements. However strong she is, the depth of her feelings is lacking. The professor fails to see how others feel about her, aside from their obvious respect for her accomplishments and perhaps intimidation by her force of will. What does not fit into her plan for her life, she overcomes by ignoring. This repression leaves her ripe for upheaval following her 50th birthday.

A series of rich memories are evoked when her thoughts are jarred out of complacency by overheard fragments of a psychotherapist's work next door to her writing apartment. Moved by the idea of making a different sense of one's past in therapy, the professor begins experiencing small, revealing encounters with the signficant people in her life. She begins to see that the self concept she harbored for so long is not congruent with the image others hold of her. Her repression begins to crumble.

An interesting question is whether the Mia Farrow character, patient of the therapist, actually exists or is a symbol of the professor's denied, unfulfilled Hopes. It seems to be through encounters with the patient that the professor comes into contact with players from her past. Perhaps this phantom is her repressed ego letting her know that the time has come for opening her eyes to more of the truth and for change to be permitted.

In any event, the script is layered and absorbing, Allen's construction of the New York world is seamless, and the acting is pitch perfect. Rowlands in particular is compelling. The film creates a spell, an encapsulated world that commands attention until the very end. Interestingly, this is one of Allen's films that seems to polarize viewers. For every ecstatic opinion about "Another Woman" there is a scathing rejection. For my part, the film is part of my "Desert Island" must-haves. I feel like I have been enriched by watching it.

Rating:
Summary: Enthralling
Review: "Another Woman" vies for my favorite film of all time. I never tire of watching it, and I have watched many times by now. It is a fascinating account of a woman's re-assessment of her life after having a series of enlightenments. In some ways similar to the novel "The Address Book" by Anne Bernays, the film explores in serious ways what Allen's "Alice" looked at in comedy. "Another Woman," however, uses excavation of the past and reframing of one's perspective to accomplish the change. As the character wonders at the conclusion of the film, "is a memory something you have, or something you've lost?"

While the themes may be familiar in Allen's work, his inspiration for this project was, of course, Bergman's "Wild Strawberries." The context for Allen's project is the upper class New York setting of multiple marriages, shrink's offices, classy restaurants, and art. Klimt's "Hope," Satie's gymnopedie, and German philosophy provide rich symbols for the psychology of Gena Rowland's character.

Disciplined and somewhat constricted, she has accomplished a good deal and made true on her father's driving hopes for her achievements. However strong she is, the depth of her feelings is lacking. The professor fails to see how others feel about her, aside from their obvious respect for her accomplishments and perhaps intimidation by her force of will. What does not fit into her plan for her life, she overcomes by ignoring. This repression leaves her ripe for upheaval following her 50th birthday.

A series of rich memories are evoked when her thoughts are jarred out of complacency by overheard fragments of a psychotherapist's work next door to her writing apartment. Moved by the idea of making a different sense of one's past in therapy, the professor begins experiencing small, revealing encounters with the signficant people in her life. She begins to see that the self concept she harbored for so long is not congruent with the image others hold of her. Her repression begins to crumble.

An interesting question is whether the Mia Farrow character, patient of the therapist, actually exists or is a symbol of the professor's denied, unfulfilled Hopes. It seems to be through encounters with the patient that the professor comes into contact with players from her past. Perhaps this phantom is her repressed ego letting her know that the time has come for opening her eyes to more of the truth and for change to be permitted.

In any event, the script is layered and absorbing, Allen's construction of the New York world is seamless, and the acting is pitch perfect. Rowlands in particular is compelling. The film creates a spell, an encapsulated world that commands attention until the very end. Interestingly, this is one of Allen's films that seems to polarize viewers. For every ecstatic opinion about "Another Woman" there is a scathing rejection. For my part, the film is part of my "Desert Island" must-haves. I feel like I have been enriched by watching it.

Rating:
Summary: Complex and Intelligent Film
Review: Another Woman received little attention when it released because audiences tend to prefer what they have come to expect from a director. Allen's comedies set a precedent that left him in a proverbial straight-jacket when it came to exploring life's other questions.

Unfortunately, people can also miss out on a powerful meditation on the importance of intimacy, friendship, and genuine self-awareness.

People who prefer female figures to be maternal will find Marion Post's philosophy professor challenging and perhaps, cold. However, she is also typical of individuals who find emotions difficult and hence, distance themselves from genuine interaction. Marion dismisses her sister-in-law when Lynn explains to Marion that her brother might possess resentful feelings towards Marion. In a powerful scene, Marion also fails to "see" how she might have hurt her best friend, Claire, played by Sandy Dennis, years ago. But as the film progresses, Marion finds herself unable to avoid her self-deception for much longer and faces the inevitable in the end.

Highly recommended despite the varying criticisms linking it closely with Bergman's Wild Strawberries.

Rating:
Summary: Gena Rowlands and Sandy Dennis--Legends
Review: I think I may have reviewed the video version of this, but it won't hurt to review it again. The extras on this DVD are fairly useless, but who cares? It's just fantastic to have a sharp digital copy of this classic film. It's my favorite by Woody Allen (just behind Interiors, Crimes and Misdemeanors and Annie Hall). Of course THE reason to watch this film is the great Gena Rowlands and Sandy Dennis. Yes, folks, it's dark and depressing and sometimes painful to watch. The dialogue could have been tweaked, but my, oh, my when it works it is devastating. The encounter between Rowlands and Dennis (who play estranged friends) at a bar is one of the best written and acted scenes ever committed to celuloid. This was Sandy Dennis' last film and she tears through that moment with such visceral rage. The complexity of this one scene reverberates throughout the film. Rowland's character, Marion, is a by-the-book, emotionally cold college professor. Through wonderfully observed flashbacks (that defy time and logic really)we discover that Marion was once a passionate artist and student and now all that is buried under a thick layer of delusion. Her life and the things happening around her are not what they seem, but she is has deluded herself for so long that it all slips by her. The supporting work here is, of course top notch. Gene Hackman is brilliant as a man who once loved Marion, Ian Holme is letter perfect as her proper husband, Betty Buckley has a one scene cameo that sets the tone early on for much of the story. One of the best movies ever made.

Rating:
Summary: One of Woody Allen's Best films.
Review: If you feel that "Husbands and Wives", "Interiors", "Stardust Memories", and "Everyone Says I Love You" rank as some of his best works you will love "Another Woman".

Rating:
Summary: ANOTHER DRAMA
Review: In "Hannah and Her Sisters", Woody Allen was fearful of the belief that all things we do in life we are destined to do for eternity and that meant he would have to sit through "The Ice Capades" again. I feel much the same way about this film. Slack jawed Gena Rowlands has a powerful deadpan delivery that can turn the worst sentences into words of delight, but her Philosophy Professor character here is a dud, never revealing any concern for her subject and writing a book, a significant part of the film, that we are told nothing about. Instead of delving into her potentially interesting psyche, the film instead finds her renting a New York apartment to write her book and overhearing a remarkably unexciting session from a psychiatrist's office through the, ahem, heating duct which causes her to evaluate her life. It's a swarmy cast of characters methodically groping for life's meaning in a pointless surreal search. Woody should have included himself opposite Rowlands to give the film a comedic edge and erase that Bergman nonsense because what we have here is truly a 'Stars on Ice Extravaganza'.

Rating:
Summary: ANOTHER DRAMA
Review: In "Hannah and Her Sisters", Woody Allen was fearful of the belief that all things we do in life we are destined to do for eternity and that meant he would have to sit through "The Ice Capades" again. I feel much the same way about this film. Slack jawed Gena Rowlands has a powerful deadpan delivery that can turn the worst sentences into words of delight, but her Philosophy Professor character here is a dud, never revealing any concern for her subject and writing a book, a significant part of the film, that we are told nothing about. Instead of delving into her potentially interesting psyche, the film instead finds her renting a New York apartment to write her book and overhearing a remarkably unexciting session from a psychiatrist's office through the, ahem, heating duct which causes her to evaluate her life. It's a swarmy cast of characters methodically groping for life's meaning in a pointless surreal search. Woody should have included himself opposite Rowlands to give the film a comedic edge and erase that Bergman nonsense because what we have here is truly a 'Stars on Ice Extravaganza'.

Rating:
Summary: A Spoilt life.
Review: Many people boast about having no regrets; some even sing about it. These are almost always successful people, people who have been given a large slice of luck (in the form of, above average intelligence, talent, presented opportunities, parental support and encouragement, and nurturing early experiences.) and have made the right decisions in early life. Of course, if asked to account for their success they will almost invariably say, "Hard work." Part of the answer no doubt, but far from the whole. To have regrets seems to many people to be faint-hearted and self-pitying; it means looking back from an unhappy present and thinking, "What might have been, if only I had done such and such instead of......

Marion. (Gena Rowlands), the protagonist of this film, an outwardly successful and well respected University Professor, has reached the age of fifty without having any self-doubt; she is proud of her achievements and her life-style - or so she has convinced herself. Until one day, in a room she has rented in which to write a book, she hears a woman's voice coming through the ventilator shaft from the psychiatrist's surgery next door. This voice awakens her to her present condition and causes her to question her life. She comes to realise that some decisions she had made in the past, and some of her actions, have brought misery on herself and others. She drove her first husband to suicide by refusing to give him the child he desperately wanted - the child she wishes she now had; she stole her present husband away from his first wife; she alienated by her behaviour both her best friend and her brother; and, worst of all, she refused the offer of love and marriage from a good, warm-hearted, generous man, Larry (Gene Hackman), in order to remain faithful to her cold unresponsive husband Ken (Ian Holm), who she later discovers is unfaithful to her.
("How can you do this?" she says to Larry, "He's your friend." "Yes." replies Larry, "He is my friend and I love him. But he's a prig and he's cold and stuffy."
Can such a person be loved?) She now regrets all of this - but too late. She must now live with the consequences - with the unhappiness she has brought on herself and others. She realises that a successful career and the respect of colleagues is not enough, that her bad choices in life have made her into a sad and disappointed woman.

Woody Allen was determined to make a deeply serious film without a hint of humour. And he has succeeded. The whole complex film is quietly depressing and is told in such a way, with flash-backs, dream-sequences, and voice-overs, that you have to keep your wits about you to follow the densely plotted story-line and grasp the meaning of it all - or maybe I'm just stupid. It is quite amazing the detail he manages to pack in to 87 minutes.

There are some very dramatic moments; when for instance her husband's ex-wife Kathy (Betty Buckley), invades her anniversary celebrations and denounces her; and when on meeting an old friend Claire (Sandy Dennis), with her current partner, she arouses a storm of anger by repeating the same error that drove her friend away in the first place; so engrossing the attention of the man she is talking to that he becomes oblivious to Claire and everyone else.

For people who like films that are serious, philosophic and have a message, films that give you something to think and talk about, this is the film for you.

Rating:
Summary: The Lush Life
Review: Marion's (Gena Rowlands) life is, on the surface, perfect. She's the head of Philosophy at a major University, she's married to a famous surgeon, and she has an apartment in the East 80's in NYC. All of her friends wear Ralph Lauren: everyone in beige, khaki green and gray in corduroy, wool and particularly tweed.
One day while Marion is working on her book she overhears through the heating duct, a psychiatrist and his patient (Mia Farrow) during a particularly emotional session.Marion is intrigued with what she is hearing. There is something about how and what this woman is saying that strikes a cord in her heart. Marion avidly listens day after day. These sessions force Marion to examine her past and her present life, resulting in a Catharsis that forces Marion to take another life path.
There are many shifts in time in "Another Woman," with Marion acting as a kind of Christmas past, present and future in the re-enactingment of her life and loves.
Gena Rowlands, playing against type here, is a revelation as Marion: she is prim and proper, draped in tweeds and turtlenecks, "always standing above, judging everyone" as one character (Martha Plimpton) describes her.
"Another Woman" is from the middle period of Woody Allen's career, when he felt it necessary to explore deadly serious subjects, as in his "Interiors." It is not a complete success, though: what it is, is an example of the whole not being equal to the sum of its parts. But what parts!
Allen has created a fantasy world rooted in the Upper Eastside, Tweedy New York Intelligentsia. A world in which most of the characters are concerned with what might have been rather than what is. "Another Woman" is intellectual, maybe even bloodless at times. But Rowlands transcends it all with her indelible and intrinsically tragic performance as Marion.


Rating:
Summary: Semplicemente uno dei miei dieci film preferiti...
Review: Romantico, struggente...
Dedicato a tutte le donne e a tutti gli uomini che vogliono conoscere meglio la loro parte femminile.
Una donna sposata con un uomo sbagliato che incontra l'uomo giusto...
La mia frase preferita: "E non saprai mai se un ricordo rappresenta qualcosa che hai avuto o che hai, invece, perduto per sempre..."
Colonna sonora perfetta...il lead motif in piano, anche ascoltato separatamente dal film, non può non far piangere...