DECONSTRUCTING HARRY
US, 1997, 97 minutes,Colour.
Woody Allen, Judy Davis, Julia Louis Drefuss, Richard Benjamin, Caroline Aaron, Eric Bogosian, Kirstie Alley, Elizabeth Shue, Demi Moore, Stanley Tucci, Tobey Maguire, Robin Williams, Julie Kavner, Billy Crystal, Eric Lloyd, Mariel Hemingway, Bob Balaban, Hazelle Goodman, Amy Irving, Jennifer Garner, Philip Bosco, Paul Giamatti, Gene Saks.
Directed by Woody Allen.
An often hilarious piece of artistic and real life self-examination on Allen's part. Those who wonder about him will find a great deal of self-comment here. He portrays a writer with marital and relationship problems, often self-centred and using his experiences in his writing. There are small films within films as his stories are dramatised (again, often very funny, especially with Robin Williams as a literally out-of-focus actor).
Issues of being male, of being an artist, of being Jewish are all part of the screenplay - and it is the twelfth for which Allen has been nominated for Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. He has a big star cast, mostly in cameo roles, but very effective. There are some funny lines, some raunchy – and there seems to be more swearing in this film than in Allen’s other films together. Woody Allen self-examines.
1. A Woody Allen film? His screen persona, real life? His critique of his screen persona? His career, the 1990s? Writer, director, acting?
2. New York, his home, the psychologists’ rooms, Connecticut, the University? The musical score and range of songs?
3. The title, the language and jargon, literature and stories?
4. The strong cast?
5. The structure, reality and fiction, reality and the imagination? Literature? Film versions of stories?
6. The opening, the repetition, Lucy arriving, her anger, the tone, the insertion of the real story dramatised within the argument? Lucy and her anger, her crass language, the revelation of reality through the novel and publication, people identifying the real characters? The scenes of the real characters, the barbecue, sexual activity and betrayal, the blind grandmother?
7. Harry telling Lucy the story of Harvey, young, Woody Allen type, the story in reality, his sitting at the typewriter, his visits to his psychiatrist, the preoccupation with sex? His work in the shoe store, his lust after all women, the advice of the fellow-worker, the philosophy of sexuality with prostitutes? Harvey and the setting up of the hotel room, the Chinese prostitute, the sexual encounter, Death arriving at the door, the discussions, the irony, Harvey being taken?
8. Harry talking to the psychologist, the quick edit cuts of his explanation of himself and his attitudes? The psychologist remembering this story, Mill, the actor in a blur, a distorted character, the filmmakers examining the cameras and the lenses, the actor going home, his wife and children, their are all going to the optometrist and needing glasses?
9. The University honour, Harry having been kicked out, now an award? Checking with his wife, Joan, about taking his son, the fact that he had three wives? His wife and her reaction?
10. Harry’s son, the penis in the name, Dillinger? Harry praising women, Beth Kramer and her severity, reporting Harry to the authorities??
11. The character of Epstein, real, the shrink, Harry in the discussions, stopping, the passing of time, the later date? The woman who understood him? His perversions? The two years, the fear of people, Helen and the baby? Jewish with a vengeance, circumcision? Epstein, the valuing tradition, the scientist, prayer and God? On the street, Richard and the doctor, the pains, accompanying him on the trip?
12. Fay, the attractive young girl, the student, starry-eyed, attraction for Harry? Living with him? Studies, his supervision, the dependence? Larry, the devil, smell of burning? The Pygmalion analogy, love, control, channelling the change?
13. The devil, abducting to hell, the repeat of the burning smell?
14. Cookie, hooker, Harry and his businesslike attitude toured six, the experience with Cookie? Tied up? The hit, the blow? Cookie and her comment about spiritually bankrupt? The quoting of Sophocles? The proposal to marry Fay?
15. Ken and Leslie, fictitious characters, the walk their talk?
16. The encounters with Fay, at the elevator, stuck, Fay’s response?
17. Harry, Cookie, Richard, abducting the son, in the car, the singing? The ferris wheel?
18. The red apple, Jane, Lucy and Ken, meeting Harry? Harry and chronic satisfaction? Jane and Lucy, the kitchen scene?
19. Writing, Fay, the affirmation, the baseball gift?
20. Harry sister, Burt and Doris, the street Helen, Jewish? Doris as observant? Burt as fanatic? The image of the self-hating due? The Jewish function, Dolly, the women chatting, Max, marriage?
21. Helen and Joan, Doris reaction? Burt and Doris talking about Harry afterwards?
22. Larry, the shop, Kafka? The Hamptons and the sulphur returning?
23. Arriving at the University, Richard dead, the arrangements for Richard? The pills, going out of focus?
24. The university authorities, the group welcoming Harry? The meetings, their discussions, posting Harry, the function itself, is disappearance, then chasing him?
25. The insertion of the devil’s story, the elevator and going down the floors of the damned, the media floor being full? Harry’s kind of hell, jazz, his father, forgiving his father? Larry as the devil, suave, drinking, the atheist and science? Sins, cheating, pouring, drinking, pills, lying, violence? The library with the books? Talk about sex and comparing stories? Disabled? The issue of the ozone layer? Two years in Hollywood, the producer, the Las Vegas story?
26. Joan, arrival, arrests, jail?
27. The talk about Richard? Larry and Fay, the bail and payment?
28. The honorary award?
29. The characters who were real, the fictionalised versions of the characters, their being part of Harry’s life, in his imagination, in reality? The interconnection of the stories?
