1966 - What's Up, Tiger Lily?

Hi there!

I've been watching lots of good and bad movies since last time I wrote here, but I've been studying a lot also. I've watched The Plague of Zombies (1966), The Other (1972), Diabolique (1955), House of Usher (1960), Curse of Demon (1957), Scream of Fear (1961), Peeping Tom (1960), Village of the Dammed (1960) Burn witch Burn (1962), City of the Living Dead (1980), House by the River (1950) and the Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). I think the only deception was Peeping Tom, because lots of friends told me the movie was very good and I didn't like it much.

But I'm not here to talk about all of these horror movies that I love watching, I'm here to talk about What's Up, Tiger Lily? which is the second/first movie made by Woody Allen. Why am I saying this? Because the first one, from 1965, had his script but not his direction, and now well, this movie is not directed by him in the very sense of it, but it's his movie. Art is crazy, isn't it?

Let me tell you, but I think you already know about it: This is a Japanese spy movie, Woody Allen bought it and invented new speeches; he also paid actors to dub the whole movie and what we see is a kind of mash-up, the difference is that he says it's the first movie made like this. Oh no, Woody says Gone with the Wind was made using this technology too.

The plot of the movie is pretty simple, secret spies are trying to catch the best egg salad recipe, because this will help people to conquer the world. But the thing is: the original movie is kind of senseless; it's almost impossible to understand the original plot because the new one makes sense regarding the movie scenes. The characters are weird, ugly, people are exaggerated and funny. 

I think the most interesting thing about this movie is... No, there are many interesting things about this movie. The first one I'll say regards the Reception Theory by Iser (1974). Iser said that what brings us meaning does not reside in the text itself, but in the merging between what the author implied via the text and that the reader understands about it, as having her/his historic and social reality as background. So, let's think about the first movie, the original one made in Japanese, called Kokusai himitsu keisatsu: Kagi no kagi or Key of Keys (1965); despite of knowing it's a Japanese movie about espionage, we don't know much about it, what we do know is that it was filmed in Japan with Japanese actors and that Woody Allen bought it, so what we see is what Woody Allen got of the movie, his own interpretation of the scenes, his own reading about it. Moreover, the result of this rereading is a new one, made by the audience. 

Now, we know all the background of the movie because at the beginning of it, Woody Allen himself tells us about it, and what is funny, is that we follow the plot very carefully, as if it were a normal movie. Even if it's not a normal movie with a plot and characters organized very methodically, we watch it as if it was, because that's the way we see a movie/a story: we have to follow something and to create meaning out of it. Reading/watching a story is to actively interpret and solution the disjunctions of the narrative, as the plot goes on. 

That's why in the middle of the movie I was so puzzled trying to understand and to make sense out of the original one, saying things like "I don't know what could make more sense in this movie than this Allen's version". I was not supposed to catch everything about the original movie, but surely I should be able to understand a little bit about it, because of the images and everything, nevertheless, it was not possible to detach the meaning that Woody Allen gave to it, the movie was finally Allen's work. Out of the work of Woody Allen in the movie, I can't find any meaning.

And because of that, even a senseless plot like "trying to catch the best egg salad recipe" makes sense after all, because I'm making sense out of it, I'm providing the explanations for this while feeling the gaps Woody provided me to. Amazingly, it's a delicious work and imaginative people will get crazy. Think about it: a work  of creation gave life to a Japanese flick, so a creative director created a new version with new lines, and now the audience - you - can finish the work of art with your participation: that's amazing, that's freedom, that's really all about Reception Theory.

All I have to say is: a very good movie. Very funny, non-sense, out of what is expected.

References: ISER, Wolfgang, The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett. (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974)

1965 - What's New Pussycat

Hello,

This is just a blog I'm trying to write, as all the things I've written these past years, it's just an attempt. What happens is that a friend of mine loves Woody Allen's movies and my sister has been watching to some of them, I've just watched - because she asked so - to Vicky Cristina Barcelona. It made me think, it was a nice and beautiful movie. Since last year I've been watching more movies than I normally do, but most of them are horror flicks. I'm in love with incredibly good movie directors such as Cronenberg, Argento and Lynch; right now, I'm trying to watch all of their movies. I don't want to watch Lynch's Dune since sci-fi is not my kind of movie, so, if we don't count this one, I've watched all the movies that Lynch has directed, from those old exercises to things I had to search on the internet for weeks. Just love him.

I was watching Argento's things too, I've left some (4), and one or two I don't want to watch. I got pretty lazy of watching movies that last more than the traditional 1 hour and 30 minutes. Some Argento's movies last more than two hours. After having watched La sindrome di Stendhal (1996), which is of course a good movie, I've got fed up. I have to go on watching his movies but I need to take some rest before doing it.

I'm watching Cronenberg also, wonderful movie director. I've just watched Crash (1996) and it's wonderful. 

But while I watch Cronenberg and Argento, I'm watching the movies from my list, that everlasting list of movies that I've created last year. It's always getting bigger but I can't complain: watching movies is a nice way to relax from daily life, and horror movies are so far from reality that they're just perfect to this function. But, as I was saying, there's Woody Allen. After having lots of people telling me I should watch him, I've decided to download a huge torrent with all of his movies and said myself that I would start from the beginning when everything got here. And it finally happened some days ago and I think now it's time to start watching them. Well, the first one is this What's New Pussycat from 1965.

In fact, it's not directed by Woody Allen, he made the screenplay, which is wonderful. The movie is sweetly funny. It's a story of a playboy who refuses to settle down with the girl he loves. There's a psychoanalyst which makes the movie worth. I'm reading right now at IMDB that Woody Allen got so frustrated with the director's version of his screenplay that he decided to direct himself his next movies. That's nice.

The movie depicts, in my view, how people behave towards relationship in a time when the roles of males and females are being put into discussion. It exposes very independent and liberal women in 1965, and how men feel insecure when they have to deal with these new women. The first contraceptive pills were approved in the USA in 1960, so it's totally clear how women as shown in the movie are so strong and sexually active. At the same time, they seem quite not ready for men's harassment.

When the character Carole, which is the girlfriend of the main character, acts the same way as him (spending the night with someone else) he cannot admit it. At the same time, he wants to have the most of girls that he can for the most of the time. This movie depicts men and women that are not prepared to deal with each other after sexual liberation. They don't know how to maintain a relationship since they can have more partners than before; they don't know how to deal with relationship: if they should have sex before it, if they should live together or if they may marry as the religious tradition demands.

Woody Allen appears in the movie as well, he is Victor. He loves Carole but Carole loves Michael. Victor is more a nerd, he is not like Michael, a playboy, that dances well, has money, a good car and everything.

The last 20 minutes of movie are totally crazy!

Well, if science can give people a better life, it can, at the same time, make their problems grow bigger. I liked the movie pretty much, I hope people watch it. See you later.