Shadows and Fog

`A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy' and `Shadows and Fog' are two of Woody Allen's `second tier movies, less highly regarded than `Annie Hall', `Manhattan', and `Hannah and Her Sisters', but nonetheless a great pleasure to watch over and over again for anyone who has a taste for Allen's movies. The fact that Allen's movies, even these parodies of classic works and genres are primarily about characters and their personalities, passions, and foibles rather than about story, so you don't loose the primary reason for watching the movie as you do when you watch `The Maltese Falcon' or `Die Hard' or even `The Terminator' for the first time. I have seen both of these movies several times and I constantly find new pleasures in the dialogue.Aside from their both being genre parodies, both movies share several other aspects, not the least of which is Allen's usual well oiled crew plus great `visiting' Director of Photography. I am constantly amazed at the consistently high level of quality in the filming of Allen's movies, since he has a great reputation for bringing his works in within schedule and under budget. Part of his economy is probably due to the fact that while Allen as director is not in the same league as Martin Scorsese or even Clint Eastwood, lots of actors drop what they are doing to be able to appear in the next Woody Allen film. And, they probably appear for a lot less money than they would for Marty or Clint. I also sense in some scenes that Allen lets little flubs go to the final print which Scorsese, for example, would reshoot until it was perfect.The casts on these two films are fairly evenly balanced between Allen's ever evolving stock company with Mia Farrow appearing in both films along with Allen regulars Tony Roberts in `Midsummer's Night' and `David Ogden Stiers' and Wallace Shawn appearing in `Shadows and Fog'. Since the latter movie has a much larger cast, it is liberally peppered with currently famous or near famous actors giving cameo appearances such as Kathy Bates, John Cusack, Jodie Foster, Fred Gwynne, Julie Kavner, Madonna, Kate Nelligan, Donald Pleasance, Lily Tomlin, Kenneth Mars, William H. Macy, and John C. Reilly. John Malkovich contributes an excellent performance as the second most important male character in the movie.The 1982 `A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy' is certainly the lighter of the two as a parody on the theme of `A Midsummer Night's Dream'. Allan borrows Shakespeare's romantic mix-ups plot element on top of the idyllic forest venue to bring together two guest couples to the country home of Allen and Steenburgen. Jose Ferrer plays a polymath professor brother to Steenburgen's character. Ferrer is to marry Mia Farrow, many years his junior, on that Sunday at the country house. Tony Roberts plays a randy bachelor doctor brother to Allan's character. Hagerty is Roberts' office nurse of five weeks who comes along fully expecting a weekend of erotic experiences with her boss. It turns out that Allen knows Farrow and the romantic mix-ups take off from there.The 1992 `Shadows and Fog' is an intentionally heavy parody of a mix of German impressionistic movies and Franz Kafka story lines with what seems like a cast of hundreds. It all takes place in what seems like pre-World War I Vienna, Berlin, or Prague or some other central European Germanic city. At the outset, it seems like a remake of the German film `M' starring the young Peter Lorre as a murderer. Unlike the `...Sex Comedy', the plot is much more involved. The first line involves Allen as a Kafkaesque cipher awakened in the middle of the night by a crowd of vigilantes with a plan to find a killer roaming the fog laden nighttime streets. The driving force of the plot involving Allen and the mob is that the vigilantes never tell Allen what his role is to be in this plan. They assume he knows his part and are irritated to the point of violence when Allen questions what it is he is supposed to be doing. The second major plot involves a dispute between circus performers Farrow (sword swallower) and Malkovich (clown) which breaks open when Malkovich is caught in a rendezvous with trapeze artist Madonna, the wife of the sleeping strongman. Allen and Farrow meet about half way through the film that brings Allen back to the circus after Farrow does a stint in a whorehouse and Allen comes close to being accused of being the murderer.Both movies are primarily comedies, yet the humor in the first movie is based more firmly in the situation. The humor in the second movie seems to be more a relief from the perils faced by the two main characters. Although, the image of the positive side of having sex with a sword swallower is a very nice gag created by the characters' situations. On the other side of the coin, `Shadows and Fog' seems to have deeper observations about the human condition. Since I seem to be noticing some of these lines for the first time, after several viewings over the last 14 years, I feel even stronger about the durability of Allen's films.Allen has always been a master of making very good use of familiar music in his movies. All the `incidental' music in `Midsummer Night' is from the works of Mendelsohn, including the music he composed for Shakespeare'' play to be performed in German. The music in `Shadows and Fog' is almost all taken from instrumental performances of works by Kurt Weill, primarily from `The Threepenny Opera' and the song `Whiskey Bar'.Since I am a long time fan of Allen's movies, the only thing which disappoints me about these and all other of his DVDs is the fact that there is no director's commentary. This makes the difference between four and five stars for the DVD.Recommended to any fans of Allen or comedy in general.

How far Jimmy Bond had come by the time Woody decided to give us his take on our desperate struggle to make sense out of our place in all things human. Couple Allen's impeccable writing with a cast to literally die for....Madonna, Donald Pleasence, John Cusack, John Malkovich, Kathy Bates, Lily Tomlin, Kenneth Mars (Young Frankenstein), Julie Kavner (Voice Of Marge Simpson), Jodie Foster, Kate Nelligan and his special friend of late - Mia Farrow...not to mention all the other famous faces billowing out of the fog to contribute one or two lines of dialogue along the way with Woody's comic timing and every man and woman becomes everyman right before your eyes. The plot is manifest from the first moment but the slices of existence carved out of that foggy classic Eastern European city ( I kept waiting for Harry Lime to make himself disappear) in which all this musing and bustling takes place are first rate Woody at his Film Auteur best. And yet he orchestrates all the mayhem and confusion we all feel into an incoherent philosophy that aptly applies to all of us. So grab a mirror and slip the DVD into the machine and give yourself over to all your delusions and illusions about life and let Woody et al dazzle you with the ultimate knowledge that we know nothing! NOTHING!! (Sgt. Schultz would get an honorary Doctorate here)Incidentally one of the largest sets ever constructed for a motion picture is used to great effect in this film which many Allen fans despise...the movie...not the set. A large majority of them would like to buy up all the prints and do a William Randolph Hearst on them. In fact if you want to have great fun...go to a cocktail party and start the Woody Allen ball rolling and then after the child molestation conversation has run its course insert acerbically this film into the conversation and watch the avid eagerly involved faces dry up and suck the wet from your martini. Too bad really. They just don't get it!!! They know nothing! NOTHING!!!

This is a classic and one of woody's best. This film threw people off at the time as well as today and i think i have figured it out. The main theme of the whole movie quite obviously mirrors not Fritz Lang the film noir legend (as i noticed another reviewer said)but literature's Franz Kafka.I agree there is a general homage to German cinema which can easily be confused with film noir. I feel the main tribute is definitely toward Kafka in that the main character is being asked to partake in an event with factions of people seemingly caught up in a conspiracy. If you do not understand the main theme of absurdity as used in Kafka'a The Trial then i can see how the movie would be less enjoyable and possibly confusing.In the Trial the main character is named K and he is continuously being caught up in a Plan just like Allens character.This movie set supposedly was one of the biggest indoor sets to the degree of record setting at the time which was a hard lesson learned in finance for Woody due to the film being a box office failure.This film is an experimental film and contains the only other really watchable Cuszac performance other than Bullets over Broadway.Malkovic's character is funny as well as Allens character with loads of special guests. Mitch Pileggi from the x files is even in it.I rank this in his top 10 always for being so different and original.

Woody Allen's 1991 film Shadows and Fog is undoubtedly a very intriguing film, with strong technical links back to German Expressionism, but, for me, the bold visual impression does not lift it above a relatively middling entry in Allen's diverse filmography.The film is based on Allen's single act play Death and takes the form of a Kafka-esque story with Allen playing paranoid clerk Max Kleinman, who is one of a number of suspects in a recent spate of murders taking place in a Transylvania-like landscape, beautifully filmed by one of Allen's regular cinematographer's Carlo Di Palma (best known for his work with Antonioni). As the film title suggests, the action takes place in a dark, shadowy, foggy backdrop which creates a creepy atmosphere, visually reminiscent of German Expressionist films such as those of F.W.Murnau and Fritz Lang and, more recently, the early films of David Lynch, such as Eraserhead and The Elephant Man. In Kleinman's attempts to evade his pursuing vigilante gang and to understand why he is the subject of their pursuit, he comes across Irmy (played by Mia Farrow), a sword swallower, part of a travelling circus in the area, who has deserted her erstwhile circus clown boyfriend (John Malkovich). Kleinman and Irmy embark on a series of a misadventures, including an hilarious sequence in which Irmy finds herself in the local brothel, where she is finally tempted (for $700) to sleep with John Cusack's rich and philosophical beatnik student Jack.Allen has certainly assembled an all-star cast for the film, with impressive turns by Donald Pleasance as the doctor, Lily Tomlin as one of the whores, and Allen regular Julie Kavner, as the unfortunate Alma, who Kleinman stood up at the marriage altar, for which Alma has clearly not forgiven him. Also appearing are Madonna, Jodie Foster (as another whore), John C Reilly, William H Macey, Kathy Bates and many other well-known names, but, for me, the presence of such an enormous cast merely serves to illustrate the rather disjointed nature of the film.The main themes of the film are the typical Allen preoccupations of death, God, illusion, nihilism and paranoia, with the mob scenes in pursuit of the elusive murderer also seeming to suggest potential Nazi anti-semitic elements. Allen includes some elements of fantasy, such as when he and the magician disappear into a mirror (shades here of the classic The Purple Rose Of Cairo). But overall the film does not quite work for me, and though the likes of the ever-dependable Mia Farrow put in a sterling effort, there is a shortage of audience empathy (and even high quality one-liners) which characterises Allen's classic films.Certainly worth seeing, however, for the plus points mentioned above.

Clunky, studio bound film, short of memorable dialogue or a convincing, involving plot. It's Woody Allen's homage to German expressionism (and Kafka) but Allen lacks the intellectual resources, acting ability and dramatic invention to enter into the spirit of the thing: it all feels a bit laboured, underwhelming. The creative effort has all gone into the technical side of things but the camerawork is rarely as powerful as you'd expect from such a distinguished team.And rather an embarrassing waste of John Malkovitch's considerable talents.

You need to sit nearly in the dark to see this film at its best, as a lot of it is shot in black and white in shadowy places - any reflections on the TV screen and detail will be lost. However, the film is wonderful and has a great if very unlikely plot. It feels like Allen's version of a sort of Hitchcock horror film, even having suspense, but being quite hilarious at the same time.

This film is one that stays in your mind forever after just one viewing. The claustrophobic feeling of the fog- the quirky characters passing through - the suspense of the plot line and the wonderful comedy throughout particularly from Woody Allen's character. Great film. Oh yes and John Cusack is in there too....ahem...

I'm a big Woody Allen fan so enjoyed it simply because he was starring in it. Slightly odd film though. Some great acting - John Malkovich especially. Not one I would probably watch again but glad that I have added it to my WA collection.