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Mr. Pugliese
Bananas – Woody Allen
Journal # 12
Woody Allen satirizes many segments of society. Find three areas
that he satirizes and explain how he makes fun of these areas.
Journal # 13
Provide an original review of this film. What did you like?
Dislike? Would you recommend this film to others? Etc.
Woody Allen Biography
Actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright Woody Allen
redefined film comedy during the 1970s, bringing a new measure of
sophistication and personal complexity to the form. His movies -intimate meditations on recurring subjects such as art, religion, and
romance -- put a knowing, confessional spin on the anxieties of
contemporary audiences, telescoping their fears and concerns
through his own mordantly neurotic onscreen persona. Drawing universal insight from the traditions of Yiddish
humor, Allen established himself both as a comic Everyman and one of American filmmaking's true auteurs,
writing and directing features which broke with established narrative conventions and infused the screencomedy form with unprecedented substance and depth.
Born Allen Stewart Konigsberg in Brooklyn, NY, on December 1, 1935, he adopted his stage name at the age of
17, and in 1953 enrolled in New York University's film program, quickly failing the course "Motion Picture
Production" and soon dropping out of school to begin writing for comedian David Alber for the sum of 20
dollars a week. Two years later, Allen graduated to writing for television, working on the staff of the legendary
Your Show of Shows, as well as penning material for Pat Boone. During his five-year tenure in television, his
efforts won him an Emmy nomination, but like Mel Brooks, Allen found his writing career stifling, and he
eventually decided to try his hand as a standup performer. After slowly gaining a reputation on the New Yorkclub circuit, he became a frequent talk show guest and in 1964 issued his self-titled debut comedy LP.
In 1965, Allen made his film debut, writing and starring in the Clive Donner farce What's New, Pussycat?; he
also continued his standup career, but his interest in live performance was clearly waning. With 1966's What's
Up, Tiger Lily?, a puckish re-tooling of a Japanese spy thriller complete with his own story line and dubbed
English dialogue, he made his directorial debut. After appearing in the 1967 James Bond spoof Casino Royale,
his rise to fame continued when his play Don't Drink the Water was produced on Broadway. In 1969 Allen
directed two short films for a CBS television special: Cupid's Shaft, a satire of Charlie Chaplin's City Lights,
and an adaptation of Pygmalion in which he appeared as a rabbi. However, Allen's career as a filmmaker fully
took flight with the gangster send-up Take the Money and Run (1969), in which he starred, co-wrote, and
directed. His status as an auteur was further solidified with 1971's Bananas and the following year's episodic
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask). Allen next appeared in Herbert
Ross' 1972 feature Play It Again, Sam, followed by his own return to the director's chair for 1973's futuristic
comedy Sleeper. While remaining as outlandish as his previous work, 1975's period comedy Love and Death
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signaled Allen's desire for respect as a serious filmmaker; a satire of the Napoleonic wars, it included numerous
references to history, Russian culture, and movies and was clearly intended as more highbrow comedy than any
of his previous work.
Allen's breakthrough was 1977's Academy Award-winning Annie Hall; bittersweet and deeply personal, it
established a new kind of comedy -- soul-searching and sophisticated, even the film's nonlinear narrative was
experimental, with Allen's character Alvy Singer frequently turning to the camera to address the audience. A
major commercial hit as well as a critical success, Annie Hall announced a new era of intelligence and
complexity in American comedies, but Allen himself subsequently turned away from humor completely with
1978's Interiors, a brooding drama inspired by the films of his hero Ingmar Bergman. While earning a pair of
Oscar nominations, the feature received wildly mixed reviews, with many attacking Allen for selling out his
comic genius in a half-hearted bid for artistic respectability.
With 1979's Manhattan, however, Allen's comic impulses and his desire for respect met halfway, and the results
were remarkable; an autobiographical ode to his beloved New York City set against the music of George
Gershwin, the film, luminously shot in black-and-white, was widely hailed as a masterpiece, and remains his
definitive work. Its follow-up, 1980's Stardust Memories, recalled Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 in its depiction of a
filmmaker torn between his audience's desire for comedy and his own aspirations toward more fulfilling work.
Bergman -- along with William Shakespeare -- was again the inspiration behind 1982's A Midsummer Night's
Sex Comedy, the first of Allen's films to star new paramour Mia Farrow; his fascination with his own celebrity
continued with 1983's Zelig, a technical tour de force combining new material with vintage newsreel footage.
After 1984's Broadway Danny Rose, Allen mounted the superb The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), a tribute to
Buster Keaton's landmark Sherlock, Jr. The next year's brilliant Hannah and Her Sisters won favorable
comparisons to Chekhov, and earned Allen his second Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. The following year,
he released Radio Days, his most sweetly comic effort in years; however, he subsequently entered into another
Bergman-like phase, directing two back-to-back 1988 dramas -- September and Another Woman -- which failed
to find favor with audiences or critics. The penetrating Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), on the other hand,
ended the decade on a high note, scoring three Academy Award nominations.
In the 1990s, Allen settled comfortably into the role he'd begun assuming during the previous decade; working
with limited budgets, he made exactly the films he wanted to make regardless of current trends, with a steady
and dependable cult audience to keep his career successfully afloat. Both 1990's Alice and 1992's Shadows and
Fog were negligible at best, but he returned to form with Husbands and Wives, a cinéma vérité look at a
crumbling marriage. The reality of the film soon became apparent when he and Farrow suffered a very public
breakup in the wake of revelations that Allen had begun dating Farrow's adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn
(whom he later married); a bitter custody fight ensued, with Farrow alleging that Allen had molested one of
their children.
In the wake of his personal turmoil, Allen returned to filmmaking, enlisting former lover (and Annie Hall star)
Diane Keaton for 1993's Manhattan Murder Mystery. In 1994, he returned to critics' good graces with the period
comedy Bullets Over Broadway, which garnered an impressive seven Oscar nominations, while 1995's Mighty
Aphrodite scored two more Academy nods. In 1996, Allen directed his first-ever musical comedy, Everyone
Says I Love You, which found some favor with audiences and generally positive reviews from critics. However,
Deconstructing Harry followed in 1997 to vehemently mixed reviews, as did 1998's Celebrity, leading many
critics to wonder if Allen was entering another phase -- one that appeared to be decidedly mean-spirited -- in his
long and varied career.
Almost in direct response to these sentiments, Allen released a string of lighthearted films, beginning with the
critically acclaimed Sweet and Lowdown in 1999. A mock-docudrama look at a Django Reinhardt-like jazz
musician -- played to frustrating perfection by Sean Penn -- the film garnered some of Allen's best reviews in
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years, and snagged Oscar nominations for Penn and his preternaturally talented co-star Samantha Morton. After
Lowdown, Allen entered into a multi-picture deal with DreamWorks Pictures -- his most significant alliance
with a studio since his fruitful collaboration with Orion throughout the 1980s. 2000's Small Time Crooks, a
modestly scaled comedy evoking Born Yesterday and Big Deal on Madonna Street, was the first of these
pictures, enjoying a healthy run at the box office and decent reviews. Though Allen wasn't as lucky with the
noir comedy Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001) or his moviemaking farce Hollywood Ending, the latter film
opened the 2002 Cannes Film Festival and marked the first time the New York City native made a red-carpet
appearance in the south of France.
Allen's next pair of films, Anything Else and Melinda and Melinda, continued his trend of mixed-reviewed
comedies, but in 2005, he changed the setting of his work to Britain and delivered what many considered his
best film in years with the dark drama Match Point. Starring Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, the
picture netted a Oscar nomination for best original screenplay, Allen's first in nearly a decade. Perhaps hoping
she might be his lucky charm, the filmmaker cast Johansson again in the following year's so-so mystery-comedy
Scoop, and continued to explore the dark corners of the other side of the Atlantic with the star-studded
Cassandra's Dream in 2007. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
Satire
Contemporary popular usage often uses the term "satire" in a very imprecise manner. While satire often uses
caricature and parody; by no means all uses of these, and other humorous devices, are satiric.
Stephen Colbert satirizes an opinionated and self-righteous television commentator on his Comedy Central
program in the United States. Stephen Colbert’s television program The Colbert Report is instructive in the
methods of contemporary Western satire. Colbert's character is an opinionated and self-righteous commentator
who, in his TV interviews, interrupts people, points and wags his finger at them, and "unwittingly" uses every
logical fallacy known to man. In doing so, he demonstrates the principle of modern American satire: the ridicule
of the actions of politicians and other public figures by taking all their statements and purported beliefs to their
furthest (supposedly) logical conclusion, thus revealing their hypocrisy and stupidity. Other political satire
includes various political causes in the past, including the relatively successful Polish Beer-Lovers' Party and
the joke political candidate Molly the Dog.[14]
Cartoonists often use satire as well as straight humor. Garry Trudeau, whose comic strip Doonesbury has
charted and recorded many American follies for the last generation, deals with story lines such as Vietnam (and
now, Iraq), dumbed-down education, and over-eating at "McFriendly's". Trudeau exemplifies humor mixed
with criticism. Recently, one of his gay characters lamented that because he was not legally married to his
partner, he was deprived of the "exquisite agony" of experiencing a nasty and painful divorce like
heterosexuals. This, of course, satirized the claim that gay unions would denigrate the sanctity of heterosexual
marriage. Doonesbury also presents an example of how satire can cause social change. The comic strip satirized
a Florida county that had a law requiring minorities to have a passcard in the area; the law was soon repealed
with an act nicknamed the Doonesbury Act.[15]
Like some literary predecessors, many recent television "satires" contain strong elements of parody and
caricature; for instance the popular animated series The Simpsons and South Park both parody modern family
and social life by taking their assumptions to the extreme; both have led to the creation of similar series. As well
as the purely humorous effect of this sort of thing, they often strongly criticize various phenomena in politics,
economic life, religion and many other aspects of society, and thus qualify as "satirical". Due to their animated
nature, these shows can easily use images of public figures and generally have greater freedom to do so than
conventional shows using live actors.
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Bananas (1971) is the story of a New Yorker who becomes a South American rebel leader, to impress his
political activist love interest Nancy (Louise Lasser). It is typically filled with many of Woody Allen's
funny one-liners and gags.
The hero in this early comedy is a clumsy, anxiety-ridden Fielding Mellish (Woody Allen). Memorable
scenes, images, and one-liners:
- The classic opening scene is commentator Howard Cosell's coverage of a Latin-American president's
assassination for ABC's Wide World of Sports. His commentary includes: "Well, of course, you're
upset."
- As a young boy, Fielding's electric blanket electrocuted him because he was a bed-wetter.
- Fielding stole pornographic books printed in Braille and then rubbed the dirty parts with his hands.
- Fielding's job is testing products for a marketing research corporation (including a stereo headphones
coffin for Californians).
- The "execucisor" scene: Fielding tests exercise equipment (gone haywire) for busy executives who must
exercise at their desks, a tribute to Chaplin's Modern Times.
- Fielding's embarrassment when a shop dealer makes it obvious to other customers that he is purchasing
a pornographic magazine ("Hey Ralph! How much is a copy of Orgasm?").
Fielding visits a fictional Latin-American "banana republic" and eventually winds up as the head of a
rebel army, sporting Castro-like fatigues and a false red beard. As accidental leader of the tiny island
nation of San Marcos, he delivers a stuttering, outrageously inappropriate keynote speech at a high
society fundraiser:
Although the United States is, uh, a very rich country and San Marcos is a very poor one, there are a
great many things we have to offer your country in return for aid. For instance, there, uh, there are
locusts. Uh, we have more locusts than...uh, locusts of all races and creeds. These, these locusts,
incidentally, are available at popular prices. And so, by the way, are most of the women of San
Marcos...despite the tiny size of our nation, few people realize that we lead the world in hernias. They
also fail to realize that before Columbus discovered your country, he stopped in San Marcos and
contracted a disease which today can be cured with one shot of penicillin...
He is trained in first-aid treatment for snakebite, sucking out the poison, pursuing a topless woman who
tells everyone she was bitten by a snake on her breast, with everyone else in pursuit.
Rebel Fielding feeds his Latin-American revolutionary troops by going into a restaurant in the jungle
and ordering take-out, almost a thousand grilled-cheese sandwiches and beverages.
He is arrested and brought to trial for treason upon his return to the US in which he cross-examines
himself and objects to the judge: "I object your honor. This trial is a travesty. It's a travesty of a mockery
of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham. I move for a mistrial."
In the concluding scene, Howard Cosell again provides live television coverage of the play-by-play of
Fielding's honeymoon night.
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