85. Go Your Own Way &...

Lyrics

Loving you
Isn`t the right thing to do
How can I ever change things
That I feel

If I could
Maybe I`d give you my world
How can I
When you won`t take it from me

You can go your own way
Go your own way
You can call it
Another lonely day
You can go your own way
Go your own way

Tell me why
Everything turned around
Packing up,
Shacking up's all you wanna do

If I could
Baby I`d give you my world
Open up
Everything`s waiting for you

You can go your own way
Go your own way
You can call it
Another lonely day
You can go your own way
Go your own way

I have never given much thought to Fleetwood Mac. This should probably change. Despite the fact that I like a Fleetwood Mac song any time I happen to hear one, I've somehow have never felt compelled to learn more about this group, or to start seriously listening to their music. This, despite the fact that Haim, basically a modern, bit of a poor man's version of Fleetwood Mac (something they would probably admit themselves), is one of my favorite groups of this moment. Go Your Own Way is a great song that finally gave me the chance to discuss a proper Woody Allen movie. It's right away the most awkward possible one.

The Movie: Husbands and Wives (Woody Allen, 1992)

If you needed more proof that Woody Allen is a despicable human being, but a really great artist, than this is it. Husbands and Wives is a movie that should not have existed. But it does and it's brilliant. It is, aside from Juliette Lewis' unfortunate role, a perfect movie. It is one of the tightest screenplays Allen has ever written. You get the feeling that every sentence is simply perfectly calibrated to be at the right place in the movie, that there is not a word here that's superfluous, or wrongly chosen. It's why, aside from other obvious facts I''ll discuss later this is not my favorite Woody Allen. I love his (sometimes silly) digressions into philosophical discussions and absurd humor. Apart from the framing device (which I'll also discuss later) there is hardly any of that here, and what there is, is in the service of the story. The acting is also rather perfect. It seems like every gesture and every inflection by any actor but Lewis is perfectly chosen and exactly right for that moment in the movie. Judy Davis especially gives a great performance. While I am a fan of Marisa Tomei and My Cousin Vinny, I can see why people were a bit perplexed she won the Oscar that year. It should have been Davis' award. Now I've criticized Juliette Lewis twice already I must note that I've never cared much about her as an actress, but that she has no easy job here. She has the most thankless role here and when making this movie she was still a young, relatively inexperienced actress, who had to hold her own against some major actors at the absolute top of their game. 

These are also the most realistic characters Woody Allen has ever conceived of (at least out of the movies I've yet seen by him). These people have more ordinary conversations and problems than other characters in Woody Allen movies. Which makes Mia Farrow's 'We both know it's over' line perhaps the saddest line in all of Allen's filmography. I am fairly sure I would feel the same way about this had Allen and Farrow not had the same problems in real life that they had in this movie. But they did have them. I am not a fan of judging art by the personal lives of the artists (Unfortunately I would have to discard a lot of art if I did that) or of relating their work to their personal life, but in this case it is inescapable. 

First of all, it would have been completely understandable if Mia Farrow would have utterly despised Allen just for the fact that he slept with her adopted daughter and than proceeded to live with her after all was said and done. But the fact that he made this movie makes it, if possible, even worse. Farrow found out about the affair while this movie was in production. Which means that Allen was writing and filming a movie about how he (could have) hurt Farrow's feelings, while at the same time he was busy cheating on her in real life in the most horrible possible way. He was basically lying to her while hiding the lie in plain view and shoving it her face, and then showing the world how he did it. It's nearly impossible to humiliate a person more, than Allen humiliates Farrow here. 

And all of this, doesn't take into account the fact that Allen might have sexually harassed Dylan Farrow, one of Farrow's other daughters who was at that time underage. I don't know whether Allen did this or not, though I have read Dylan's now famous letter from a couple of months ago and it's hard not to believe her. Beside if even half of what she wrote is true, it is bad enough. But the public speculation about what could have happened only makes the situation worse, and won't change my opinion of Allen, which in the end doesn't matter really in this case. I already think that Woody Allen is a despicable person. But it won't change my opinion that he is a major director who has made some of the greatest films ever. Aside from that you can't ignore his films even if you would have wanted to. They are very influential and are rightly taught in media and film schools. Allen's place in history was absolutely secured when he pulled Marshall McLuhan to the screen in Annie Hall. What I want to say is that the Farrows are in a situation that is horrible for them, and will remain horrible. It may be utterly unfair, but it is the truth that Allen's movies will live on and his misdeeds will eventually be forgotten/ignored. That has always been the case with historically important people and will always be. When I eventually get to discuss Annie Hall on this blog I won't focus any more on Allen's personal, but on the awesomeness of that movie. And I will also go see Magic in the Moonlight and Allen's subsequent movies.           

As I said I don't like the public speculation about what happened between Allen and Dylan Farrow very much. But in the context of Husbands and Wives it can't be ignored. That whole movie only becomes weirder and eerier because of it. For some reason Allen has chosen to film the movie as a sort of home-movie documentary with a shaking camera. On top of this the movie is basically told in flashback by a narrator, who pieces the story together from sometimes conflicting interviews with the main characters in the movie. We sometimes are shown the characters talk to the narrator, about their experiences. It is like watching a reconstructed documentary of the disintegrated marriage of Allen and Farrow's characters, and the nearly disintegrated marriage of  the characters of Judy Davis and Sydney Pollack. But we are made aware that the characters lie, especially Woody Allen's character. Which means that what we are being shown are not necessarily the facts of what happened, but what the narrator who would be the director of this imagined documentary thinks happened based on his conversations with the characters. This is basically how a documentary about the disintegration of Allen and Farrow's real affair would probably look like. And even more awkward in retrospect is Woody Allen's choice to use jump cuts in, or between, scenes. This can be read as a signifier that time has passed between, but that we do not know what happened in that time. Something awful could have been said or done. Thus you cannot watch this movie and not be reminded that there is still much that is not known about what happened in the final days of Allen and Farrow's marriage. 

If that's not enough the roles Woody Allen wrote for himself, and for other men in this film, make Husbands and Wives even weirder. He makes clear that his character here lies to the interviewer about his desire for a (sexual) fling with his young student played by Juliette Lewis. It's visible in his acting. There is a scene in the classroom in which Woody Allen plays his character as totally consumed by lust for this young woman. And basically all the men in the movie are presented as horrible sexual predators, who would take any chance to bed a much younger woman. What makes this movie so fascinating is that Woody Allen is unapologetic in making his character utterly despicable. In the end his character tells the interviewer that he was wise enough not to have an affair with Juliette Lewis. This may be a lie, but the interviewer believes him. Thus the movie works as wish-fulfillment fantasy on three levels. First of all there is the fantasy that a young woman can fall in love with an older man, secondly the fantasy that you will be believed when you say that you did not have sex with a younger woman, and thirdly Allen's own fantasy that he is rational enough to not sleep with a younger woman, which in real life did not turn out to be true.