Match Point (Woody Allen, 2005)

Discussions of specific films and franchises.
Message
Author
User avatar
denti alligator
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:36 pm
Location: "born in heaven, raised in hell"

#26 Post by denti alligator » Sat Jan 21, 2006 6:23 pm

[quote]“Match Pointâ€

User avatar
tavernier
Joined: Sat Apr 02, 2005 7:18 pm

#27 Post by tavernier » Sat Jan 21, 2006 6:28 pm

[quote="denti alligator"][quote]“Match Pointâ€

User avatar
denti alligator
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:36 pm
Location: "born in heaven, raised in hell"

#28 Post by denti alligator » Sat Jan 21, 2006 6:33 pm

[quote="tavernier"][quote="denti alligator"][quote]“Match Pointâ€

User avatar
tavernier
Joined: Sat Apr 02, 2005 7:18 pm

#29 Post by tavernier » Sat Jan 21, 2006 6:47 pm

[quote="denti alligator"][quote="tavernier"][quote="denti alligator"][quote]“Match Pointâ€

User avatar
denti alligator
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:36 pm
Location: "born in heaven, raised in hell"

#30 Post by denti alligator » Sat Jan 21, 2006 6:48 pm

[quote]Donizetti's “L'elisir d'amourâ€

User avatar
denti alligator
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:36 pm
Location: "born in heaven, raised in hell"

#31 Post by denti alligator » Sat Jan 21, 2006 6:57 pm

Celebrity is the only Allen film I actually hate and would not watch again under any circumstances. Even the bad ones are still somewhat enjoyable, including Match Point, which I would, maybe, watch again....some day.

User avatar
tavernier
Joined: Sat Apr 02, 2005 7:18 pm

#32 Post by tavernier » Sat Jan 21, 2006 7:18 pm

denti alligator wrote:Celebrity is the only Allen film I actually hate and would not watch again under any circumstances. Even the bad ones are still somewhat enjoyable, including Match Point, which I would, maybe, watch again....some day.
I enjoyed Celebrity, although its inclusion in the 98 NYFF as the Opening Night film was a bit much. But, considering some of the other films they've chosen to open the festival, it's not that crazy.

marty

#33 Post by marty » Sun Jan 22, 2006 4:19 am

I saw Match Point almost a year ago and it still resonates with me and is easily the best film of the year for me. All the ridiculous criticism of the film mostly stems from Woody's past indiscretions. Do we have to hear another female critic lambasting Woody Allen? Get a life, bitch! If the film was directed by Ang Lee it would have been hailed a masterpiece.

User avatar
Dylan
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 9:28 pm

#34 Post by Dylan » Sun Jan 22, 2006 4:50 am

I didn't even mention "Celebrity" in my post, but yes, I have a high opinion of it.

For the record, I would consider 21 of Woody Allen's films great or better, and most of the others very good or good, and I don't think he has ever made a remotely 'bad' film, but there are a few I'm indifferent on (which only total up to "Deconstructing Harry," "Jade Scorpion," "Small Time Crooks," and "Hollywood Ending"...and even they have their moments, but they're only fair films).

All of you lucky Cannes visitors will be seeing "Scoop" over the summer, we'll likely have to wait another year. I believe someone mentioned this here, but Allen says that "Scoop" will be both his last comedy and the last film he'll have a role in. After "Scoop" is, I believe, a UK/Spain co-production set to shoot in early 2007, with Spanish actors. That sounds very cool, and I look forward to what he'll do with that.

I'm very surprised at the negative reactions for "Match Point" here. I really and honestly believe it is Allen at his artistic peak, which is very exciting and a major event, but I guess there aren't too many that share my sentiments. For me, it's as good as his best.

And yes, that Caruso/Donizetti piece is something I could listen to non-stop all day. I should get his recording of the entire opera.

Dylan

che-etienne
Joined: Mon Oct 10, 2005 1:18 pm

#35 Post by che-etienne » Sun Jan 22, 2006 10:53 am

denti alligator wrote: I agree that the Caruso recording of "Una furtiva lagrima" is really great. This is used to some effect in the film, but I can't help thinking it's his voice that's moving me, not the images in front of me. And it is. What a singer. (L'elisir d'amour is the name of the full opera in which this aria appears.)
I agree. Whilst watching the film, I came to the realization that the music was moving in of itself, and that the images were actually quite bland and immemorable. There was, however, one music cue that struck me. It was during the first lunch at Emily Mortimer's parents' mansion. When the music began, we cut to a wide shot of the garden outside the mansion as preparations are being made for a picnic. The positions of the characters, the natural sunlight, and the whole 'summer' feel of the shot reminded me of an impressonist, or post-impressionist painting. Perhaps like a Seurat. Still, that was but a single shot.

And I might add quite uncharacteristic of Allen as far as I know his work, which admittedly is very little.

User avatar
bunuelian
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 11:49 am
Location: San Diego

#36 Post by bunuelian » Fri Apr 28, 2006 1:15 am

I count this film among Woody Allen's best. I don't understand the acting criticisms at all: they seem to be based more on what Kool Keith refered to as "star struck your girl looks like donald duck" which I take to mean, in this context, that the critics are missing the forest for the trees. The lighting, framing, editing, and writing in this film is rare and special, and worth many viewings.

User avatar
devlinnn
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 3:23 am
Location: three miles from space

#37 Post by devlinnn » Fri Apr 28, 2006 9:26 pm

After an awful cinema-going experience with this one, a return at home was in order. Sadly, my doubts on plot and character the first time round were only compounded more deeply. Why the jubilation and applause?
There is no sense of drama, of people in real situations dealing with the complexities of guilt, ambition, lust and greed. If it was tuned to a coal-black comedy, the one-dimensional characters and ridiculous plotting would have worked in its favour - just. Here, one can only be reminded of better realised works on similar themes.
Woody, why didn't you play with the characters more? Make the future brother-in-law gay, or bi. Throw in an incestous romantic triangle; have the father a wife-beater who playfully teaches the art of murder in his spare time. Something! For if you are not going to play to reality (I've lived in London, and there is no way an out-of-work actor working in retail lives in the apartment Ms. Scarlett inhabits) then really turn up the drama, f*****, instead of boring us to death with paper-thin shits. Burn up the cliches to eleven, and go for the jugular, instead of hiding behind David Jones window dressing camerawork.
The cynic in me would say Woody realised his cast would not be able to handle it, and re-wrote accordingly. Oh, for a young Dirk Bogarde in the lead. But why dream - just look at Losey's The Servant to see what waters we could be swimming in.
As mentioned elsewhere, Woody's own dramatic half in Crimes and Misdemeanors covers the exact same ground in half the time (for a film over two hours, so little dramatically goes on in Match Point). The writing is far sharper, with full characters punching and sweating through the muck of dark emotions, with the cinematic skill and technique matching it all frame by frame. The glib artfulness of Match Point only proves yet again that Woody has switched off that half of his creative brain that once burned into his soul. The choice of music is as lazy (cheap public domain material, as good as it is, just outlining the budget constraints instead of playing to the films limited strengths) as the two 'detectives' solving the crime.
If only Woody would heed his own advice, for as Jude tells Gabe at the end of C&M, 'You've seen too many movies.' Dirty the hands Woody and throw it where it sticks.

User avatar
Dylan
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 9:28 pm

#38 Post by Dylan » Sat Apr 29, 2006 12:32 am

As for the "Crimes and Misdemeanors" parallels, I think "Crimes" is a masterpiece and I've seen it at least six times, but "Match Point" is an entirely different beast. I don't get very much similar from these films aside from the element of murder and the element of morality (both of which can coalesce into the Doestoyevsky influence).
Last edited by Dylan on Sat Feb 24, 2018 7:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Antoine Doinel
Joined: Sat Mar 04, 2006 1:22 pm
Location: Montreal, Quebec
Contact:

#39 Post by Antoine Doinel » Sat May 27, 2006 3:07 pm

Finally saw this today and I have to agree that is Woody Allen's best film in at least a decade if not longer. While it's themes somewhat parallel those of Crimes & Misdemeanors (which I believe to be Allen's masterpiece) Match Point is much darker and more hopeless.



SPOILERS BELOW

The final ten minutes in which we find out Chris Wilton will charged with the crime are spectacular. Here is a man who clumsily staged a murder (btw, that sequence was enthralling simply because it was hasty and unprofessional) and by sheer dumb luck escaped, and the fact that he never realizes how close he was makes the moment that much more profound. In Crimes & Misdemeanors Allen invokes the eyes of God watching over his characters, perhaps passing judgment on them, perhaps not, but Match Point is distinctly lacking a moral barometer. And that is what makes it both so enriching and so dark. Allen's view is that even though we are left to our devices in this world, even then we have so little control over the fate of our lives. The killing of the landlady only reinforces his point. Never has God been so absent from an Allen film.

I also particularly liked that Nola's pregnancy was never confirmed (and it was probably something an autopsy would've uncovered). Was she pregnant? Wasn't she? In the end it really didn't matter. A pretty brilliant and understated MacGuffin.

SPOILERS ENDED




Match Point is remarkably mature and unbelievably smart. I'm sorry you didn't like it devlinn but you seem to be criticizing Allen for the movie that he didn't make, rather than the one he did. As to the choice of music in the film, Allen has *always* used "public domain" music. It also happens to be the music he loves most. Whether or not how based in "reality" (whatever that means, since a gay, incestuous, love triangle isn't a "reality" I've known - unless I've been hanging out with the wrong people) this film is is hardly the point.

User avatar
blindside8zao
Joined: Wed Apr 06, 2005 4:31 pm
Location: Greensboro, NC

#40 Post by blindside8zao » Sat May 27, 2006 9:58 pm

Spoilers

I've only seen Annie Hall, so my review won't be negative out of my desire for a different Allen. I had heard nothing about the film's plot except for the fact that it wasn't a comedy. The first half of the movie seemed forced, like a soap. Every moment the man had to advance himself, he took it. Every second he could be alone with Scarlet, he took. There was no build. The perfect example is the ping pong advance on Scarlet that the male character makes. The first half seemed so amazingly hollow and fake that I wouldn't let my viewing partner turn the TV off, I was convinced that Allen was doing it on purpose. Realizing how much of the film was left after the pregnancy was announced, I figured some brilliance was in the working. Instead, the plot of an amazing work of literature was compressed into 45 minutes. Remembering the brilliance of the interrogation scene in Dostoevsky's novel and comparing it to the scene in the movie bothered me. From the time I realized he was going to kill Scarlet and realized the Crime and Punishment linking, the end of the movie lost its mystery. I now realize why there was no guilt and the characters were so hollow. Yet, simply being nihilistic and morally dismal doesn't make something brilliant. It certainly isn't anything new. In fact, many are convinced Dostoevsky's own works are pre-occuppied with a fear of this despite his Christian allegiances. Match Point's omission of the light ending is appropriate but not really a new sentiment. Someone commented that the message was dispensed in a wonderful way but I'm not sure I see it. I, like the other commenter, don't see how it could be considered "one of the most incandescent evocations of blossoming passion and questioning mortality" or even how it can rank in the top ten.

In short, what's the fuss?

User avatar
Antoine Doinel
Joined: Sat Mar 04, 2006 1:22 pm
Location: Montreal, Quebec
Contact:

#41 Post by Antoine Doinel » Sat May 27, 2006 11:02 pm

blindside8zao wrote:Spoilers

I've only seen Annie Hall, so my review won't be negative out of my desire for a different Allen.
Allen has an established history of making dramas, and Match Point isn't the first time he's head out in this direction, and certainly not the first to deal with moral/philosophical issues. You should really check out Crimes & Misdemeanors which is a brilliant blend of both comedy and drama.
Every moment the man had to advance himself, he took it. Every second he could be alone with Scarlet, he took. There was no build. The perfect example is the ping pong advance on Scarlet that the male character makes.
This is sort of the point. The character starts the movie by saying how much life is left to chance, when he clearly puts himself into a position in which his morality will be tested. He willingly stopped playing professional tennis. He willingly went after Scarlet. For a guy who opines that so much of life is left to luck, its amazing how willing he is to put himself into compromising positions. He's a competitor looking for a competition.
I now realize why there was no guilt and the characters were so hollow. Yet, simply being nihilistic and morally dismal doesn't make something brilliant.
I don't quite think Allen is being nihilistic so much as questioning just how much control one has over their life. The lead character made a bunch of choices that ultimately should've landed him in jail. He was keen to rely on the excuse that life is luck, and depends on which way the ball bounces, but when it came down to it, the biggest piece of luck that got him off the hook, he didn't even know about it. And he did feel guilt via the dream sequence and waking up crying, but as he explained, he chose to sweep it under the rug instead of letting it consume him. People make those kinds of choices every day. From white lies to corporate crime. Rationalization allows a lot of people to get out of bed in the morning.

I think it's brilliant because in a conventional film, the lead would've been arrested or learned a lesson, but in Allen's hands he is saved by dumb luck. In another film, someone would've found the ring, turned it into the police, his fingerprints would've been on it, and he would've been arrested. But here, he gets away with it and is left to live his life with an albatross of guilt around his neck. Allen's film may seem nihilistic, but I think it's just glaringly realistic. We live in a world where OJ Simpson gets acquitted of murder and innocent people get killed by highway snipers.

And while Scarlet and the landlady were the victims of the lead's actions, the flipside is that he keeps his wife happy, he has a newborn on the way, the rest of his in-laws are happy and prosperous and they will never know how close they were to having their lives destroyed. Match Point goes both ways - ones happiness or despair can't be preplanned. It's a bunch of factors we don't control and moreover probably never even know about.

If you've seen some more of Allen's work, particularly his dramas (followed by his weak run of '90s comedy), there was fuss around the film because Match Point not only marked a return to form, but one of Allen's best pictures of his entire career. Only with Crimes & Misdemeanors has he been in this much control, and handled the subject matter - which informs many of his films - with this much intelligence.

User avatar
blindside8zao
Joined: Wed Apr 06, 2005 4:31 pm
Location: Greensboro, NC

#42 Post by blindside8zao » Sun May 28, 2006 12:48 am

That does make the film more interesting. Almost like, he was putting himself in bad situations constantly, as if to prove to himself that he did have some control over his life in some way. One might consider the crying at the end not to be his guilt, but his anxiety over the inability to control his own life, his inability to even condemn himself through murder. I don't know if that's what you meant, but it seems to enrich it the plot for me much more. It makes the use of Crime and Punishment maybe less like a plot-ripping and more like a dialogue: Raskolnikof's own struggle to make himself a Napolean, a large cog of history.

This is the second recent film I've been upset with, perhaps wrongly. I watched History of Violence and on a second viewing I realized how much I'd missed and how textured the film is, thematically. An interesting aspect of this film and Hist. of Violence is how subtle their messages are. Perhaps Match Point wasn't too overtly subtle with its tennis ball motif, maybe I was just inept. It's nice to come here and get other opinions, occasionally.

Given the current trend of popular films it's going to make it even harder for quality cinema to make any sort of rise if one considers subtlety to be a mark of good art. The second time I saw History of Violence, it was in a campus theater. The student audience (at one point the supposedely most open and thoughtful segment of the U.S. population) laughed it off. The students of my classroom continued their conversation asking if anyone had seen Hostel or Silent Hill, yet.

User avatar
Antoine Doinel
Joined: Sat Mar 04, 2006 1:22 pm
Location: Montreal, Quebec
Contact:

#43 Post by Antoine Doinel » Mon May 29, 2006 10:03 am

I'm glad my thoughts are a bit illuminating blindside, and I think you're interpretation of the ending is pretty much what I was driving at. Match Point has so much more going on that's what on the surface.

As for A History Of Violence, it's ideas about violence/masculinity/morality were interesting but I couldn't get past the ridiculous plot, particularly the film's final third. There were also quite a few plot threads (particularly revolving around the son) that I felt were glaringly left hanging. It was all very hamfisted to me, where Match Point felt more organic. There was a palpable sense of desperation in the lead character's situation and to Allen's credit the script never sold itself out, for the easy, clean ending.

Well, when I saw A History Of Violence in the theater there was a good bit of laughter as well - the film is quite funny, twisted, but funny - but I guess it's a good thing to keep in mind that Allen didn't start exploring heavier themes until a good decade into his career (Interiors). It will be interesting to see where the current crop of young filmmakers (Wes Anderson, PT Anderson, Tarantino, Rodriguez and a good handful I'm forgetting) are in a decade. What themes - if any - they will tackle and how their energies will be directed into different scripts. How they challenge themselves and their audiences.

User avatar
blindside8zao
Joined: Wed Apr 06, 2005 4:31 pm
Location: Greensboro, NC

#44 Post by blindside8zao » Mon May 29, 2006 7:56 pm

laughter is fine at the funny parts, but I'm not sure I understand laughter during the violence and the great uproar that occurred during the oral sex and staircase sex scenes.

Noir of the Night
Joined: Mon Nov 28, 2005 8:57 pm

#45 Post by Noir of the Night » Mon May 29, 2006 8:06 pm

I had a pretty terrible audience for AHOV. They went nuts during the most graphic shots of the film. And during the sex scene on the stairs, the woman next to me (who mind you, must have been in her 40's or 50's), giggled and said "His crack." when Viggo's backside was revealed.

User avatar
sevenarts
Joined: Tue May 09, 2006 7:22 pm
Contact:

#46 Post by sevenarts » Mon May 29, 2006 10:15 pm

blindside8zao wrote:laughter is fine at the funny parts, but I'm not sure I understand laughter during the violence and the great uproar that occurred during the oral sex and staircase sex scenes.
i thought the sex scenes were unintentionally funny just because of how awkwardly they were handled. i was pretty disappointed in history; as antoine says, it raised some good issues and ideas but the handling of them was just hamfisted and distracting. a real anomaly in cronenberg's ouevre for me, since i'm a big fan of his previous work.

anyway, to keep this fairly on-topic, on the other hand i quite liked match point. didn't blow me away or anything, but it was a well-done drama with an interesting treatment of the moral issues, and i really liked the ending.

stroszeck
Joined: Tue Jun 07, 2005 10:42 pm

Re: Match Point (Woody Allen, 2005)

#47 Post by stroszeck » Mon Feb 14, 2011 9:24 pm

So I just watched the Color of Money last night, for the first time in YEARS, and just realized that Woody Allen basically ripped off Scorsese's whole intro!

Here's a comparison of the openings, BOTH include narration on luck (although Color failed to really follow through on that theme in my opinion)

The Color of Money Opening Sequence - Intro to Match Point

Can it be that Woody was inspired by a minor Scorsese work?

User avatar
hearthesilence
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
Location: NYC

Re:

#48 Post by hearthesilence » Mon May 10, 2021 10:29 pm

I finally found the Match Point thread. For some reason, when I search "match point" in topic titles, no search results will come up. I had to find this via google.
Fletch F. Fletch wrote:
Wed Nov 23, 2005 1:54 pm
Andrew Sarris loved it: http://www.nyobserver.com/culture_sarrismovies.asp
Sarris's reviews have become difficult to find on the Observer site - I wonder if they've now been wiped out? Anyway, this one can be found via archive.org but FWIW, like Owen Gleiberman, Jonathan Rosenbaum and Drew Hunt, Sarris praised Match Point as one of Allen's very best while arguing it's a better film than Crimes and Misdemeanors partly because they didn't like Crimes and Misdemeanors all that much (if at all).
Barmy wrote:
Tue Nov 29, 2005 1:22 am
I saw it tonight at Lincoln Center, preceded by an interview with WA.
Over ten years later, Lincoln Center finally posted the audio for this on one of their podcasts. It really is worth hearing, there's a lot of little bits that probably don't get reported as much. For example, he really likes Dustin Hoffman and tried to cast him in Deconstructing Harry and Hannah and Her Sisters, perhaps other films as well (the question was about a statement Allen made that Hoffman could have acted in any of his films and done a better job). However, Hoffman was never available, so it's never happened. Also, the way he communicates with his actors is highly amusing, or rather his direction. Basically, it sounds like it's 99% casting with him. That is, he finds out who's right, and once they're cast, he doesn't want to screw up their performance so he tries not to say much, even though he knows some will go home, thinking they're doing terrible because they didn't get much if any direction. (As a side note, I remember Liam Neeson laughing his ass off once because he was always done by 4 p.m. when he did Husbands and Wives due to Allen's preference for shorter shoot days - in other words, he got to have a normal life at night rather than work long hours, which is typical of film shoots. So with all this in mind, perhaps some actors thought of Allen's films as an astoundingly easy and prestigious dream gig?) It's hilarious how he deals with actors who aren't working out. He doesn't mention anyone by name, but I know he eventually fired Michael Keaton on Purple Rose of Cairo. Allen stresses that in those cases, it's his fault for miscasting, not because the actor is doing a bad job.
Last edited by hearthesilence on Mon May 10, 2021 11:00 pm, edited 2 times in total.

User avatar
DarkImbecile
Ask me about my visible cat breasts
Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2013 6:24 pm
Location: Albuquerque, NM

Re: Re:

#49 Post by DarkImbecile » Mon May 10, 2021 10:36 pm

hearthesilence wrote:
Mon May 10, 2021 10:29 pm
I finally found the Match Point thread…
For this subforum, you can always check the index

User avatar
hearthesilence
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
Location: NYC

Re: Re:

#50 Post by hearthesilence » Mon May 10, 2021 10:43 pm

marty wrote:
Sun Jan 22, 2006 4:19 am
Do we have to hear another female critic lambasting Woody Allen? Get a life, bitch!
Ugh.
DarkImbecile wrote:
Mon May 10, 2021 10:36 pm
hearthesilence wrote:
Mon May 10, 2021 10:29 pm
I finally found the Match Point thread…
For this subforum, you can always check the index
Thanks, that index thread was a blind spot as I was not aware of its existence. (I typically just search rather than go into any of the film-related forums.)

Post Reply