Each August my elder granddaughter, who lives in London,
comes to visit me—one of my life's blessings. We're both aficionados of Woody Allen, so for the past two Augusts
we've had the pleasure of going together to see a new film by him:
"Midnight in Paris" in 2011 and "To Rome With Love" this
year. Each is a fine contribution
to Allen's oeuvre. (How amazing that he has written and directed more than
forty films in as many years!) Most feel that Paris is better, however, counting Rome as merely an entertaining trifle. So did I at first, but now I've changed
my mind. Rome has stuck in my mind longer, and I keep on seeing
more in it, perhaps more than is really there.
Both movies are about nostalgia, a specialty of
Allen's. In Paris, the nostalgia is Allen's hallmark longing for an
era that peaked in 1920s Paris, even before he was born, and was embodied in
the film in such characters as Cole Porter, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott
Fitzgerald. In Rome, it is "Ozymandias melancholia," a theme
announced early by one of the characters (John)—a meditation on fame gorgeously
set in that Eternal City of wondrous Ozymandias-like ruins. The philosophical
nature of that meditation, even (or especially) as set off against Allen's
usual zaniness, is what on reflection made me revise my initial reaction.
You may not want to read the following comments if you've
not seen the movie and don't like spoilers.
In Rome, Allen plays
a just-retired, not-so-successful opera impresario (Jerry), who is depressed
about his recent retirement, with the eventual death it foretells. (Fear of death is a constant theme of
Allen's. One cannot help thinking
of his quip that he doesn't seek immortality through his works, only by not dying.) Jerry's daughter is engaged to an
Italian youth, whose father (Giancarlo) is, appropriately, a mortician. On visiting his daughter's future
in-laws with his wife, Jerry discovers that Giancarlo has a superb operatic
voice, which—it turns out—only reaches its fullness in the shower. The wheels start turning in Jerry's
mind, and they result in his madcap production of Pagliacci, with Giancarlo singing the lead role of Canio
whilst in a shower. (Significant,
I think, that Allen—the professional clown—should choose Pagliacci.
Certainly, he must often have suffered the angst of Canio's most famous
aria "Vesti la giubba": no matter what anguish the clown may suffer,
it must be turned into jest.)
That is just one of four subplots. In another, an ordinary clerk (Leopoldo) suddenly and for no
reason becomes a darling of the paparazzi, achieving meteoric fame. To his amazement and exasperation, they
pursue him for a brief season, demanding of him such minutiae as whether he
wears briefs or boxer shorts and shaves before or after breakfast. Just as
suddenly, the paparazzi desert Leopoldo for another unknown. (This subplot is a delightful putdown
of the celebrity media, which must plague Allen with their inanity.)
A third subplot has a fledgling American architect (Jack)
living in Rome with his girlfriend.
He dreams of designing magnificent buildings, but is being drawn into a
potentially destructive affair with his girlfriend's best friend, a bit-part actress. John, the character visiting Rome in the
throes of Ozymandias melancholia, is reliving his earlier days there when he
too was an aspiring young architect with dreams of pathmaking designs; he
apparently then had an affair that was
destructive, which may have led to his selling out to achieve fame by designing
only shopping malls. John becomes
Jack's Jiminy Cricket, materializing at times to warn Jack of the perils he
faces.
The final subplot involves a country bumpkin (Antonio), who
is in Rome to meet his rich
uncles, into whose firm he is being recruited. Through sexual misadventures separately involving him and
his wife, his chances are undermined, but bring the fame he seeks into a new
light.
What is the thread connecting the four subplots? Of course, as limned by the Ozymandias
theme, it is the transience, randomness and futility of fame. Each character reacts differently to
it. Jerry yearns for another shot
at the prize. His protégé
Giancarlo at first wanted none of it, is momentarily seduced, then feels he has
achieved all of it that he needs when he is hailed as a new Caruso for his
Palliacci performance (while Jerry is panned as an imbecile for using the
shower device). Leopoldo is at
first discombobulated by prominence, misses it when it is gone, then rejoices
in returning to his former life as a drudging paterfamilias. Jack,
having almost jettisoned his chance at his dream by his seductress, is saved by
her tossing him over when an acting part she craves is offered her—her own
chance at fame. Antonio realizes
that he doesn't want any part of the big city, just to return to the country
with his wife to raise a family.
Elusive, seductive, disconcerting, destructive, sought
after, basked in, run from, ephemeral—those are the multiple facets of fame's
diamond explored by the movie.
Allen gets us to laugh at all of them, yet unjudgmentally shows us the
humanity in each. In an aside,
through the mouth of one of the characters, Allen adds his own perception that,
on the whole, being a celebrity is better than not being one, another theme of his throughout
his career.
A character whom I take to be a personification of the Rome
appears in just the opening and closing scenes, saying in both that he sees
everything and everyone as they make their way through life, as Rome has done
throughout the millennia. The
Eternal City reminds us that we all must eventually say, with Canio in Pagliacci, "La
commedia è finita"—the farce is over.