丹尼玫瑰

1.You know what my philosophy of life is? That it's important to have some laughs, no question about it, but you gotta suffer a little too' because, otherwise you miss the whole point to life. And that's how I feel.

2. Just let me say one thing. My uncle Sidney - lovely uncle, dead, completely - used to say three things. He used to say: Acceptance, forgiveness and love. And *that* is a philosophy of life: Acceptance, forgiveness and love.

说起小老头，从《安妮·霍尔》（Annie Hall，1977）完成电影艺术上的飞跃之后，整个80-90年代佳作频出，每隔几年就要出一部影史经典。小老头拍的电影太多，所以也有不少慢慢被人遗忘，没有获得应有的重视，比如1984年的《丹尼玫瑰》（Broadway Danny Rose），又译《百老汇的丹尼罗斯》，就是被低估的伍迪·艾伦影片之一。

影片很难归类，可以当做普通的情节喜剧，或伪人物传记片，或爱情片。讲的是一个演艺经纪人的往事。开头和结尾是不同时间的同一场景。开头，几个中年人在餐厅里谈论这位经纪人丹尼·罗斯（自然是由伍迪·艾伦扮演）的趣事，所以影片的主体部分由数个大段闪回构成，旁白则来源于其中一人的讲述。

丹尼原先是搞笑艺人，后来当了经纪人，影片讲的是给一个叫卢·卡诺瓦的歌手当经纪人的故事。但看着看着你会发现，要讲的其实是他的爱情故事。

整部影片洋溢着欢乐的意大利风情，卡诺瓦红过，丹尼要把他再次捧红，把他介绍给业界大牛一个叫米尔顿的人，安排了一场演出让米尔顿来听。这场表演至关重要，能不能红全靠它了，因此卡诺瓦非常紧张。他有一个情人叫蒂娜，米娅·法罗（Mia Farrow）饰演，刚开始一直带着墨镜，打扮很古怪，几乎认不出来。卡诺瓦一定要让蒂娜来看演出，给他精神上的鼓励。为了瞒住妻子，让丹尼假装是她的男伴。

然而当丹尼去接她时却发现他俩正在电话中吵架，这就尴尬了。蒂娜绝尘而去，跑去参加一场意大利人的婚礼，丹尼也追去了。高潮来了，这里有个意大利人正在追求蒂娜，得知蒂娜还另有恋人后打算自杀，并且把丹尼当做了她的恋人。当然是没死成，他的两个黑手党弟弟打算杀掉丹尼，为兄报仇！从这往后高潮一轮又一轮。先是在餐厅外发现了追杀者，两人跑路。丹尼表示自己是陆上希伯来人，无法坐船。在船上蒂娜回忆起她给卡诺瓦另外找了个经纪人的事，这个人也会来看当晚的演出。

在短暂的安全过后，俩人还是被黑手党抓到了，逼丹尼说出蒂娜真正的情人是谁，于是丹尼说出了一个名字……但是他说的是一个口吃的喜剧艺人的名字！他以为这人正在巡回演出，不在本地。但丹尼和蒂娜还被绑在那里，以一种滑稽的方式……丹尼突发奇想，模仿逃脱大师，以“扭扭”的方式挣脱绳索。到底他们是如何扭的，想象一下便能体会……果然成功逃脱！后来还有一场华丽的历险，就不多说了，太可笑。

总之，他们赶到了演出现场，卡诺瓦演唱大成功，丹尼也得知蒂娜和卡诺瓦计划要把自己换掉。失落的丹尼去看望了那位代替自己被暴揍的口吃艺人。

整部影片高潮迭起，笑料不断，只可惜小老头给自己安了个差强人意的美满结尾。蒂娜整日失魂落魄，意识到自己爱上了丹尼，而丹尼也对蒂娜念念不忘，于是她们在一起了。看看他们在街上说话的那一幕，像不像《安妮·霍尔》的结尾？

丹尼·罗斯显然有小老头自己的影子。伍迪·艾伦自小就有搞笑天才，15岁时就开始在一些报纸专栏上写段子，后来给广播电台写段子。中学毕业后，为电视节目编写脚本。1961年，正式成为一名喜剧演员，在格林威治村的小酒馆、夜总会和小剧场里演出，一时名声鹊起。后来开始编写舞台剧，在百老汇大获成功，之后正式走向电影，直至今日。

《丹尼玫瑰》获得奥卡斯最佳导演和最佳原创剧本两项提名，米娅·法罗凭此片获得金球奖音乐喜剧类最佳女主角提名。之后此片就再没掀起什么波澜，成为伍迪·艾伦众多优秀影片的点缀。

公众号：电影套盒（laodianyinghualang）

Allen’s ‘80s black-and-white features x 2, ZELIG is a gimmick film, a mockumentary germinated from the inventive idea of a “human chameleon”, but the real star is DP Gordon Willis’ Promethean genius of inserting characters into archival footage and the application of rendering the newly shot footage a ’20’s archival veneer, to the astonishing effect of total harmony and verisimilitude (although the one with Hitler is a bust, the actor’s resemblance is wide of the mark), and to that purpose, ZELIG is an exceptional specimen of cinematic alchemy.

Structure-wise, the whole pseudo-documentary format is devised with the full treatment, like Bob Fosse’s raw and edgy biopic LENNY (1974). Apart from punctiliously coaxed archival footage, retro-style home videos, Allen also uses real-life personages and actors (who play the fictional characters) to give their candid interviews of the subject, you almost believe what they say if the words are spoken from Susan Sontag or Saul Bellow, among other authority figures.

That said, ZELIG’s technical extraordinariness (include half a dozen coined Zelig-themed songs penned by Dick Hyman, that can surely widen your smile) cannot belie the script’s prevailing plainness and archness, it is a missed opportunity for Allen not to fully satirize and assess Zelig’s rise-and-fall in relation to the American society at large and elicit more heady reverberations.

Allen plays Leonard Zelig, a mousy, anonymous guy who can transform his appearance according to his surroundings (Allen is not equipped to show you an actual transformation process, what you get is the simple outcome, he can be black, oriental, Hebrew or corpulent, in correspondent with those who are near him), and becomes a national sensation for his inexplicable “super power”, a cash cow for his instant family, but as an individual, he is miserable and neglect, eventually Zelig’s psychological condition is cured by psychiatrist Dr. Eudora Nesbitt Fletcher (Farrow), through quite a lot psychobabble and mesmerism.

When the story heads to a romantic direction, it betrays Allen’s own limits, not everything ought to be nailed down with a man making a conquest of a woman’s heart. Plus the final trans-Atlantic aviation exploit is so far-fetched that he doesn’t even care to arrange any visual stunt to validate that cockamamie bilge. With its succinct length (79 minutes), ZELIG soars high but crash-lands with a whimper.

BROADWAY DANNY ROSE, released one year after, is about another Allenesque character, Danny Rose (Allen), a talent agent touts unpopular entertainers (balloon formers, a musician working with glasses, a stuttering ventriloquist, just to name a few). When one of his clients, a washed-up lounge singer Lou Canova (Forte, a hearty fellow) has a career revival due to the nostalgic fad, Danny needs to act as a beard of Lou’s mistress Tina Vitale (Farrow), so he can bring her to attend Lou’s big gig in the presence of Milton Berle (as himself), it could be a real breakthrough.

But Tina is not a meek kitten, and this innocuous act backfires, after unwisely go to a party of her ex-Italian lover, Tina and Danny soon are on the run from mafia hitmen. As a self-proclaimed landlocked Jew, Danny is foisted to go aboard a ship (how atrocious!), and later, he and Tina must wiggle their way out of being tied up together (who can stand the torture of upward-and-downward close movements?). But there is another hammer blow awaits Danny when they're out of harm's way, does anyone wonder why he always scrapes the barrel?

Allen is his usual gabby alter ego, you might feel amused or scream “shut up” for his persistent quotes of his Jewish relatives and his penchant for “asking permission to interject”. Against her type, Farrow smartly plays this superstitious Italian broad with forcefulness and ambivalence, plus a layer of her uncharacteristic va-va-voom. Tina is a shallow woman, in the same sense that Lou is a shallow man, but after encountering Danny, she is transformed, even sublimed by his immanent kindness and sophistication (and being the high priest of sapio-sexuality, Allen actually put the exact words into Tina’s mouth), her guilt conscience overcomes the temptation of life on easy street, she becomes a fuller human and Danny’s equal.

Here, the frame device is a gathering of several comedians (Jackie Gayle, Morty Gunty, Corbett Monica, among others) lunching at New York's Carnegie Deli, and Danny’s story is recounted as an anecdotal divertissement, Allen always has a knack of such trimmings (remember the Greek chorus in MIGHT APHRODITE, 1995), and both ZELIG and BROADWAY DANNY ROSE has style, scale, wit and profuse amity and gags in offer, they are among Allen’s most innovative works and can put you under a nostalgic spell of the halcyon days.

referential entries: Allen’s THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (1985, 8.2/10); BULLETS OVER BROADWAY (1994, 8.1/10); Bob Fosse’s LENNY (1974, 8.6/10).

Title: Zelig

Year: 1983

Country: USA

Language: English, German

Genre: Comedy

Director/Screenwriter: Woody Allen

Music: Dick Hyman

Cinematography: Gordon Willis

Editing: Susan E. Morse

Cast:

Woody Allen

Mia Farrow

Deborah Rush

Mary Louise Wilson

John Rothman

Susan Sontag

Saul Bellow

Peter McRobbie

Rating: 7.4/10

Title: Broadway Danny Rose

Year: 1984

Country: USA

Language: English

Genre: Comedy

Director/Screenwriter: Woody Allen

Music: Dick Hyman

Cinematography: Gordon Willis

Editing: Susan E. Morse

Cast:

Woody Allen

Mia Farrow

Nick Apollo Forte

Edwin Bordo

Paul Greco

Frank Renzulli

Gina DeAngeles

Herb Reynolds

Sandy Richman

Gerald Schoenfeld

Olga Barbato

David Kieserman

Sandy Baron

Corbett Monica

Jackie Gayle

Morty Gunty

Will Jordan

Howard Storm

Jack Rollins

Milton Berle

Rating: 7.5/10