Mighty Aphrodite
by Woody Allen
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Actor: Donald Symington, F. Murray Abraham, Helena Bonham Carter, Mira Sorvino, Woody AllenDirector: Woody Allen
Writer: Woody Allen
Producer: Charles H. Joffe
Producer: Helen Robin
Producer: J.E. Beaucaire
Producer: Jack Rollins
Producer: Jean Doumanian
Producer: Letty Aronson
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 95 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1999-05-18
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Miramax
DVD Reviews of Mighty Aphrodite
DVD Review: Oedipus, Schmoedipus
Summary: 3 Stars
Mighty Aphrodite (1995) won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for Mira Sorvino, and a nomination for Best Original Screenplay for Woody Allen. Sorvino, the Harvard educated daughter of actor Paul Sorvino, plays a squeaky-voiced, potty mouth hooker. Her character is none too bright, and though she aspires to be an actress, and has appeared in several pornographic films, she is terrible. Somewhat of a stretch, considering that Mira Sorvino is an Academy Award winner, and she graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in East Asian Studies. While at Harvard, she helped found the Harvard-Radcliffe Veritones, one of Harvard's premier co-ed a cappella groups, not to mention spending a year of study in Beijing. She is fluent in Mandarin Chinese, and also speaks French. The Oscar win is even more impressive when you consider that she was up against Elisabeth Shue. Shue starred as a prostitute in the 1995 film Leaving Las Vegas with Nicolas Cage. Cage won his Oscar, but I guess they liked Sorvino's hooker better. Perhaps because her film had a happy ending? Even if they did employ the 'deux ex machina' to achieve it. I compare her win to Alan Arkin's for his potty mouthed but loveable grandpa in Little Miss Sunshine. Though Sorvino's character, Linda Ash, wasn't too bright, she had a kind of Gracie Allen grace and logic. Like when sportswriter Lenny Weinrib (Woody Allen) asks her if she is ever worried that one of her clients will kill her, she replies that she always makes them pay in advance.
The plot of this movie is sportswriter Lenny Weinrib (Woody Allen) is married to art gallery owner Amanda (Helena Bonham Carter). She decides that she wants to adopt a child, and although reluctant at first, they do, and Lenny is thrilled with the results. Max Weinrib turns out to be such a wonderful kid that Lenny wonders who the really parents are, thinking they must be brilliant. He is obsessed with finding them, and does discover that Linda Ash is Max's biological mother. She is not the Mighty Aphrodite he expected, but once he gets to know her, he gets involved in helping her leave the oldest profession behind for a better life as wife, mother, and hairdresser.
The gimmick of this flick is the insertion of a whole Greek Chorus to comment on, question, and decry his choices. The juxtaposition of the ancient and modern is the source of much of the film's humor. At one point they want to call on Zeus for help, but get his answering machine. Another time they advise him, "Lenny, don't be a schmuck!" They really went all out, flying the Chorus to Italy to film scenes in actual Roman ruins. F. Murray Abraham is the Chorus leader; Jack Warden is Tiresias; David Ogden Stiers is Laius; and Olympia Dukakis is Jocasta. Olympia Dukakis! You can't get much Greeker than that.
Chorus: [referring to Oedipus] Look, here's a man who killed his father and slept with his mother.
Jocasta: [(Oedipus' mother)] I hate to tell you what they call my son in Harlem.
The parallel to Oedipus is that he was a man who also wanted to know who his real parents were--with disastrous results. But the main reason for this theatrical device is merely to show the inner voices that dialogue in Lenny Weinrib's head. They admonish him not to meddle, and predict disaster, yet he goes ahead anyway, and in spite of their dire warnings, everything seems to work out
What should have been the main story--the break down of his marriage and his wife's affair with Jerry Bender (Peter Weller) is more of an after thought. Jerry Bender would make a much better match for Amanda, and Woody/Lenny barely puts up a fight. Though only in a few scenes, I was curious about Jerry Bender/Peter Weller. Though best known as the title characters in Robocop and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, Weller holds a Masters Degree in Roman and Renaissance art, and is an occasional lecturer at Syracuse University on the subjects of Hollywood and the Roman Empire. Weller's favorite musician is Miles Davis and he occasionally plays in a jazz band with Buckaroo Banzai costar Jeff Goldblum. Heck, he would be a better match for Mira Sorvino, even. The fact that his name is so similar to his character's name makes me wonder.
In a 2005 interview with "Vanity Fair", Woody Allen stated that even after their bitter and much-publicized breakup, he considered casting Mia Farrow as his wife Amanda, saying that he believed she would be the best actress for the role. In response to this, his casting director Juliet Taylor replied, "What, are you nuts?"
Though the role of Jerry Bender was practically a cameo, there are a few other actual cameos that I'd like to mention:
Paul Giamatti is effective as an Extras Guild Researcher, long before Sideways, and makes the most of his 15 seconds of screen time. Tony Sirico plays a Boxing Trainer, familiar from The Sopranos, and lately, Denny's commercials. One last cameo that wasn't credited, but I suspect, is Dick Hyman was playing the piano at one of the posh Manhattan parties Lenny and Amanda attended.
Dick Hyman (I'll bet they teased him about his name a lot in Junior High) has served as composer/arranger/conductor/pianist for the Woody Allen films Zelig, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Broadway Danny Rose, Stardust Memories, Hannah and Her Sisters, Radio Days, Bullets Over Broadway, Mighty Aphrodite, Everyone Says "I Love You", Sweet and Lowdown, The Curse Of The Jade Scorpion and Melinda and Melinda. He has been music director of the production The Movie Music of Woody Allen, which premiered at the Hollywood Bowl. The Greek Chorus gave Hyman the opportunity to arrange a fantastic a capella arrangement of Cole Porter's "You Do Something to Me" for them in the movie's love scene.
Sophocles, The Oedipus Cycle: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone: If you want to bone up on your Greek tragedies, here is a good place to start.
Euripides V: Electra, The Phoenician Women, The Bacchae (The Complete Greek Tragedies): The Bacchae, by Euripides also features the character of blind soothsayer, Tiresias.
Aeschylus: Seven Against Thebes (Duckworth Comapnins to Greek and Roman Tragedy): Tiresias also appears in this little ditty by Aeschylus.
Iliad and Odyssey boxed set: Tiresias also appears in blind Greek bard Homer's epic tales to give advice to Ulysses.
The Divine Comedy (The Inferno, The Purgatorio, and The Paradiso): In The Divine Comedy (Inferno, Canto XX), Dante sees Tiresias in the fourth pit of the eighth circle of Hell (the circle is for perpetrators of fraud and the fourth pit being the location for soothsayers or diviners.)
Complete Works of Alfred Lord Tennyson. (100+ Works) FREE Author's biography and poems in the trial version: "Tiresias" is the title of a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson.
The Waste Land: A Facsimile and Transcript of the Original Drafts Including the Annotations of Ezra Pound: Tiresias is an integral voice in T. S. Eliot's poem, The Waste Land.
Joyce: Ulysses (Landmarks of World Literature (New)): This work by James Joyce is said to parallel the Odyssey by Homer.
O Brother, Where Art Thou?: During the opening scenes of O Brother Where Art Thou, a derivative of Odyssey, Tiresias is introduced as an old black man on a railroad handcar. Although when asked his name he states "I have no name."
All the Right Changes: Pianist Dick Hyman is a master of many musical styles, from early to modern jazz. No wonder Woody Allen uses him so frequently. If you want to consult an authority on chord changes, try this or other books by Dick Hyman.
Description of Mighty Aphrodite
Mira Sorvino won an Oscar for her performance as a bubbleheaded hooker and porn star who happens to be the mother of a bright young boy adopted by a Manhattan couple (Woody Allen and Helena Bonham Carter). The story finds Allen's sportswriter character becoming curious about the identity of his son's biological mom, and he strikes up a relationship with her without revealing why. This 27th feature written and directed by Allen is a nice combination of smart comedy and some of the wackier energy of his earliest movies. (Between scenes, there's a running gag involving a Greek chorus--actually filmed among some real Greek ruins--who do song-and-dance interpretations of the script's events.) This isn't Allen at his best, but it is a fine minor work graced by Sorvino's spin on the cinema's archetypal dumb blonde. --Tom KeoghBestsellers in DVD
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