The Purple Rose of Cairo
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Actor: Danny Aiello, Irving Metzman, Jeff Daniels, Mia Farrow, Stephanie FarrowBrand: Sony
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; Spanish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 82 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-11-06
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
DVD Reviews of The Purple Rose of Cairo
DVD Review: Realism and the lack of it
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a very strong movie, a gem as other reviewers have said. It is Woody Allen entering the world of fantasy, mixing a very large dose of fantasy in with his reality. Characters in the movies relate directly with the audience and in one case, walk off the movie screen and into the theatre to mix with the people. Jeff Daniels of Dumb and Dumber is a small player in a film who walks right off the screen to be with the real life girl he has fallen in love with, Mia Farrow, wife of the loutish Danny Aiello, during the Depression.
Mia is frustratingly weak. She allows herself to be hit by Danny, to be cheated on and ridiculed. She is a sponge and a sap who supports a worthless taker of a husband. When his entreaties and his threats both fail to make her stay with him and continue to support him, he lets her go, knowing she won't last out there alone, knowing she'll return to him in a little while, and he's always right. So Mia is a frustrating character to root for. She never wins.
Danny isn't the most realistic character, or at least I don't think he is. In almost every one of his scenes I am left believing that his words and his behavior are not realistic. A real man wouldn't talk and act that way. Of course a real man might cheat on his wife, lie to her, smack her. I'm not disputing that. But I think every one of his scenes is poorly written and unrealistically played. Woody is dabbling, making it up as he goes along, creating a character who doesn't behave as a cheating, lying, brutish man would. Are you a sensitive enough viewer to pick that up about him and recognize the lack of realism in the lines he is given? Probably not. Most people aren't. But it's there. If you have an ear for realistic dialogue and motivation, Danny Aiello's scenes will all be jarring. His quick changes are all artificial, maybe because Woody doesn't have a feel for how a guy like that would really be. Does the fight scene and its aftermath ring true for you? If so, you don't have a feel for reality either. None of Danny's scenes are very good, and it's Woody's fault, not Danny's.
I suppose he could argue that the whole movie is a fantasy, so what am I looking for reality for. He doesn't really care about realism. He's just painting, like a French impressionist, so enjoy the ride. But I prefer some realism in my characters. Otherwise what's the point.
Still, I was debating between four stars and five, because it is an excellent movie. The reason I settled on only four isn't the lack of reality in Mia's marriage, but the dud of an ending. It didn't have to be that way. Woody didn't have to leave us with a dud ending. He thinks he did have to, I think he didn't.
Look, Mia, you are too weak and stupid, too chained to your circumstances, to do anything about your marriage or your life, and besides that, we will see to it that you don't catch a break anywhere you turn. So just live out your futile life and then die a loser and a sap.
Thank you Woody for that excellent view of life on Earth. For that, I take away one of your stars.
The strongest thing about this movie for me is the way Woody tears away the veil of reality from our present lives. I happen to agree that this world is a stage set, that there really is another, a more real world, call it Heaven, and that everything here on Earth is a stage prop. As Macbeth says, we are poor players strutting and fretting our hour upon the stage, and yes, I think this Earth is nothing but a stage to play out our dramas before we return home to reality, to our home in Heaven. So I like the way Woody strips away the illusion of reality to our lives here on Earth. I don't think Earth is "real", and if you read a modern physics book you will see that our top scientists don't either. Earth is just the view that we are set up to see, based on what we're made of. A tiny subatomic particle would pass right through the space between the atoms of the Earth and not even know a planet is here. And its reality is as "real" as ours.
Description of The Purple Rose of Cairo
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