I'll pause here for a moment to say this is not about Woody Allen to hopefully cut down on all the angry comments like "how can you support a child molester?" etc. Will this disclaimer do any good? Probably not, but remember I moderate all comments. This is about Annie Hall not Woody Allen.
The New York Times recently did a story about this re-boot, which you can find here.
Two young filmmakers found that Alzheimer patients sparked to old movies and experienced temporary improvement. Eventually the filmmakers decided to do a 30 minute version of ANNIE HALL casting all senior citizens. There are no plans for its release, but Woody Allen has given them his blessing and apparently the project was a huge success.
Having spent a lot of time dealing with an aging parent in a skilled nursing facility, I can instantly see the value that having a real "project" could mean to these people. Whether I ever get to see the finished product or not I give it a thumbs up.
Sometimes MAKING a motion picture is more important than the picture itself.
Photo from NY Times.
Did you name your daughter after Annie Hall?
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this, Ken. I will pass it on to my filmmaker friends.
ReplyDeleteI used to wish I could live to be 100. I didn't get to be 6` tall. I was never "popular" with the ladies. And as of yet, I'm not rich and famous. So, I figure God could throw me a bone. But, as I watch so many of my friends' parents deal with Alzheimer's and/or dementia I'm not so sure any more. And while I love ANNIE HALL, it's without question my favorite Woody Allen movie, I hope I'm long dead before I get to that point. Although a senior version of REPO MAN sounds pretty funny.
ReplyDeleteM.B.
I do recall seeing a newsmagazine feature of retirement home residents writing, producing and performing a short, about a convenience store robbery. Nice story.
ReplyDeleteGrannie Hall. Wonderful idea. My problem with Woody is not the scandal, he fell in love with someone, whats the problem? It's that he agreed to support this project on the condition that it be done in Manhattan. For fuck sake Woody take a stroll one inch outside of New York once in awhile. This guy is obsessed with a city, thats what we should be concerned about, not Soon Yi. And Woody if this movie does get released don't do that thing where you go to a Jazz club and play the sax to make it look like you don't give a fuck, show up to the premiere. I'm sure your wife will get in for half price.
ReplyDeleteI am not a therapist, but I think this is a lovely idea. I'm immediately thinking of other films. Casablanca? The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance?
ReplyDeleteThe more I think about it, however, the more I think you need to pick the scenes, rather than the entire film. (If you want to, you could splice those scenes end to end for the finale. "Ooh! I can't remember being in that scene! I should have worn mascara!" Spoken, of course, by a 98 year old man from Cleveland.)
How did the Annie Hall thing go with, say, the Easter Dinner scene?
I found it creepy and disturbing that the Alvy Singer role was played by a 95-year-old man, but the Annie role was given to a 61-year-old ingenue. Talk about robbing the hospital bed.
ReplyDeleteI guess the heart wants what the heart wants, and what the heart wants is Captopril.
I'd like to see a Senior Citizen production of "Porky's."
ReplyDeleteYour observation that "Sometimes MAKING a motion picture is more important than the picture itself." reminded me that HOW a picture is made is often more interesting than the picture itself. That's why I'm a big fan of the Blu Ray stuff behind the scenes.
ReplyDeleteVPL: It says right at the outset of the Times story that the Alvy and Annie actors are 94 and 73, respectively.
ReplyDeleteFor fuck sake Woody take a stroll one inch outside of New York once in awhile.
ReplyDeleteLike London? France? Rome?
Last night my daughter, her mother and I saw 'The Hook-Up'as part of the ANDTheatre Company's evening of shorts. Earlier this month we learned that my daughter will be attending Midwood High School in the fall. It's a highly regarded school and one she really had her heart set on going to.(It's Woody Allen's alma mater.) Tonight was a way of celebrating. We ate dinner at a nice tavern-type place on 54th street and 7th Avenue. I was interested in seeing which play,or plays, most caught my daughter's attention . The ones she enjoyed most were your play, the picnic/math play and the one set in the art museum. She also liked the picnic-corpse improv at the end . We were all impressed with the caliber of acting that we saw. The only thing she disliked was the fact she sat next to a couple of people(friends of one of the actors)who talked during the show.I was taken by the way the different writers approached their subjects. Half of the plays were about couples who have just met, the other half were couples who have known each other for some time. I liked the variety.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry that we didn't have the chance to meet before they opened the house. You were engaged in a conversation and I didn't want to interrupt. While waiting, a woman noticed my copy of 'It's Gone! ...No, Wait a Minute' and asked if I'd gotten it on Amazon for a penny. I wanted to tell her that I'd gotten it at the Strand, the legendary bookstore located at 12th street and Broadway but ended up just saying 'No'.
Art, whether it be movies or music or something else, is magic
ReplyDeleteI hope gottacook is playing the woman in the second "lobsters in the kitchen" scene.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWtgUq9mfx0&t=1m38s
VPL - I didn't make any personal comment about you, so please don't respond as if I did. Your joke would have been no better or worse if the ages had been correct. I think the actress in that scene was ideally cast in 1977, by the way, whoever she was.
ReplyDeleteSuch a great idea! So much more interesting than the usual crafts session nursing homes are infamous for. And there are so many great old movies to work with, great character stuff. I don't have a problem with their choice of movie. Allen's early stuff is classic for a reason. His later stuff ... I won't go there.
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