Allen's View of the Impact of Film on Audience?

Woody Allen always makes a way for his movies to connect to the audience more than usual. Be it the way he breaks the 4th wall in "Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex* but were afraid to ask", or his use of familiar locations or objects like in "Sleeper". He has done the same thing again in Purple Rose of Cairo, only this time he used the actual story line for this effect. As for Anti-Americanism,I don't see it in this movie at all. I do see it in modern movies more and more. The American character is always an *beep* or causes all of the problems. He/she always seems to have a big head and never wants to listen to anyone else. Movies really do play a big part in how a lot of people look at other cultures. Just think of how most people in america look at french people, and then look at most french characters in movies. Oh, and I really like CHEETOS!!!

During the film, I was so caught up in the emotions of Cecilia that I found myself smiling with her or laughing at one of the character's jokes. I love the way that Allen portrays the reality and connections between Cecilia's life and our own, the way we can use movies to "escape": i felt lucky in comparison to her. If I'm catching the topic right, with changing the way we percieve history, I don't believe that the film does that sort of thing. Then again, I could be reading it wrong. =) Let me know if I am!

I think Allen chose the ideal setting for this picture. During the Depression, what better means of escape was there than movies? They were in expensive, and they allowed audiences to forget about their problems.

At that time, and, really, I think, up until TV became the dominant cultural touchstone (maybe some wouldn't say that it is), movies had a greater impact on how people looked at society. There are still powerful films that make a difference (maybe "An Inconvenient Truth" is one of these), but I think for the most part, films are now more a reflection of society than a true catalyst for change.

"Triumph of the Will" was borne of a particular demand for propaganda by a government. Perhaps it is much more effective than countless other pictures of the day we have mostly forgotten. Considering the stunning and disturbing imagery how could it not be? But the medium of film is, by and large, too laborious to make as immediate an impact as television or radio or even print. We didn't have to wait for "Judgment at Nuremberg", for instance, to learn of the Holocaust, or "All the President's Men" to learn of Watergate.

Perhaps I have drifted off-topic here, but I am just trying to add my $.02.

Certainly art has the ability to affect reality, it's foremost attribute being inspiration. I know a lot of people that have been inspired by various movies or television shows to enter into a certain occupational field because of a romanticized version of it they saw. But after inspiration I don't believe that film has much of a hold on reality anymore. When Triumph of the Will was initially released there was far more ignorance in people, and they had little or nothing with which to counteract or "balance" that new misguided information against. In the modern world we are educated enough (I hope) to be able to stand art up against reality and measure or filter it against fact, to sieve out the truth.

As for the article entitled Hollywood and the Spread of Anti-Americanism I don't buy it. The simple truth is that the world has grown anti-American for some very real and some very good reasons, and it doesn't require any help from any industry. A direct example of this from personal experience (which some of you here at IMDb may share) were the posts regarding just the presence of an American flag in the movie Spiderman 3. If any of you were around that board at the time of the movie's release then you know what I mean; just the slightest presence of anything pro-American and it was rage time. My recommendation isn't for America to be concerned about what Hollywood is making so much as what it is doing that's making the world turn against it. Namely braking treaties, invading countries under false pretenses, mongering fear amongst their own people, not paying other countries the money they owe them, and basically just being all around two-faced liars that no one in their right mind will ever believe again for generations. That's my advice.

So beyond some folk taking inspiration from film I don't believe it has much ability in changing perception any more, with the only exception being the unenlightened and the under-educated who simply don't have the knowledge or experience to weigh against it.

I totally think the movie is about the affect of films on us. That's what the ending meant to me - that here was a character in utter despair, but watching a Fred and Ginger movie pulled her out of herself and cheered her up. This was very personal for me, as there have been many times when I'm depressed that a Fred & Ginger movie (or other movies from that era) have cheered me up.

"You may very well think that; I couldn't possibly comment."

We can blow film off as being just entertainment, but it has the potential to cause changes in perception or even history (look at Triumph of the Will).

The impact of Triumph of the Will as propaganda is quite contentious to say the least. There is little evidence that the film made 1930s Germany more Nazi than it already was. The interest of Triumph as a film is the way the film is a distortion of truth despite posing as a documentary(and despite Leni Reifenstahl's repeated claims for it being so) and the way it shows the total insanity of the ideology it purports to glorify, making it impossible to enjoy for no one who is not a hysteric.

While this is quite blatant in a film like Adaptation (which is quite aware of this), Allen's depiction here is much more subtle...

It's poetic the way that film is prose.

"What kind of role does film play in our lives?"

It's much more complicated than that. The Purple Rose of Cairo is an exploration of the usual Hollywood film of the 30s, the values it sells as opposed to the values of the audience of it's time and then it talks about how the film takes a life on it's own like the way a "minor character" of the film becomes the main interest of the audience. Then it's also a film about performance, about acting and furthermore it's about the Depression of the 30s.

This isn't simply a film about Hollywood selling fantasies to a starving audience. That is the basic theme but the way the film plays with it is more nuanced and subtle.



"Ça va by me, madame...Ça va by me!" - The Red Shoes