Shadows and Fog | | Cast : | Woody Allen, Mia Farrow | | Director : | Woody Allen | | Studio : | MGM/UA Video | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Black & White | | Released Date : | March 20, 1992 | | DVD Released Date : | June 05, 2001 | | Language : | Spanish (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | July 28, 2005 | | Summary | Shadows And Fog | Content
 | This is one of Woody Allen's best and most intriguing. I loved that it was in black and white. It was so off the usual beaten path for Allen, and I loved it because of that. |
| Rating | | | Date | June 25, 2005 | | Summary | A Nice Film | Content
| I'm not a big fan of Woody Allen's more recent films, but this one isn't bad. Allen goes back to re-creating his trademark witty, nervous, and self-identifying character, but the environment around him is atypical of any Allen film I've seen thus far. It's an interesting blend of classic and contemporary Allen.
The film is not even close to being as funny as some of his older films, but the scene where he hides in his ex-fiance's house is reminiscent of those days. Still, the film is very watchable, and upon renting it, I found it impossible to resist watching it a second time. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 03, 2005 | | Summary | Creepy Lighting, Funny Script | Content
| Woody Allen's tribute to German expressionism is better than most critics would have you believe. Sure there is very little plot to speak of, it's more a series of vignettes and gags than a cohesive narrative. Sure, it ends rather abruptly, never solving the mystery, but none of this stopped my thorough enjoyment of this film.
As the title suggests the entire movie is designed in shadows and fog. Shot with beautiful black and white photography, Allen and cinemetographer Carlo Di Palma create the look and feel of an unnamed East European city as seen in such films as M and Nosferatu. The lighting is set up so that in nearly every shot underlying shadows engulf the scene. In the exteriors a vicious fog rolls across the night sky obscuring most details. Through the fog bumbles Kleinman (Allen is his typical neurotic schmuck role) trying to find his role in a vigilante mob's plan to stop a serial killer roaming the streets. From dark night until dawn, Kleinman wanders from place to place meeting a wide variety of curious characters (played by an even more curious group of celebrities), the most endearing of which is a desperate sword swallower (Mia Farrow)who is has wandered into a brothel after fleeing her cheating boyfriend/clown (John Malcovich).
It is a little unsettling to watch Allen do his normal schtick while the characters around him are murdered, subjected to racial prejudice, beaten by the police and discuss such subjects as love, sex, and meaning. There is a subtext involving the plight of the Jews between the World Wars, foreshadowing the Nazis. Yet the gags remain as solid as any Woody Allen film. Amongst the seriousness of his subtext and the films he is paying homage to, Allen finds away to bring full bellied laughter. Though his quirky neurosis isn't as resolutely hilarious as it is in such films as Annie Hall, it is still enough to fill the film with mirth.
The film ends rather abruptly with Kleinman having never learned his role in the plan, nor the killer having been caught. Yet as the credits role we realize the mystery was not so much the reason behind the story as method in creating it.
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| Rating | | | Date | April 02, 2005 | | Summary | Light satire of a dark theme. Great atmosphere. Rewatchable | Content
| `A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy' and `Shadows and Fog' are two of Woody Allen's `second tier movies, less highly regarded than `Annie Hall', `Manhattan', and `Hannah and Her Sisters', but nonetheless a great pleasure to watch over and over again for anyone who has a taste for Allen's movies. The fact that Allen's movies, even these parodies of classic works and genres are primarily about characters and their personalities, passions, and foibles rather than about story, so you don't loose the primary reason for watching the movie as you do when you watch `The Maltese Falcon' or `Die Hard' or even `The Terminator' for the first time. I have seen both of these movies several times and I constantly find new pleasures in the dialogue.
Aside from their both being genre parodies, both movies share several other aspects, not the least of which is Allen's usual well oiled crew plus great `visiting' Director of Photography. I am constantly amazed at the consistently high level of quality in the filming of Allen's movies, since he has a great reputation for bringing his works in within schedule and under budget. Part of his economy is probably due to the fact that while Allen as director is not in the same league as Martin Scorsese or even Clint Eastwood, lots of actors drop what they are doing to be able to appear in the next Woody Allen film. And, they probably appear for a lot less money than they would for Marty or Clint. I also sense in some scenes that Allen lets little flubs go to the final print which Scorsese, for example, would reshoot until it was perfect.
The casts on these two films are fairly evenly balanced between Allen's ever evolving stock company with Mia Farrow appearing in both films along with Allen regulars Tony Roberts in `Midsummer's Night' and `David Ogden Stiers' and Wallace Shawn appearing in `Shadows and Fog'. Since the latter movie has a much larger cast, it is liberally peppered with currently famous or near famous actors giving cameo appearances such as Kathy Bates, John Cusack, Jodie Foster, Fred Gwynne, Julie Kavner, Madonna, Kate Nelligan, Donald Pleasance, Lily Tomlin, Kenneth Mars, William H. Macy, and John C. Reilly. John Malkovich contributes an excellent performance as the second most important male character in the movie.
The 1982 `A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy' is certainly the lighter of the two as a parody on the theme of `A Midsummer Night's Dream'. Allan borrows Shakespeare's romantic mix-ups plot element on top of the idyllic forest venue to bring together two guest couples to the country home of Allen and Steenburgen. Jose Ferrer plays a polymath professor brother to Steenburgen's character. Ferrer is to marry Mia Farrow, many years his junior, on that Sunday at the country house. Tony Roberts plays a randy bachelor doctor brother to Allan's character. Hagerty is Roberts' office nurse of five weeks who comes along fully expecting a weekend of erotic experiences with her boss. It turns out that Allen knows Farrow and the romantic mix-ups take off from there.
The 1992 `Shadows and Fog' is an intentionally heavy parody of a mix of German impressionistic movies and Franz Kafka story lines with what seems like a cast of hundreds. It all takes place in what seems like pre-World War I Vienna, Berlin, or Prague or some other central European Germanic city. At the outset, it seems like a remake of the German film `M' starring the young Peter Lorre as a murderer. Unlike the `...Sex Comedy', the plot is much more involved. The first line involves Allen as a Kafkaesque cipher awakened in the middle of the night by a crowd of vigilantes with a plan to find a killer roaming the fog laden nighttime streets. The driving force of the plot involving Allen and the mob is that the vigilantes never tell Allen what his role is to be in this plan. They assume he knows his part and are irritated to the point of violence when Allen questions what it is he is supposed to be doing. The second major plot involves a dispute between circus performers Farrow (sword swallower) and Malkovich (clown) which breaks open when Malkovich is caught in a rendezvous with trapeze artist Madonna, the wife of the sleeping strongman. Allen and Farrow meet about half way through the film that brings Allen back to the circus after Farrow does a stint in a whorehouse and Allen comes close to being accused of being the murderer.
Both movies are primarily comedies, yet the humor in the first movie is based more firmly in the situation. The humor in the second movie seems to be more a relief from the perils faced by the two main characters. Although, the image of the positive side of having sex with a sword swallower is a very nice gag created by the characters' situations. On the other side of the coin, `Shadows and Fog' seems to have deeper observations about the human condition. Since I seem to be noticing some of these lines for the first time, after several viewings over the last 14 years, I feel even stronger about the durability of Allen's films.
Allen has always been a master of making very good use of familiar music in his movies. All the `incidental' music in `Midsummer Night' is from the works of Mendelsohn, including the music he composed for Shakespeare'' play to be performed in German. The music in `Shadows and Fog' is almost all taken from instrumental performances of works by Kurt Weill, primarily from `The Threepenny Opera' and the song `Whiskey Bar'.
Since I am a long time fan of Allen's movies, the only thing which disappoints me about these and all other of his DVDs is the fact that there is no director's commentary. This makes the difference between four and five stars for the DVD.
Recommended to any fans of Allen or comedy in general.
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| Rating | | | Date | March 24, 2005 | | Summary | Not a Shadow of Doubt . . . about this movie | Content
| Some people, including the "official" Amazon critic, have panned this movie. They say it is formless, pointless, and ineffective. I think it is wonderful, if not brilliant. In fact, its brilliance may be attested to by how many miss its form, point, and effect. As any architect can tell you, form follows function. The function of this film is to personify/embody/symbolize the challenges to deciphering the meaning of life. When it comes to such deciphering, we are all "in a fog." As Allen's character, Max Kleinman, himself says, "Theories. That's all I hear all night, theories and questions."
Max Kleinman ("klein" means small in German, so Allen's character may be small man/everyman "to the max") is awakened from a "deep sleep" to join in a plan to capture a killer who stalks by night. However, Max continually mutters that he knows neither the plan nor his part in it. Still, trying to discern both, he co-operates as best he can with those who have roused him from his deep sleep. About midway through the movie (think of how Dante begins the "Inferno" in his "Divine Comedy"), Max plaintively says he has been wandering around all night in the fog. Duh!
Mia Farrow, who works for the circus as a sword swallower, believes the lies her husband (a clown) tells her. When she eventually meets prostitutes at a brothel, she is (teasingly) informed that sword swallowing is the specialty of one of the employees there. Later, Max explains that Farrow's lack of perception is due to her having swallowed too many swords -- and other things. These interpretations of "swallow" alone should clue us in to the many levels on which Allen is working in this movie.
In that same brothel, for example, Max says he has never "paid" for sex. One of the prostitutes (laughing) replies that he just thinks he hasn't. Hmmmm . . . what could that mean? (In a related matter, one of the Amazon reviewers of the Fellini film "The White Sheik" says that the word "pay" in that movie may also have double meanings.)
And so it goes.
The sets are marvelous, the mood is consistent, and Allen is the perfect bumbling, intimidated (he calls his boss "Your Majesty"), nervous, and uncertain thread that weaves its way through this movie.
The movie ends at the circus, where the closing lines of the magaician/illusionist are stunningly appropriate.
"Shadows and Fog" humorously, charmingly, craftily entertains our imagination as it engages and provokes our thoughts.
I give this song a 95: it's got good lyrics, but not everyone can dance to its beat. |
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