- Sep 22, 2013
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I want to take a special intellectual look at the sardonic but insightful Woody Allen film "Celebrity" [1998] starring Kenneth Branagh, Judy Davis, and Leo DiCaprio.
This film, arguably modeled after Frederico Fellini's equally incisive and insightful "La Dolce Vita" [1960] starring Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg, explores the psychological perspective of a jaded socialite journalist named Lee (Kenneth Branagh) as he roams for social media circle to circle while trying to put his disordered life together. As Lee questions his life's meaning, his recently estranged wife (Judy Davis) is putting her life back together (with precision and cautiousness) with her new, loving boyfriend and soon-to-be husband. We start to get the feeling that Lee has become a lonely American wanderer.
Lee meets a shallow actress (Melanie Griffith), a circle of arrogant literary and screenplay critics with his newest girlfriend (Famke Janssen), a wild and unpredictable movie star (Leo DiCaprio), and a strange and emotionally complicated young woman with whom he considers pursuing an affair.
At the end of the film, Lee confronts his old estranged wife at a widely-publicized grand opening of a hot new film. Lee is alone and somewhat dejected, while his wife is married and happy. Lee wonders what he actually learned from all his strange wanderings amidst various complicated American personalities and celebrities.
This unusually perceptive Woody Allen film invites audiences to question how we valuate other people while trying to work out personal demons of self-gratification. It also invites audiences to consider how people in America can become famous (or infamous) through natural processes of psychological alienation.
In my opinion, this under-analyzed Woody Allen film should not only be compared to Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" [1960] but also to Bryan Bertino's under-appreciated security-paranoia film "The Strangers" [2008].
How can we talk about Woody Allen's "Celebrity" [1998] in terms of the 'psychology of place?' Certainly, such a question is relevant in our modern age of territory-securities assessments (i.e., the war on Wall Street).
La Dolce Vita (Film)
Celebrity (Film)
The Strangers (Film)
This film, arguably modeled after Frederico Fellini's equally incisive and insightful "La Dolce Vita" [1960] starring Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg, explores the psychological perspective of a jaded socialite journalist named Lee (Kenneth Branagh) as he roams for social media circle to circle while trying to put his disordered life together. As Lee questions his life's meaning, his recently estranged wife (Judy Davis) is putting her life back together (with precision and cautiousness) with her new, loving boyfriend and soon-to-be husband. We start to get the feeling that Lee has become a lonely American wanderer.
Lee meets a shallow actress (Melanie Griffith), a circle of arrogant literary and screenplay critics with his newest girlfriend (Famke Janssen), a wild and unpredictable movie star (Leo DiCaprio), and a strange and emotionally complicated young woman with whom he considers pursuing an affair.
At the end of the film, Lee confronts his old estranged wife at a widely-publicized grand opening of a hot new film. Lee is alone and somewhat dejected, while his wife is married and happy. Lee wonders what he actually learned from all his strange wanderings amidst various complicated American personalities and celebrities.
This unusually perceptive Woody Allen film invites audiences to question how we valuate other people while trying to work out personal demons of self-gratification. It also invites audiences to consider how people in America can become famous (or infamous) through natural processes of psychological alienation.
In my opinion, this under-analyzed Woody Allen film should not only be compared to Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" [1960] but also to Bryan Bertino's under-appreciated security-paranoia film "The Strangers" [2008].
How can we talk about Woody Allen's "Celebrity" [1998] in terms of the 'psychology of place?' Certainly, such a question is relevant in our modern age of territory-securities assessments (i.e., the war on Wall Street).
La Dolce Vita (Film)
Celebrity (Film)
The Strangers (Film)
