The Purple Rose of Cairo
It’s about damn time I started to watch more of Woody Allen’s classic films. And in many ways, it’s fitting that I “start” with “The Purple Rose of Cairo.” (I put “start” in quotes because I have seen his Best Picture winner, “Annie Hall,” but it’s been a while, and this is the first film of his pre-’90s work I’ve seen since then.)
Have you ever just watched a movie, and wanted to just interact with the characters? I’m sure most of us have. However, I don’t know that we’d ever expect something like a character singling us out of an audience, and coming out of the screen, the way Tom Baxter, the explorer in the movie-within-a-movie who enters 1930s New Jersey, does in Allen’s wonderful comedic fantasy.
Set during the Great Depression, the film starts as Cecilia (Mia Farrow) is working with her sister at a local restaurant. She’s not very good at the job, but it’s work, even if the money ends up going to her dead-beat husband (Danny Aiello), who treats her terribly. Her escape is the local movie house, and the movie that’s playing there, a romantic comedy called…”The Purple Rose of Cairo.” It looks like the typical tripe from that era, but Cecilia is spellbound, especially with the character of Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels), a handsome adventurer who is brought to New York by some wealthy socialites. After she gets fired from the restaurant, she spends the day watching the movie, which catches the eye of Baxter, who falls in love with Cecilia, and leaves the screen. The other characters have no idea what to do, and when the studio finds out, they’re at a loss, and start damage control. Meanwhile, Tom is learning that the real world isn’t all its cracked up to be.
If the story sounds familiar, it’s because the basic premise isn’t really new. What Allen is doing is riffing on Buster Keaton’s silent classic, “Sherlock Jr.” (which some readers will know, is my favorite movie of all-time), although Allen’s premise was later riffed on the notorious flop, “The Last Action Hero.” Allen did it better…well, better than the makers of that Schwarzenegger turd. Watching it less than a year after Woody Allen’s latest artistic fantasy, 2011’s “Midnight in Paris,” I’m in awe of the joy and imagination Allen is capable of as a filmmaker. This is just a delightful film, especially for someone who is hopelessly, passionately, in love with the art form, and wants to bring his own passion to his personal endeavors in film.
It feels like a crime to say too much about this movie; it’s one of those movies where the surprises it has in store are many, and marvelous. I think the thing I marveled the most at was how Allen writes the characters in the movie-within-a-movie; they are profoundly aware of their state of being, and it’s a wicked riot watching them, completely unsure of how to proceed, even though they all agree that Tom is an “insignificant” character, although by his ability to stop the movie dead in its tracks, it’s obvious he’s more significant than they admit. And watching Tom have an existential debate with Gil Shepard (also Daniels), the actor who played him in the movie, and has come to Jersey to try and salvage his career, is a blast of comedic inspiration, the likes of which I hadn’t seen in any Allen film until “Midnight in Paris.”
Unfortunately for Cecilia, real life is never as simple as it is in the movies. Still, the movies will always be there for us in the end, if we need a place to get away from the pain of life, and allow us to dream while we’re awake. And that’s the note that Allen sounds at the end of his beautiful love letter to film, one of the most touching I’ve ever seen.
