It's Romance Time at Kennedy/Eglinton (well, sort of)

Spring is the traditional time for romance.  People meet, their stars collide, they fall in love and live happily ever after. Right?  Ha! Really, romance is a complicated thing. In the spring and all the seasons, for young and old alike. 

May's Movies, with Marie feature four films  with really, serious complications. 

• Hannah and Her Sisters
• Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
• Persuasion
• Crimes and Misdmeanors

We bookend the month with two serious but funny Woody Allen films. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) is all about Elliot's (Michael Caine) mid-life crisis of confidence and fidelity. 

 

 

Crimes and Misdemeanours (1989) is about Judah Rosenthal (Martin Landau), an apparently successful opthamologist who is conflicted about his infidelity with the needy Dolores - Anjelica Huston in a stunning performance.  Jerry Orbach, Sam Waterston and Claire Bloom figure prominently in Judah's moral journey.  This film features the best one-line analysis ever of what makes something funny.

 

 

Woody Allen began his career as a standup comic before he turned to film directing.  The film critic Richard Schickel sat down with Woody Allen in 2002 for a long, long conversation. Borrow the book.Woody Allen A Life In Film

And if you want to explore Woody's wit in writing, Mere Anarchy, 2007 and   Getting Even, 1978 are grand introductions that will make you chuckle out loud.

 But wait!  Do you think love got complicated only with Woody Allen?  Wrong, wrong, wrong.  Love affairs have been fraught with interruptions, interference and complications for ever and ever - and everywhere too! 

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954, Stanley Donen) is a rip-roaring yarn with a bit of Biblical inspiration featuring handsome Howard Keel, joyful Jane Powell and a whole lot of dancing, singing and even - even an avalanche!

 

 There's also an amazing barn-raising sequence in this film, which of course is highlighted by dancing and singing.  The director Stanley Donen is legend in Hollywood for the most magnificent of 1950s musicals.  Read more about Donen and his achievements: Dancing On The Ceiling

Persuasion (1995, Roger Michell) is perhaps the most sentimental of our four May films.  It resonates with strong, independent single women who have made (or have had made for them) decisions about life, love and destiny.  Time, geography, war and poverty are just some of the obstacles in the way of Captain Wentworth and the plain (but very smart) Anne Elliot.  Jane Austen's amazing novel Persuasion has been oft-adapted for the screen.  This version with Ciaran Hinds as the dark and sullen Captain Wentworth

starts and ends (literally) on the sea. Persuasion addresses questions of unconditional love over time and geography, when people can communicate only through letter writing.  Who loves more ardently, more long-lastingly?  Men? Women?

Handwritten letters feature prominently in this film.  Remember the art of writing a really, really good letter? Remind yourself by borrowing  For The Love Of Letters, then try writing one yourself!

Can love really conquer all?  Maybe.  Find out Fridays at 2pm, Kennedy/Eglinton.  Bring a snack, bring a friend.  We'll supply the romance. And tissues!