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1992-08-28
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51 lines
CINEMA, Page 65Return to Weimar
By RICHARD SCHICKEL
SHADOWS AND FOG
Directed and Written by Woody Allen
Shadows and Fog is most obviously an exercise in style, a
beautifully made tribute to the expressionistic cinema of 1920s
Germany. It's all here: a homicidal maniac stalking the menacing
night streets of a nameless, timeless city; a circus and a
brothel populated by fringe figures who, naturally, are less
hypocritical socially and sexually than the police, the church
and the bourgeoisie; a score that features the music of Kurt
Weill; lighting and a camera that pay homage to the whole Weimar
school of cinematography.
In its way, this is an extremely daring work. The
percentage of the modern movie audience that knows and values
such an antique and, even in its day, exotic film tradition is
minuscule. What does the rest of the audience care that it
exerts a continuing influence on films noirs and, for that
matter, on Batman? For those people, Allen has recruited an
astonishing cast, from Madonna to John Malkovich, from Jodie
Foster to John Cusack, and they ground their symbolic characters
in a recognizable reality.
Most important, Allen has inserted his own screen
character, the wise schlemiel, into the proceedings, this time
as a clerk recruited by a variety of vigilante bands, each with
a theory about how to catch the night stalker. The clerk
supplies what expressionism always lacked -- jokes. And his
increasingly tense situation provides a sharp commentary on the
fecklessness of ideological debate when a crisis is at hand.
Shadows and Fog ends -- perhaps a little too abruptly --
as so many of Allen's recent films do, with a touch of magic
realism. But that too achieves a surprisingly apt stylistic fit.
The scope of this short piece may be small, but it is also a
vivid, vigorous and often entrancing movie. R.S.