Shadows And Fog
|
Supporting Role:
Marie |
Director:
Woody Allen |
Studio:
Orion |
US Box Office (US$)
US$ 2,735,731 |
Shadows and Fog (1991 - UK release 1992) is a black-and-white film directed by Woody Allen and based on his one-act play Death. It has an ensemble cast including Allen, Mia Farrow, John Malkovich, Madonna, Lily Tomlin, Jodie Foster, Kathy Bates, John Cusack, Donald Pleasence and Kenneth Mars. It was filmed on a 26,000-square-foot (2,400 m2) set at Kaufman Astoria Studios, which holds the distinction of being the biggest set ever built in New York. It was also his last film for Orion Pictures.
Shadows and Fog is an homage to German Expressionist filmmakers Fritz Lang, G.W. Pabst and F.W. Murnau in its visual presentation, and to the writer Franz Kafka in theme.
Plot
Kleinman (Allen) is awakened from a deep sleep by a vigilante mob. They claim to be looking for a serial killer who strangles his victims and needs his help. Before he leaves, his landlady who wants to marry him gives him a small paper bag with pepper in it.
Irmy (Farrow) and her boyfriend Paul (Malkovich), performers at a circus, are having a dispute about their baby. Paul goes out to another tent where Marie, a tightrope artist (Madonna) waits for him. They begin to have sex, but Irmy catches them and runs away to the city. There she meets a prostitute (Lily Tomlin) who brings her to a house of ill repute, where she is comforted by other prostitutes (Jodie Foster and Kathy Bates). Then, a student named Jack (John Cusack) comes into the whorehouse and is immediately bewitched by Irmy; he insists on having sex with her, paying $700.
On the street, Kleinman walks aimlessly around the city. He stops at a coroner’s house, where the doctor (Donald Pleasence) explains that his role in the hunt is purely scientific. The doctor is murdered by the Strangler.
Kleinman seeing a local family being evicted as ‘undesirables’ goes to the police station to try to stop the eviction. Whilst there a police officer arrives with news of the coroner’s death and saying that there is a clue – a glass with fingerprints on it. Kleinman panics realising that his fingerprints are on the glass. Irmy is there as well, because she has been taken to the police station when the police raided the whorehouse. Insisting she is a whore and needs a license, they fine her and allow her to leave. Irmy protests her innocence and in the confusion Kleinman is able to steal the glass which has his fingerprints on it. Kleinman leaves and startled by Irmy engages her in conversation and they walk into the night together. A vigilante shows Kleinman an alley where they think the killer might be. Irmy and Kleinman enter the alley warily, and they find that the person is Kleinman’s boss Mr. Paulsen, peeping in a window at a lady. Mr. Paulsen accuses him of incompetence; Ashamed, Kleinman and Irmy move on into the night.
Paul arrives in the city, looking for Irmy. He goes into a bar, where Jack, the student who had sex with Irmy, is having a drink. The student reflects on the wonderful experience he had with “a sword-swallower”. Paul is shocked, although Jack does not know why.
Back on the street, Irmy tells Kleinman that she doesn’t want the money and asks him to give the $650 to charity in a church. He does, finding two men compiling a list of names. When he gives them the money, they gratefully erase his name from the list. Outside, at the steps of the church, they see a starving mother with a child, and the two run away from parent and child. After some thought, Irmy decides she wants to give half of the money to the woman and asks Kleinman to go back to the church to get it back. Reluctantly, he returns and asks for half the money, the two men reinstate his name to the list.
Kleinman tries to get Irmy a place to stay by asking his fiancée, but she doesn’t let them in. At a pier, they look out at the night, and the feeling is very romantic, until the vigilante mob ambushes them. It turns out that everyone has a “plan”. Then, Spiro the Clairvoyant, a man who smells people like a psychic bloodhound, starts to sniff Kleinman. He says that Kleinman “has something in his pocket,” and the sherry glass is revealed. Angry, and believing he is the killer, the mob prepares to lynch him. Kleinman blows pepper in their faces and escapes. He tries to find a safe haven in the house of his first ex-fiancée, Alma (Julie Kavner), whom he left standing at the altar while he had a dalliance with her sister. He apologises, but she throws him out, saying, “Get out and die!”
Meanwhile, Irmy and Paul meet and at first Paul is ready to kill Irmy for sleeping with another man, but they are interrupted when they find the starving woman, that Irmy and Kleinman had seen earlier, killed, and the baby lying on the ground. They decide to keep the child, and leave the city, going back to the circus.
Ahead of the mob, Kleinman arrives at the whorehouse where he meets and has an existential conversation with Jack. When he is unable to express his views, a whore (Foster) coaxes him into a back room where he fails to perform, blaming existential angst. The mob arrives, asking after Kleinman. He escapes via the roof where he meets and is taunted by his rival (Shawn) for promotion at work who reveals Irmy has gone back to the circus. Kleinman follows her there.
At the circus Kleinman meets the magician Armstead (Kenneth Mars), whom he greatly admires. Then, the Strangler arrives, and is about to kill both of them when the magician mesmerises him with a mirror trick, and chains him up, but while they are congratulating each other, somehow the Strangler escapes. The angry mob arrives on the scene, and, thwarted, gives up for the night. The movie ends with Kleinman accepting Armstead’s invitation to become his assistant, and Irmy and Paul continuing their careers as circus performers, while raising their new-found child. As Armstead and Kleinman prepare to leave, the magician sums it all up by saying, “They need illusions like they need the air.” And with a gesture, the two disappear in a mirror and a puff of smoke.
Reception
Shadows and Fog premiered in France six weeks before its US premier. The choice of premier location was no doubt due to the film being set in a European city but it may also have suggested that Allen had more faith in arthouse European audiences as opposed to robust Anglo Saxon – its release was delayed even further in the UK!
Allen was correct in suspecting a lack of home grown appreciation as the film was a commercial failure. Opened to a wide release on March 20, 1992 in 288 North American cinemas, in its first three days, it grossed $1,111,314 but with a production budget estimated at $14 million it eventually finished its run with a gross of only $2,735,731.
Reviews were mixed at best. New York Times critic Vincent Canby described the film as rich but not easily categorised. He expressed a note of caution: “Shadows and Fog” operates on its own wavelength. It is different. It should not be anticipated in the manner of other Allen films. It’s unpredictable, with its own tone and rhythm, even though, like all of the director’s work, it’s a mixture of the sincere, the sardonic and the classically sappy.
However Peter Travers of Rolling Stone was less forgiving: The latest word on Woody Allen is that he’s losing it. Insulated from the rhythms of contemporary life, which gave his work a trendy appeal during the heyday of Annie Hall and Manhattan, Allen has become less funny and more thoughtful. To his detractors, it’s a bum trade-off. They’re likely to be particularly pissy about Shadows and Fog, a comic lament that is purposefully and defiantly out of step. Shot in black and white in a New York studio meant to represent a middle-European city during the Twenties, the $19 million film (Allen’s most expensive ever) has the German-expressionist look of Fritz Lang’s M, the music of Kurt Weill’s Threepenny Opera and the circus background of a Fellini film. Mix in a cast of American stars ranging from Jodie Foster to Madonna, and the result is a messy culture clash that’s easy to dismiss at first glance.
The maddeningly unfocused Shadows and Fog is a noble misfire. Allen has sketched the outline for a great movie without mustering the inspiration to make it come alive. Many of the actors, especially Madonna, Kate Nelligan and Fred Gwynne, are on so briefly they barely register. There’s too little satire and too much best-of-Woody backpedaling.
In the UK, Angie Errigo reviewing for Empire Magazine noted that the film had been “a catastrophic failure at the US box office”. Awarding 3 stars out of 5 she observed that “rendered in suitably moody, grainy black-and-white, this comic drama is by turns sly, witty and tiresome, a cinema buff’s in-joke restating the familiar Allen preoccupations of man’s inability to control events or to comprehend the nature of evil in an avalanche of homage gags and “100 Arty Cinematic Moments” recreations. A catastrophic failure at the US box office, this suffered from a delayed release in Britain, coming after the later and superior Husbands And Wives, though it does at least provide a diverting game of Spot The Allusion And The Star, notably Jodie Foster, Kathy Bates and Lily Tomlin. At best its slight plot reserves its pleasures for the more elitist wing of Allen devotees.”
London’s Time Out magazine was at best lukewarm describing the film as “an inconclusive charade for celebrity guests” with “a desultory subplot about The Ripper, but most of the action features Woody and Mia wandering night-town, he witteringly supportive, she kvetching. The shadows of German Expressionist cinema have been superbly revived, but to little purpose.”
UK Video Releases
It would appear there was no video release of this film in 1992, the year of its UK cinematic release perhaps due its lacklustre performance at the box office reflecting a lack of interest. However, it was subsequently issued on video and the version shown here is the 1994 issue and is only included for consistency.
For all promo items see the 'video' entry under the PROMO page
Shadows and Fog is an homage to German Expressionist filmmakers Fritz Lang, G.W. Pabst and F.W. Murnau in its visual presentation, and to the writer Franz Kafka in theme.
Plot
Kleinman (Allen) is awakened from a deep sleep by a vigilante mob. They claim to be looking for a serial killer who strangles his victims and needs his help. Before he leaves, his landlady who wants to marry him gives him a small paper bag with pepper in it.
Irmy (Farrow) and her boyfriend Paul (Malkovich), performers at a circus, are having a dispute about their baby. Paul goes out to another tent where Marie, a tightrope artist (Madonna) waits for him. They begin to have sex, but Irmy catches them and runs away to the city. There she meets a prostitute (Lily Tomlin) who brings her to a house of ill repute, where she is comforted by other prostitutes (Jodie Foster and Kathy Bates). Then, a student named Jack (John Cusack) comes into the whorehouse and is immediately bewitched by Irmy; he insists on having sex with her, paying $700.
On the street, Kleinman walks aimlessly around the city. He stops at a coroner’s house, where the doctor (Donald Pleasence) explains that his role in the hunt is purely scientific. The doctor is murdered by the Strangler.
Kleinman seeing a local family being evicted as ‘undesirables’ goes to the police station to try to stop the eviction. Whilst there a police officer arrives with news of the coroner’s death and saying that there is a clue – a glass with fingerprints on it. Kleinman panics realising that his fingerprints are on the glass. Irmy is there as well, because she has been taken to the police station when the police raided the whorehouse. Insisting she is a whore and needs a license, they fine her and allow her to leave. Irmy protests her innocence and in the confusion Kleinman is able to steal the glass which has his fingerprints on it. Kleinman leaves and startled by Irmy engages her in conversation and they walk into the night together. A vigilante shows Kleinman an alley where they think the killer might be. Irmy and Kleinman enter the alley warily, and they find that the person is Kleinman’s boss Mr. Paulsen, peeping in a window at a lady. Mr. Paulsen accuses him of incompetence; Ashamed, Kleinman and Irmy move on into the night.
Paul arrives in the city, looking for Irmy. He goes into a bar, where Jack, the student who had sex with Irmy, is having a drink. The student reflects on the wonderful experience he had with “a sword-swallower”. Paul is shocked, although Jack does not know why.
Back on the street, Irmy tells Kleinman that she doesn’t want the money and asks him to give the $650 to charity in a church. He does, finding two men compiling a list of names. When he gives them the money, they gratefully erase his name from the list. Outside, at the steps of the church, they see a starving mother with a child, and the two run away from parent and child. After some thought, Irmy decides she wants to give half of the money to the woman and asks Kleinman to go back to the church to get it back. Reluctantly, he returns and asks for half the money, the two men reinstate his name to the list.
Kleinman tries to get Irmy a place to stay by asking his fiancée, but she doesn’t let them in. At a pier, they look out at the night, and the feeling is very romantic, until the vigilante mob ambushes them. It turns out that everyone has a “plan”. Then, Spiro the Clairvoyant, a man who smells people like a psychic bloodhound, starts to sniff Kleinman. He says that Kleinman “has something in his pocket,” and the sherry glass is revealed. Angry, and believing he is the killer, the mob prepares to lynch him. Kleinman blows pepper in their faces and escapes. He tries to find a safe haven in the house of his first ex-fiancée, Alma (Julie Kavner), whom he left standing at the altar while he had a dalliance with her sister. He apologises, but she throws him out, saying, “Get out and die!”
Meanwhile, Irmy and Paul meet and at first Paul is ready to kill Irmy for sleeping with another man, but they are interrupted when they find the starving woman, that Irmy and Kleinman had seen earlier, killed, and the baby lying on the ground. They decide to keep the child, and leave the city, going back to the circus.
Ahead of the mob, Kleinman arrives at the whorehouse where he meets and has an existential conversation with Jack. When he is unable to express his views, a whore (Foster) coaxes him into a back room where he fails to perform, blaming existential angst. The mob arrives, asking after Kleinman. He escapes via the roof where he meets and is taunted by his rival (Shawn) for promotion at work who reveals Irmy has gone back to the circus. Kleinman follows her there.
At the circus Kleinman meets the magician Armstead (Kenneth Mars), whom he greatly admires. Then, the Strangler arrives, and is about to kill both of them when the magician mesmerises him with a mirror trick, and chains him up, but while they are congratulating each other, somehow the Strangler escapes. The angry mob arrives on the scene, and, thwarted, gives up for the night. The movie ends with Kleinman accepting Armstead’s invitation to become his assistant, and Irmy and Paul continuing their careers as circus performers, while raising their new-found child. As Armstead and Kleinman prepare to leave, the magician sums it all up by saying, “They need illusions like they need the air.” And with a gesture, the two disappear in a mirror and a puff of smoke.
Reception
Shadows and Fog premiered in France six weeks before its US premier. The choice of premier location was no doubt due to the film being set in a European city but it may also have suggested that Allen had more faith in arthouse European audiences as opposed to robust Anglo Saxon – its release was delayed even further in the UK!
Allen was correct in suspecting a lack of home grown appreciation as the film was a commercial failure. Opened to a wide release on March 20, 1992 in 288 North American cinemas, in its first three days, it grossed $1,111,314 but with a production budget estimated at $14 million it eventually finished its run with a gross of only $2,735,731.
Reviews were mixed at best. New York Times critic Vincent Canby described the film as rich but not easily categorised. He expressed a note of caution: “Shadows and Fog” operates on its own wavelength. It is different. It should not be anticipated in the manner of other Allen films. It’s unpredictable, with its own tone and rhythm, even though, like all of the director’s work, it’s a mixture of the sincere, the sardonic and the classically sappy.
However Peter Travers of Rolling Stone was less forgiving: The latest word on Woody Allen is that he’s losing it. Insulated from the rhythms of contemporary life, which gave his work a trendy appeal during the heyday of Annie Hall and Manhattan, Allen has become less funny and more thoughtful. To his detractors, it’s a bum trade-off. They’re likely to be particularly pissy about Shadows and Fog, a comic lament that is purposefully and defiantly out of step. Shot in black and white in a New York studio meant to represent a middle-European city during the Twenties, the $19 million film (Allen’s most expensive ever) has the German-expressionist look of Fritz Lang’s M, the music of Kurt Weill’s Threepenny Opera and the circus background of a Fellini film. Mix in a cast of American stars ranging from Jodie Foster to Madonna, and the result is a messy culture clash that’s easy to dismiss at first glance.
The maddeningly unfocused Shadows and Fog is a noble misfire. Allen has sketched the outline for a great movie without mustering the inspiration to make it come alive. Many of the actors, especially Madonna, Kate Nelligan and Fred Gwynne, are on so briefly they barely register. There’s too little satire and too much best-of-Woody backpedaling.
In the UK, Angie Errigo reviewing for Empire Magazine noted that the film had been “a catastrophic failure at the US box office”. Awarding 3 stars out of 5 she observed that “rendered in suitably moody, grainy black-and-white, this comic drama is by turns sly, witty and tiresome, a cinema buff’s in-joke restating the familiar Allen preoccupations of man’s inability to control events or to comprehend the nature of evil in an avalanche of homage gags and “100 Arty Cinematic Moments” recreations. A catastrophic failure at the US box office, this suffered from a delayed release in Britain, coming after the later and superior Husbands And Wives, though it does at least provide a diverting game of Spot The Allusion And The Star, notably Jodie Foster, Kathy Bates and Lily Tomlin. At best its slight plot reserves its pleasures for the more elitist wing of Allen devotees.”
London’s Time Out magazine was at best lukewarm describing the film as “an inconclusive charade for celebrity guests” with “a desultory subplot about The Ripper, but most of the action features Woody and Mia wandering night-town, he witteringly supportive, she kvetching. The shadows of German Expressionist cinema have been superbly revived, but to little purpose.”
UK Video Releases
It would appear there was no video release of this film in 1992, the year of its UK cinematic release perhaps due its lacklustre performance at the box office reflecting a lack of interest. However, it was subsequently issued on video and the version shown here is the 1994 issue and is only included for consistency.
For all promo items see the 'video' entry under the PROMO page
UK Video Release
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