- .@evanhughes in the @awl on the passing of LJ Davis, novelist of Brooklyn gentrification before Lethem was on the scene. http://t.co/WDRNFc2 #
- Keith Richard (as he was still known, having temporarily dropped the "s" at the end of his name) looks considerably older than 35. #wny11 #
- Jagger removes his linen blazer to reveal a torn T-shirt. Shades of Richard Hell? He's got on some killer orange parachute pants. #wny11 #
- .@cpatell is lecturing today on Allen's MANHATTAN. Feel free to follow along/chime in from home. (Though #wny11 students should be *here*.) #
- .@cpatell's opening slide reveals that in 1979 he was graduating high school, while @_waterman, in AZ, was watching Mork & Mindy. #wny11 #
- Preview: @cpatell's @333books on SOME GIRLS opens w/ a moving high school anecdote. Have a feeling the Stones may make a cameo today. #wny11 #
- @opheliacat Stones on SNL in 1978. #
- .@cpatell: Allen's film, coming out at end of 70s, stages a defense of NYC. Wants students to think abt it cf. White's HERE IS NY. #wny11 #
- Setting stage, NYC in 70s: in 76, tall ships come into harbor, bicentennial pageantry. But lots of fretting abt NY financial crisis. #wny11 #
- Watching a brief clip from Burns abt financial crisis. The iconic image that wraps up this moment: http://bit.ly/eJejno #wny11 #
- A post from Ephemeral New York on the famous Ford headline: http://bit.ly/fPJs4m #wny11 #
- From TIME magazine on the same crisis: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,914214,00.html #wny11 #
- .@cpatell: Robert Moses had tried to align NYC with the rest of America (cars, etc.); resistance crystallizes NYC's un-Americanness. #wny11 #
- By the 70s NYC didn't seem so modern anymore. It was decrepit, broke, crime-ridden. "Shattered" captures this: "Bed bugs uptown" etc. #wny11 #
- @opheliacat That's a crime. #
- Now watching the famous chase scene from FRENCH CONNECTION. New York crime rates made for good crime thrillers, anyway. #wny11 #
- FRENCH CONNECTION: driver down. Hackman's flooring it. This scene will be ripped off often, most by Spiderman & remake of Pelham 123. #wny11 #
- Another 70s clip: "Waaaar-iors …" #wny11 #
- We used to show these two clips to contextualize Frank Miller's DARK KNIGHT, which we've not taught in recent years. 🙁 #wny11 #
- @_jakemoore Maybe in future versions. #
- Trivia question: What's the name of the gang leader who's killed at the beginning of THE WARRIORS? #
- Hint: @cpatell said his freshman roommate at Harvard assumed he would be African American before they'd met. #warriors #wny11 #
- Cyrus talking abt Allen's prior film, ANNIE HALL, by way of prepping us for MANHATTAN. Think abt the LA/NY exchanges in the former. #wny11 #
- MANHATTAN: B&W, Allen shoots it in anamorphic widescreen. Self-consciously retro. Stipulated film would always be shown in letterbox. #wny11 #
- Allen's invoking celluloid skyline/cinema history as he starts his defense of NYC. Compare use of Gershwin in the opening sequence. #wny11 #
- Tweeting his own lecture: RT @cpatell Trivia: what is the name of the gang leader killed at the start of THE WARRIORS? #wny11 #
- Now watching opening sequence of MANHATTAN: http://youtu.be/uyaj2P-dSi8 << NB Ike settles on the "coiled sexual power of jungle cat." #wny11 #
- @opheliacat 59th St. #
- @opheliacat http://www.gonemovies.com/WWW/Drama/Drama/Manhattan9.jpg #
- .@cpatell: opening montage, skyline as establishing shot, recalls early days of film, NYC as culture center, pre-Hollywood. #wny11 #
- Allen's film as inadvertent documentary in the shots it foregrounds as shorthand for NYC. What's gone? Yankee Stadium, for starters. #wny11 #
- .@cpatell: Ike's voiceover suggests a highly subjective take on "Manhattan," but he's eventually drowned out by Gershwin & fireworks. #wny11 #
- What are the larger values invoked via the cinematic grandeur of the opening sequence's finale? Irony? Nostalgia? NYC chauvinism? #wny11 #
- The opening sequence gives way immediately to the claustrophobia of Elaine's. Pseudo-intellectual chatter. #wny11 #
- On Elaine (RIP): http://bit.ly/hpSX9c #wny11 #
- Ike's 42, Tracy's 17. Possible to get past that plot point post-Soon Yi? He's dating a girl who does homework. #wny11 #
- #wny11 MT @amandamccc I was struck by what's still there: the Met's Temple of Dendur. How could it be there in the 70s? #
- RE: intellectual culture. Allen as part of @newyorker literary/intellectual/humor tradition. Allen indebted to SJ Perelman. #wny11 #
- Roger Angell, Allen's editor at @newyorker: It took Woody quite a while to get Perelman out of his system. #wny11 #
- .@cpatell now placing Allen in relation to Borscht Belt humor/vaudeville/Jewish comics/Tin Pan Alley entertainers. #np Dangerfield #wny11 #
- I don't get no respect at all. #dangerfield #wny11 #
- Elaine May, Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce. You know something's wrong w/ Mary when she says she disdains Lenny Bruce. #manhattan #wny11 #
- @blackburnrecs I'd love to bring it back. What would you drop from the syllabus to make room? #
- .@cpatell reading from Encyc Judaica on Jews' impt to American pop culture. "They received in return an education in urbanity." #wny11 #
- Ike, like Woody Allen, embodies complexity of NYC: cultural greatness/megalomania and anxieties alike. #wny11 #
- Quoting Allen: NYC is nerves, blood, noise. More conflict than in LA, where it's pleasant. "All those people sitting in their tubs." #wny11 #
- Now showing clips from ANNIE HALL to underscore Allen's assault on California/Hollywood. Here's Paul Simon's cameo. #wny11 #
- Ike: "I don't respond well to mellow. If I get too mellow I'll ripen and rot." Would rather watch holocaust films. #wny11 #
- I'll have my people set up a meeting with your people. Meeting, meeting, meeting. He gives a good meeting. #LA #wny11 #
- VPL. Oy. #wny11 #LAversusNYC #
- Allen once said to Groucho Marx: I don't know how you live in CA, a man of your piercing intellect … #wny11 #
- By contrast: the clip of the 59th St Bridge. I once saw MANHATTAN in LA at Hollywood Forever cemetery. Crowd applauded this shot. #wny11 #
- On watching MANHATTAN in LA: http://www.greatwhatsit.com/archives/694 #wny11 #
- .@cpatell: MANHATTAN takes the romantic comedy/romantic relationships and uses them as a way to meditate on modernity. #wny11 #
- Now watching final scenes from MANHATTAN. Ike goes through a list of things that make life worth living. Taperecorder as shrink. #wny11 #
- We've thought/argued a lot about this scene over the years: http://youtu.be/h5owXCZ0CDg For example: http://bit.ly/eGYssW #wny11 #
- His list concludes w/ Tracy's face. Music comes in: Gershwin's "He Loves and She Loves." Then to "Strike Up the Band" as he runs. #wny11 #
- And finally, "But Not for Me." #goosebumps #sucker #wny11 @cpatell reminds us that Speed Levitch used this song as a theme. #
- "I'm legal, but I'm still a kid." #manhattan #wny11 #eewww #
- Were we supposed to be comfortable with Ike & Tracy's relationship in 1979? #wny11 #
- Exit music: Ramones, "Rock & Roll High School." #wrap #wny11 #
- #wny03 !! #wny11 MT @LarsonRichard @pwhny Saw that movie for the first time because of your class (the first year you taught WNY). #
- @LarsonRichard And to think, when you took the course Twitter hadn't even been invented. #
- @literarychica Great! We're doing DO THE RIGHT THING a wk from Wednesday. Btwn now and then, Kushner's ANGELS. #
- Thx @TeriTynes @WillWiles @nickkauf @literarychica @LarsonRichard @opheliacat & any others I missed for playing along remotely. #wny11 #
- RT @cire_e: @pwhny LA is the loneliest and most brutal of American cities; #wny11 (?) #ontheroad #kerouac #
- MT @cire_e: @pwhny New York gets god-awful cold in the winter but there's a feeling of wacky comradeship in some streets #wny11 (?) #kerouac #
- @literarychica Wow, thx for kind words. #
- @LarsonRichard Especially cheering to hear right now. @cpatell will be in Abu Dhabi next yr and WNY will be temporarily on hold. #
- @literarychica Kushner a good fit for your topic, which sounds great, btw. #
- RT @lwarr The Simon-Allen rivalry is funny because they're basically different versions of each other #wny11 #anniehall #
- RT @lwarr Also Paul Simon is just the tiniest bit shorter than Woody. #men #wny11 #
- .@tanehisi on Edith Wharton. This may be the first time I'm prompted to use the #swag tag. #
- Yup. MT @ro_bot_dylan Broken lines, broken strings, Broken threads, broken springs, Broken idols, broken heads, ppl sleeping in broken beds. #
- .@NYTOpinionator: We shouldn't have accepted theatrical model of life received from
Recent Comments