Interiors

A long time ago, when my movie taste was considerably different to what it is now, I bought myself a Woody Allen boxed set with the likes of Bananas, Sleeper and Annie Hall in it - but there was one curious inclusion I'd never heard of - Interiors. My first surprise was that this is a Woody Allen film in which he didn't feature as an actor. It was quite common for films from 1985 or later for Woody to take a back seat acting-wise, but before that he had a starring role in most everything he wrote and directed. This film of his happened to be the only film from this period I didn't know about, and when I watched it the film was so different from what he was making during that era that it blew my mind : I hated it. Decades later I come to Interiors with a new mindset, knowing what it's like and where the inspiration for it came from. My reaction to the film was a complete 180 degree turn-around - Interiors is actually a great film, and it profoundly moved me.

Arthur (E. G. Marshall) begins the film by narrating. His is an idyllic story at first, marrying Eve (Geraldine Page) and having three daughters, Renata (Diane Keaton), Joey (Mary Beth Hurt) and Flyn (Kristin Griffith) - but then he goes on to say "suddenly one day, out of nowhere, an enormous abyss opened up beneath our feet and I was staring into a face I didn't recognize." The narrative begins with Arthur announcing he wants to separate from Eve, and he does this with his daughters present at the table. Eve struggles with this throughout the film, at one stage attempting suicide, and she desperately tries to win Arthur back through their daughters. Renata is a poet, and married to Frederick (Richard Jordan) and living with existential dread. Joey is uncertain about her career path, and is in a relationship with Mike (Sam Waterston) - she appears to be the closest to Eve, but also resents her mother's dependence on her emotional support. Flyn is an actress, and often too far away to regularly socialize with the family unit. When Arthur brings a new woman home, Pearl (Maureen Stapleton), after a trip to Greece, it stirs resentment, fear and emotional turmoil in every other member of the family.

Woody Allen found himself nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay at the 1979 Oscars for Interiors (he'd won a Best Director Oscar and Best Original Screenplay the previous year for Annie Hall.) It's interesting to note that Allen's primary influence for this film was Ingmar Bergman, and that he was pitted against Bergman for Autumn Sonata in the Best Screenplay category. Both men lost out to Nancy Dowd, the great Waldo Salt and Robert C. Jones who had written the screenplay for Coming Home. A tough category, but I might have just voted for Autumn Sonata myself, despite the great quality of Allen's Interiors. Apparently he wasn't completely confident doing straight drama yet, but that's probably because he wanted this to be perfect, and it already stands out from most offerings from '78. He said 'Well, we pulled this one out by the short hairs, didn't we?' to editor Ralph Rosenblum - obviously the editing was a critical stage for this one.

I enjoyed the fact that every character in this tale had a very layered and complex history. They all had things going on. For example, Renata's husband Frederick feels inadequate and diminished, for his writing career isn't going as well as that of his wife. She tries to support him and give him confidence, but this is just seen by him as empty platitudes and unwarranted praise. He needs outside validation, but the critics are rubbishing his work and he feels tortured. Later in the film he tries to drunkenly get something going with Flyn, but she rejects his advances which leads to one horrifying moment when he tries to rape her. She manages to fight him off, and we never see the eventual fallout from such a dark moment in the film. The film can focus so intently on side-characters because of it's small cast - the only other people we see are these characters at a younger age, and only in a brief flashback.

One thing that throws the dark and somber movie into a more interesting light is the introduction of Maureen Stapleton's Pearl. She's not an intellectual - unlike every single other member of the family, and as such is an even greater outsider than she would have been. Her cheery nature is at such odds to the depressed and melancholy Eve, and obviously this is why Arthur left Eve - he couldn't deal with that darker side of life. Stapleton brings a big bright change to the film, as she plays the only character who can arrive on the scene free from the darkness and sorrow growing at the heart of Arthur's daughters. She ended up being nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, but Maggie Smith won for her role in California Suite. Allen has often said that he wished he'd introduced Pearl earlier, but only because critics thought the first half of the film was too dour. I like it the way it is, and enjoy films that sometimes have very distinct halves.

In the meantime, Geraldine Page occupies the film's very heart. The sadness is coming from her, and although she'd already been that kind of character before her husband had left, his leaving completely destroys her. I felt so sad for Eve, and Allen does such things as have her break down in tears during her birthday celebrations, telling her daughters that she has nothing left to live for. The hope she keeps on displaying, despite the fact that her situation is hopeless, really gets to me. She should be at a stage in her life where she's helping her daughters - but instead her daughters are trying to prop her up and support her. Page is fantastic in this, and she received her third Oscar nomination for Best Actress (won by Jane Fonda for Coming Home) - she would win on her fifth nomination, just a year before her death in 1986, for her role in The Trip to Bountiful. Woody Allen had initially wanted Ingrid Bergman to play the part of Eve, but funnily enough she couldn't because she was too busy appearing in Autumn Sonata.

The film is very well shot by Allen's 70s and 80s regular cinematographer Gordon Willis, and both Mel Bourne and Daniel Robert would be nominated for a Best Art Direction/Set Decoration Oscar (won by Heaven Can Wait) - Page is playing a great interior decorator after all. I love that the film's title is "Interiors" - a very nice play on the word and it's many meanings. There's not much music in it, and no accompanying score - which matches the coldness and somber tone of much that happens in this. It's somewhat ironic that I often come away from these films energized and happy, despite how sad they are - I'm just so glad that I've just watched a really great film that I got a lot out of. Woody Allen was 43-years-old when Interiors came out, and although I'm older than that now, I think being around this age gives a person a much better perspective, and a lot more understanding so they can relate to what happens in this. I can see a lot of really young people being turned off - but I thought it was excellent, and a key moment in Allen's career. If he'd failed at this, he might have stuck to comedy for much longer, but the fact that he "pulled this one out by the short hairs" set him up to produce a body of work nearly unparalleled in U.S. film history. That he could explore so many interiors in such an exacting and empathetic way is something that deserves credit and respect.