NEW YORK LOVERS:Woody Allen and Paul Auster: dossier

Questions 

 a) Watch the opening scene of Woody Allen's Manhattan

Talk about your first impressions? Colours? Old film?

b) CO :  Write as you listen  (lab)

Screenplay : Manhattan by WoodyAllen

c)Who is the narrator (voice over) according to you? What's his occupation?

d) What is he trying to do? 

 Try to identify the various styles and/or genres.

http://web.mit.edu/21fms/People/henry3/manhattan.html

The narrator's hesitations / Manhattan's ambivalence...

 e) Find out about the music and say how you feel about it.

Manhattan music mystery

f) How does this extract make you feel?

e) Tone of the film? Can you guess?

What do you know about Woody Allen? his sense of HUMOUR?

Gerschwin and Woody Allen, common points?

 part II

Watch this extract from Smoke by Wayne Wang and PaulAuster

A still from Manhattan : " A city in black and white"

A still from Smoke ( a photo in Auggie Wren's album)

Parallèle à l'histoire dans l'histoire, l 'image  dans l'image, puis à la fin, le film dans le film.

Comment appelle-t-on cette technique? Mise en abyme?

  Le passage est en principe plus long, donc il vaut mieux disposer du film disponible sur dvd!

Voir l'article consacré à Christmas sur ce blog pour y trouver d'autres extraits et la nouvelle

Christmas

  Who is the narrator? What's his job?

What's his passion?

Are the photos really  "all the same"? What does Auggie Wren explain to the "novelist" Paul Benjamin?

What is the key sentence in this extract? ("slow down")

What is the "moral" of this extract? Paul Benjamin ( the writer) should have guessed...

What about the music? Compare with Manhattan and Gershwin in Rhapsody in Blue

Find the quotation from Shakespeare.

What is the MOOD in this extract?

Vision of "New York" or vision of the photographer's state of mind?

Your conclusion?(= feelings too!)

What do the 2 film extracts have in common?

 Read Auggie Wren's Christmas Story : It is  a story within a larger story.

What does it tell us about writing, authorship  and telling stories?

What does it tell us about life, vision, taking and giving?

Telling a story, taking a photo, shooting a film and giving (life)...

Telling a story and visual arts (photo, film or the reader's ability to visualize..)

Watch this extract to understand Paul Benjamin's problem:

Beginning : the narrator's problem : inspiration, "the white sheet"...

  III

New York is not only a setting!

Explain.

Beginning : the narrator's problem : inspiration

Read novels by Paul Auster; The New York Trilogy, Moon Palace, Brooklyn Follies for example

Watch more about Woody Allen and Paul Auster.  

Paul Auster on  BOOKS and FILMS

Manhattan : NYT Film Review 1979

blog: every woodyallen movie.com/post/manhattan

Woody Allen's guide to New York City

Mise en scène analysis of Manhattan

twenty-four frames

FINAL TASK

 Invite your students to shoot a short film with their phone to "write" their love letter to their (favourite) city and use a song they like as amusical background.....Have them discuss their films and explain why they chose such and such shots; They can send them to e-pals, etc...

Here is one with Alicia Keyes singing "Empire State of Mind" and One Republic singing "Good Life"

 The end....? not yet : 93 extracts from movies about New York. Ideal for a quiz.