Blu-Ray of the Week: Annie Hall / Manhattan

Prior to Annie Hall (1977), Woody Allen was known as a comic, cutting his teeth in stand-up comedy and paying his dues as a comedy writer. When he started making films, his early efforts were flat-out comedies and farces like Bananas (1971). It wasn’t until Annie Hall that he demonstrated a capacity for something deeper and poignant while still being very funny. Based loosely on his relationship with Diane Keaton, the film features Allen’s protagonist reflecting on a past relationship that he still hasn’t gotten over. With this film, he took the romantic comedy to another level by breaking down the fourth wall and even mixing in animation to create a film so influential that for years after (and still today) other films of its kind would be judged by its high standards.


Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) is a successful comedian that gets involved with an unsuccessful actress Annie Hall (Diane Keaton). He’s a raging neurotic and she’s incredibly insecure and together they make a great couple because they are willing to put up with each other’s many idiosyncrasies – he obsesses about death and she says inappropriate things. Over the course of the film, we see them fall in love and then break up when she moves to Los Angeles, wooed there by a record producer (Paul Simon) who is attracted to her. Throughout it all, New York City serves as the backdrop to their romantic escapades.

Unlike most romantic comedies, Annie Hall draws attention to itself as a film with Allen addressing the camera or stopping a scene to make a point, like when he and Annie are waiting in line for a film and he complains about some pretentious boob pontificating endlessly nearby. Allen then produces famous academic Marshall McLuhan to refute the man’s incorrect theorizing. Allen also employs split screens and subtitles for ironic effect as well as appearing in flashbacks to comment on his past self. What also sets Annie Hall apart from Allen’s earlier work is his decision to hire legendary cinematographer Gordon Willis to shoot his film. Willis gives it a definite cinematic look occasionally incorporating hand-held camera to create a more intimate feel.

None of these clever techniques would mean anything if Annie Hall wasn’t anchored by the strong performances by Allen and Keaton and the undeniable chemistry they have. Already a seasoned pro, he spouts funny one-liners with excellent comic timing and Keaton matches him beat for beat as his ideal foil. They also both have the chops to handle the semi-serious stuff like when Alvy and Annie’s relationship sours. Of course, they have fantastic material to work with thanks to the well-written screenplay by Allen and Marshall Brickman, which is so much more than a collection of one-liners. It also features all kinds of wonderful observations about love and relationships, like how Alvy is unable to enjoy life and Annie calls him on it, which forces him to examine his own life. Alvy realizes that he still loves Annie and regrets breaking up with her.

Annie Hall was a big breakthrough for Allen, winning four Academy Awards and influencing countless romantic comedies, from When Harry Met Sally… (1989) to Singles (1992) to High Fidelity (2000). Arguably, only Allen has been able to top Annie Hall when, two years later, he released Manhattan (1979), which managed to be an even greater artistic achievement.

After the phenomenal success of Annie Hall, Allen confounded the expectations of his critics and fans with Interiors (1978), which saw him doing his best Ingmar Bergman impression. It was his first dramatic film and while critical reaction was mostly positive, it hardly set the box office on fire. With Manhattan, Allen returned to familiar material – the witty romantic comedy – with what many consider his masterpiece but a film that he famously felt was so bad that he offered to make another one for the studio for free if they agreed to not release it. Thankfully, they didn’t listen to him and the end result is one of the greatest cinematic love letters to New York City every committed to film while also taking an entertaining and insightful look at the love lives of a handful of its inhabitants.

Allen establishes his ambitious intentions right from the start with a grandiose montage of the city scored to George Gershwin and photographed in gorgeous black and white by Gordon Willis. This is the Big Apple as seen through Allen’s eyes as he presents rarefied social strata of well-educated, neurotic people entangled in messy relationships with each other. Still stinging from a bitter divorce, Isaac Davis (Woody Allen) is now dating Tracy (Mariel Hemingway), a 17-year-old girl (“I’m dating a girl who does homework.”). His best friend Yale (Michael Murphy) is having an affair with a journalist named Mary (Diane Keaton).

Isaac and Yale’s lives are a mess with the former writing for a television show he loathes and the latter trying to finish a book and start up a magazine. The last thing they need is to complicate their romantic lives. Isaac realizes that Tracy is too young for him (“You should think of me as a detour on the highway of life.”) and gets involved with Mary after Yale introduces them. At first, Isaac and Mary can’t stand each other, arguing over an art exhibit and several artists she feels overrated but he thinks are great, however, he likes her unflinching honesty and she’s attracted to his sense of humor.

Woody Allen and Diane Keaton continue their undeniable on-screen chemistry playing so well off each other. She is allowed to tone down the more exaggerated comedic gestures she used in Annie Hall to create a more nuanced character in Manhattan. Mary is torn between her love for Yale, even though she knows it’s wrong and her attraction to Isaac. Allen is more than a neurotic joke machine as Isaac wrestles with his own moral dilemmas – his love for Tracy, even though he knows she’s too young for him, and his attraction to Mary who is much more compatible.

While Manhattan features an abundance of Allen’s funny one-liners, the screenplay he co-wrote with Marshall Brickman tempers it somewhat with the characters’ messy personal lives, like the resentment Isaac feels towards his ex-wife (Meryl Streep) for leaving him for another woman, or Yale cheating on his perfectly lovely wife (Anne Byrne) with Mary. Allen expertly shifts gears from comedy to drama from scene to scene and sometimes even within the same scene.

Allen takes us through a guided tour through the city with key scenes taking place at famous establishments, like Elaine’s and the Russian tearoom, or tourist spots like the Hayden Planetarium, in such a way that New York becomes a character unto itself. It also doesn’t hurt that Willis’ gorgeously textured black and white cinematography makes everything look so good. Sadly, several of the places the characters frequent no longer exist making Manhattan a historical document of sorts. Allen’s film is arguably the best representation of his worldview: highly educated people with very little common sense when it comes to their personal lives, making bad decisions even when they realize it. But like the rest of us, they keep on trying, hoping that the next relationship is the one.

Special Features:

I think it’s safe to say that both Annie Hall and Manhattan have never looked and sounded better, showing off Gordon Willis’ incredible cinematography with excellent-looking transfers. It’s time to throw away your DVDs and upgrade to these Blu Ray versions.

Sadly, in keeping with other Allen home video releases there are no extra features save for theatrical trailers for each film.

The World of Henry Orient

George Roy Hill is an underrated film director, which is astonishing when you consider some of the stone cold classics he’s made: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), The Sting (1972), and Slap Shot (1977). His lack of recognition is due in part to his journeyman career that saw him dabble in numerous genres, from literary adaptation to the sports movie to the western. Also, each film he made is different from the other in terms of style and themes explored. Among his eclectic body of work is my favorite The World of Henry Orient (1964), a coming of age film based on the book of the same name by Nora Johnson, daughter of celebrated screenwriter Nunnally Johnson (The Grapes of Wrath).


Set in early 1960’s New York City, the film follows the misadventures of two teenage schoolgirls and their obsession with a pretentious concert pianist. Hill’s adaptation is a carefree romp tinged with elements of sadness that is not watered down for the audience. The opening credits play over a fantastic montage of the city, which now stands as a historical snapshot of a metropolis that sadly no longer exists. A school bus picks up various kids and when it arrives at a girls’ school we meet Marian “Gil” Gilbert (Merrie Spaeth), a girl in the eighth grade. By sheer chance, she encounters fellow eighth grader Valarie “Val” Campbell Boyd (Tippy Walker) and they quickly bond over both being new to the school, their mutual loathing of certain teachers, and the braces on their respective teeth. They soon agree to go adventuring on Saturday and on that day we see them frolicking through a picturesque Central Park in autumn. The two girls imagine themselves as two “beautiful white nurses” and in doing so come across a couple making out in the park. The annoyed man is none other than celebrated concert pianist Henry Orient (Peter Sellers) who happens to be having a covert affair with a married woman by the name of Stella Dunnworthy (Paula Prentiss). Gil and Val are smitten with Orient at first sight and soon pledge to devote their lives to worshipping the musician.

In these early scenes, Hill captures the energy and unbridled joy of being young and having New York as your playground with scenes of the girls giddily jumping garbage cans in the street. The girls hang out at Gil’s house and we learn that they are both children of divorce with Val living with her father and Gil living with her mother. They commiserate over their respective broken households and yearn for a normal family life, like Val’s fantasy of her folks reuniting for Christmas. Val, in particular, has had a tough time of it as her busy, wealthy father Frank Boyd (Tom Bosley) travels the globe frequently often leaving his daughter to her own devices. She may live in the lap of luxury but has to contend with her cold step-mother Isabel Boyd (Angela Lansbury). In comparison, Gil lives in a more modest place with her mother (Phyllis Thaxter) and grandmother. Their apartment is full of inviting, earth-toned colors, which complement the warm parents and loving atmosphere.

Henry Orient is a vain primadonna that affects a phony European accent despite growing up in Brooklyn. Peter Sellers, as always, fully inhabits his character, playing the film’s pretentious antagonist. He nails Orient’s self-importance in the scene where the musician plays a concert, which hilariously conveys all of the cliché “serious artist” affectations perfectly. Orient is a guy just begging to have his oversized ego deflated and Gil and Val are just the girls to do it. Sellers was an extremely gifted comic actor and this is evident in his character’s increasingly exasperated and paranoid behavior as he continues to cross paths with Gil and Val.

This was the first film for both Tippy Walker and Merrie Spaeth and Hill gets wonderfully natural performances free of self-conscious affectations out of both of them. The chemistry between the two young actresses seems genuine and we believe that their characters become fast friends. There are scenes where Gil and Val talk about girly things, like shaving their legs for the first time that feels honest and true. The Johnsons’ screenplay does a fantastic job of conveying how young girls idolize a celebrity, creating a rich fantasy world devoted to them through things like a scrapbook filled with photographs, ticket stubs, magazine articles, and so on. Gil and Val are adorable but not sickeningly so nor do they fall into the trap of being wise beyond their years like something out of a J.D Salinger story. They are normal girls dealing with growing up in broken households with a single parent doing the best they can. Walker has the more challenging role as Val and her difficult home life. It is the scenes with Val and Isabel that temper the film’s happy-go-lucky vibe with a slightly darker tone. Hill doesn’t shy away from Isabel’s cruel nature and the pain it causes Val.

It’s almost an hour into the film until we’re privy to Val’s home life when her father and Isabel throw a swanky Christmas party like something out of Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961). Val is dressed up like a mini-adult and is treated as such by her step-mother. Angela Lansbury seems to be channeling her ice queen from State of the Union (1948), a woman who has no idea how to treat a child properly. Isabel eschews any kind of public display of affection for a handshake. She has forgotten what it’s like to be a teenage girl and is more concerned with appearances and her social status in the affluent circles she frequents. She is what Holden Caulfield would commonly refer to as a “phony” to use the parlance of the times.

Years before he played a kindly father on television’s Happy Days, Tom Bosley embodied a wonderfully warm and understanding dad in The World of Henry Orient. One gets the sense that Frank isn’t around much for Val but he does stick up for her when it comes to Isabel’s disapproving criticism, which makes one wonder just what he saw in this woman in the first place. Unlike Isabel, Frank understands that Val is just a young girl and should be treated as such. He doesn’t talk down to his daughter. He also comes to realize his own shortcomings as a parent and promises Val that he will pay more attention to her. The scene where they have a heart-to-heart is touching without being overly sentimental. It’s not a nice, neat resolution but certainly hints at a healthy beginning. With those kind eyes and sympathetic demeanor, Bosley is the kind of dad that most of us would love to have and he is one of the most endearing aspects of this film.

Elmer Bernstein’s delightful score captures the carefree whimsy of the girls playing in the streets of New York while also replicating Orient’s indulgent avant garde piano playing. Hill uses Bernstein’s score sparingly, more like punctuation in a given scene, like providing a wistful vibe to the girls’ playtime or to enhance Orient’s humorous scenes.

The origins of the film date back to Nora Johnson who grew up in New York City after her parents divorced and she hoped that some day they would get back together. She wrote a book entitled The World of Henry Orient about her experiences with the character of Val being her surrogate and Henry Orient was based on famous pianist/actor Oscar Levant. Johnson’s novel was published in 1958 but her father Nunnally Johnson didn’t envision it as a film because he couldn’t imagine two young actresses doing justice to the characters in his daughter’s book. However, child stars Hayley Mills and Patty Duke had become popular in the early ‘60s and Johnson thought they could be cast in a possible film adaptation. He bought the film rights from his daughter, brought her on board to write the screenplay and even gave her final credit after he re-wrote it completely.

Unfortunately, Johnson couldn’t work out deals with either Mills or Duke and went with two unknowns instead with Merrie Spaeth and Tippy Walker. For the role of Henry Orient, Johnson wanted to cast a recognizable movie star and considered the likes of Robert Preston, Rex Harrison, Tony Randall, and Dick Van Dyke. Then, he offered the role to Peter Sellers and he accepted, enticed by the opportunity to shoot his first film in the United States. When George Roy Hill accepted the job he had only directed two films – adaptations of stage plays Period of Adjustment (1962) and Toys in the Attic (1963). The World of Henry Orient allowed him to showcase his cinematic chops, which he did with the opening scenes on the streets of New York. The film premiered at Radio City Musical Hall in New York City on March 19, 1964 and went on to become the official U.S. entry at the Cannes Film Festival. The film was a modest commercial and critical success. It even became a Broadway musical called Henry, Sweet Henry directed by Hill in 1967 to less than enthusiastic reviews and closed after only 80 performances. One can also see the film’s influence on later fare, like Ghost World (2001), arguably the cinematic heir apparent to Henry Orient (there is even a movie poster for Hill’s film in the background of a scene).

Merrie Spaeth went on to act in two television series before quitting show business in favor of being a political and public relations consultant for several conservative clients. After The World of Henry Orient, Tippy Walker appeared in a handful of T.V. shows and acted in a couple of films before retiring from show business and opening an art gallery near Yale University. Henry Orient is a rare Hollywood film that realistically depicts the friendship between two teenage girls. The dynamic between them and the conversations they have are believable. It is also an excellent coming of age story as Gil and Val realize that the celebrity they worship has clay feet. This painful realization forces both of them to grow up a little bit while still remaining friends.

DVD of the Week: 12 Angry Men: Criterion Collection

Adapted from the 1954 teleplay of the same name, 12 Angry Men (1957) marked the auspicious feature film debut of director Sidney Lumet who had cut his teeth on live television in New York City. He brought a gritty, edgy realism to this film, an approach that flew in the face of traditional, more polished Hollywood cinema. With the exception of Henry Fonda, Lumet eschewed movie star casting in favor of actors with a background in New York stage and T.V. work, like E.G. Marshall, Lee J. Cobb, and Jack Warden. The film’s legacy has endured and been felt for decades and without it there would be shows like Law & Order or John Grisham novels. While 12 Angry Men was well-received by critics at the time, it certainly didn’t set the box office on fire but over the years its reputation has grown and is now regarded as a classic.


Lumet begins the film with a solemn opening shot of the impressive pillars of the hall of justice in New York City. In a court room, a Puerto Rican teenager has been charged with murdering his father. If the 12-man jury can find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, then he could be given the death penalty as is the case with first-degree murder. And so, the rest of the film plays out in a small room on “the hottest day of the year,” with no air-conditioning as these men must decide the fate of another.

Before they get started, the men engage in idle chit-chat – getting to know you stuff as their various personalities begin to emerge. During a preliminary vote, everyone says the kid is guilty except for one man (Henry Fonda) who doesn’t want to condemn him to death until they talk about it. As he points out, suppose they’re wrong. Each man says why they think the teenager is guilty and some range from flimsy (“I just think he’s guilty.”) to logical (E.G. Marshall) to opinionated (Lee J. Cobb) but no one can convince the dissenting juror who makes some pretty good points. The juror isn’t saying that the boy is guilty, just that he’s not sure that he did it. The longer they stay sequestered in that hot room, the more tempers flare up as their prejudices come to bear and the dissenting juror begins to garner support with his rational dissection of the evidence and the testimony from the case.

As the film progresses, this impressive cast of actors really impress as they bounce off each other in the small room, from the quiet, reserved juror played by Jack Klugman to the bluster of the juror played by Lee J. Cobb to the unwavering decency of the juror played by Henry Fonda. Lumet is able to keep our interest in the story that unfolds by maintaining the focus on his brilliant cast. He doesn’t try to get fancy with the camerawork or manipulate us with music. He lets the actors do their thing with the first-rate screenplay by Reginald Rose that results in a film that epitomizes the phrase, “hard-hitting drama.” 12 Angry Men is a powerful statement about the American judicial system – one that hasn’t changed much since this film was made except maybe it’s gotten worse – and how personal views and prejudices can influence a jury.

Special Features:

The first disc starts off with “The Television Version” that was directed by Franklin J. Schaffner and which first aired on September 1954 for the series Westinghouse Presents Studio One. It obviously doesn’t feature the star-studded cast of the film but is a pretty solid adaptation in its own right. Ron Simon, curator at the Paley Center for Media in New York City, introduces it and puts the program into context, talks about the director, cast and so on. He points out that it was experiment to see if theater could work on T.V.

“12 Angry Men: From TV to The Big Screen” features film scholar Vance Kepley talking about how it went from a teleplay to film. Rather fittingly, he briefly gives the origins of 12 Angry Men and its numerous adaptations over the years. He talks about the challenges of working in live T.V.

Also included is a trailer.

The second disc includes “Lumet on Lumet,” a collection of archival interviews with the director who talks about his long career. He talks about getting into show business as a kid. He also discusses his work ethic and how he applied it to his films. Lumet also shares some of his interesting life experiences.

“Reflections on Sidney” features friend and collaborator Walter Bernstein sharing some of his observations of Lumet, like how he enjoyed working with actors. Bernstein also talks about how they became friends and tells some good stories.

Ron Simon returns to talk about the importance of writer Reginald Rose who wrote 12 Angry Men. He points that among the great early T.V. writers Rose is the least known and explains the reasons why.

Also included is Tragedy in a Temporary Town, a teleplay written by Rose and directed by Lumet. It aired in 1956 and features a few of the actors who would go on to appear in the film version of 12 Angry Men.

Finally, cinematographer John Bailey talks about fellow cinematographer Boris Kaufman’s visual style and work with Lumet. He gives a brief biographical sketch of the man. Bailey talks about Kaufman’s early, groundbreaking work with French filmmaker Jean Vigo. He also examines Kaufman’s work on 12 Angry Men.

Metropolitan

The early 1990s marked the emergence of two independent filmmakers who were seen as possible heirs to Woody Allen’s cinematic legacy: Noah Baumbach (Kicking and Screaming) and Whit Stillman. The latter filmmaker, in particular, has often been cited in the same breath as Allen’s films. They both mine the same social strata — affluent, Upper East Side New Yorkers — for comedy. Stillman’s debut, Metropolitan (1990), is his most Allen-esque, right down to the simple opening credits sequence (using a font similar to the one Allen does in his films) accompanied by jazz music. Stillman’s characters, like Allen’s, also speak witty dialogue loaded with literary references. However, this is where the similarities begin and end. In Allen’s films, he presents upper class characters that are narcissistic and self-absorbed while Stillman tends to gently parody these qualities.


Completely by random, Tom Townsend (Edward Clements), whose name sounds like something right out of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, shares a cab with Nick Smith (Chris Eigeman) and his friends coming out of a debutante party. Tom is inadvertently invited to a gathering at Sally Fowler’s (Dylan Hundley) where he becomes a part of her Rat Pack, a group of affluent twentysomethings. Tom catches the eye of Audrey (Carolyn Farina) and they eventually bond over a discussion about Jane Austen. Audrey is a sweet, virtuous girl, just like the heroine she admires in Austen’s book, Mansfield Park. Audrey loves Austen’s prose while Tom prefers good, literary criticism because, as he puts it, “that way you can get both the novelist’s ideas as well as the critic’s thinking. With fiction I can never forget that none of it ever really happened. It was all just made up by the author.” The first party sequence does an excellent job of establishing this world and the characters that inhabit it.


Even though their group is known as the Sally Fowler Rat Pack, Nick is their unofficial leader, dominating many of the conversations with his caustic wit. Tom is seen as something of an intriguing outsider (at one point, Nick notices that he lives on the Upper West Side). He’s not as rich as the others but is able to hold his own intellectually. Charlie (Taylor Nichols) doesn’t like Tom because he has a thing for Audrey and knows that she fancies this social interloper. Throughout it all, Nick is Tom’s way into the group and lays out the social rules for him (he shows him the proper etiquette and gives him fashion tips). Tom is obviously the audience surrogate and along with him, we are immersed in this rarefied social milieu.


Metropolitan takes place during the Christmas holidays and depicts the inevitable decline of the Sally Fowler Rat Pack, much as Charlie theorizes early on in the film, confirming his fears of the decline of their generation. He even attempts to define it and frets that they are doomed to decline financially, lamenting the inevitable demise of the Preppie class. He also comes up with the term “Urban Haute Bourgeoisie” or UHB (pronounced “UB”) to describe his class but, in reality, it is just another word for Preppie. Initially, the characters in the film may seem pretentious but I believe that Stillman wants us to see past this facade to the anxiety-ridden personas that lie beneath as typified by Charlie.

Sally’s initial party is chock full of amusing statements, such as how Jane (Allison Rutledge-Parisi) mentions to Tom that a classmate of hers was influenced by his theories on agrarian socialism and that “since then she’s joined the Red Underground Army. If she blows herself up, it’ll be your fault.” Tom admits that he’s a committed socialist who believes in the writings of 19th-century French social critic Charles Fourier. It also is during this sequence that Chris Eigeman gets some of the film’s best lines, such as when his character, Charlie and Tom talk about the effect that divorced parents and broken homes have on their group. Nick mentions that Jane’s father died suddenly the year before. Tom laments that it must’ve been awful for her to which Nick deadpans, “Yes. It was tough on him too.” Eigeman is the master of sarcasm as his character offers caustic observations and quips about those he doesn’t like, chief among them Rick Von Sloneker (Will Kempe), an arrogant aristocrat. Eigeman was born to spout Stillman’s dialogue as is evident in the way Nick offers a hilarious argument as to why Tom should continue to attend deb parties. Stillman obviously thought so too and has cast the actor in every one of his films.


After graduating from Harvard University in 1973, Whit Stillman went into book and magazine publishing. In the early 1980s, he moved into film, representing Spanish films for foreign sales. During this time, he began writing the screenplay for what would become Metropolitan in 1984. At first, all he had was a setting and an image of young people in black and white evening clothes “set against the cream and gilt of New York interiors.” Stillman drew on his memories from his days at Harvard where he read the works of 19th-century reformer Charles Fourier. He ended up writing the monologue about the upper classes being doomed to failure at a restaurant during the 1985 Cannes Film Festival while promoting Spanish films. At the time, he was feeling marginalized and channeled it into this speech. In 1988, Stillman snuck into a debutante party just to make sure they hadn’t changed much and so they’d be accurately depicted in his film.


Like Tom, Stillman felt like an outsider amid the Park Avenue debutant set and he also lived with his mother after his parents divorced. Initially, Tom was the focus of the script but then Stillman got sick of him as “the typical male ingénue,” and audience surrogate. He put the script away for awhile and decided to shift the focus to Audrey and this balanced the story, opening it up so that Charlie and Nick’s roles grew.


Stillman deliberately set his film during an ambiguous time period. He said, “I wanted it to be somewhat in the past, but also timeless so it would not be pegged to one year.” He decided to shoot it in New York City because he could “have an expensive-looking film without actually paying any money for it.” Having very few film contacts, he approached his friends to help finance the film. Stillman used his uptown connections during filming, which began in December 1988 with a cast that had no prior film experience. For example, scenes set in a posh living room were shot inside the Lehrman Institute. Metropolitan was made for less than $100,000 and finished for an additional $300,000.

Metropolitan received fairly positive reviews when it was first released. Roger Ebert gave it three-and-a-half stars out of four and said of Stillman, “He has made a film Scott Fitzgerald might have been comfortable with, a film about people covering their own insecurities with a facade of social ease. And he has written wonderful dialogue, words in which the characters discuss ideas and feelings instead of simply marching through plot points as most Hollywood characters do.” In his review for The New York Times, Stephen Holden wrote, “Particularly funny are Mr. Nichols, as the pessimistic Charlie, who talks of doom and downward mobility, and Mr. Eigeman's Nick, who has a snap judgment for every occasion.” The Washington Post’s Rita Kempley wrote, “Whit Stillman, who wrote and directed this anthropological comedy of manners, approaches his material with both an insider's affection and contempt for his own kind.” The Chicago Reader’s Jonathan Rosenbaum found that the film “has its awkward moments, but the charm of the actors and the wit and freshness of the dialogue (which touches on such subjects as Jane Austen, romance, and class consciousness) keep one interested.” Finally, Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “C+” rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “Instead of a full-bodied comic portrait of the coming-out-party set, Metropolitan offers a thin, cartoon version. Then it uses that cartoonishness to make everyone on-screen seem irresistibly cute.”


There is a certain timeless quality to the film with no real indication of the time period it is set in and this makes Metropolitan the most enduring of Stillman’s three films, which include Barcelona (1994) and The Last Days of Disco (1998) — forming a loose-knit trilogy of doomed Preppies in love. With Metropolitan, Stillman has created an esoteric film that isn’t afraid to name drop Fourier, discuss the advantages of detachable collars and lament the decline of the Preppie class due to downward social mobility. Twenty years since its debut, Stillman has created a fully realized world with well-written characters that he has real affection for and this is something that doesn’t always come through in a lot Woody Allen’s work (at least not recently).

DVD of the Week: Sweet Smell of Success: Criterion Collection

While Sweet Smell of Success (1957) was a hit with film critics at the time, it was not a box office smash as fans of the film’s two leads – Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis – were put off seeing their matinee idols portraying unlikable characters. Based on Ernest Lehman’s novelette and adapted by Clifford Odets, Alexander Mackendrick’s film is a cynical love letter to New York City – seen as a dog-eat-dog town with a richly textured film noir look courtesy of legendary cinematographer James Wong Howe. Sweet Smell’s reputation has only grown over time and is now generally regarded as one of the best-written films with quotable dialogue and also one of the finest takes on tabloid journalism.

Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) is an unscrupulous press agent, a bottom feeder who does anything he can to get his clients mentioned in mainstream publications like The New York Globe. For some time, he’s been trying to get in the good graces of J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster), the most influential newspaper columnist in the city. He’s even willing to break up the romance between Hunsecker’s kid sister Susan (Susan Harrison) and Steve Dallas (Martin Milner), an up and coming jazz musician, by planting a story that her boyfriend dabbles in drugs. Falco sees Hunsecker as “the golden ladder to the places I want to get,” which is a position where he’s the one calling the shots instead of spending all of his time hustling.

Odets’ much celebrated hard-boiled dialogue crackles with energy and intensity as evident in the scene that introduces Hunsecker. “You’re dead son. Get yourself buried,” is how he casually dismisses Falco. “Match me, Sidney,” is another witty remark courtesy of Hunsecker. Falco gets his own clever remarks as he tells Hunsecker at one point, “Cat’s in the bag and the bag’s in the river.” In a film like Sweet Smell of Success, words are weapons which men like Falco and Hunsecker use to destroy people with no remorse.

The film was quite a risky venture for both Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster at the time. They were popular box office draws and their roles in Sweet Smell of Success were very different from what their fans were used to seeing. Curtis, in particular, wanted to shed his pretty boy reputation by taking on more substantial material while Lancaster was a maverick within the industry and formed his own production company in order to generate personal pet projects like Sweet Smell.

Right from the opening shot, Mackendrick presents New York as a busy, claustrophobic and noisy place drenched in noirish shadows. It’s a place where heartless individuals like Falco and Hunsecker prey upon the weak. While the latter was based on infamous gossip columnist Walter Winchell, he is also a predecessor to muckraking gossip hounds of today, including websites like TMZ and feared industry insiders like Nikki Finke. Sweet Smell of Success, with its snappy acerbic dialogue, anticipates the stylized tough guy banter of David Mamet and the fast-talking characters in Aaron Sorkin’s television shows. It was one of the rare, uncompromising films from the 1950s that dared to be critical of the establishment and still get made and released within the system. The folks at the Criterion Collection have given this cinematic classic the deluxe treatment it so richly deserves.

Special Features:

Time to throw away the bare bones MGM DVD that was released years ago as this new edition features a pristine transfer that restores the Sweet Smell of Success’ exquisite black and white cinematography, and includes several wonderful extras.

The first disc features an audio commentary by film scholar James Naremore who wrote the BFI Film Classics book on Sweet Smell of Success. He offers excellent analysis of various aspects of the film and also provides biographical detail on the principal cast and crew. In addition, Naremore provides important details on Walter Winchell, the inspiration for the character of J.J. Hunsecker. He also takes us through the genesis of the film in this engaging and very informative track.

Also included is a theatrical trailer.

The second disc starts off with “Mackendrick: The Man Who Walked Away,” a 1986 documentary about director Alexander Mackendrick that runs 44 minutes in length. Contemporaries, like Burt Lancaster, and fellow filmmakers, like John Milius, speak highly of the man. Mackendrick himself talks about his beginnings in advertising thanks to his aptitude as an illustrator – a skill he applied to his filmmaking. This doc sheds light on this often-forgotten film director.

“James Wong Howe: Cinematographer” is a 1973 documentary that features the Academy Award-winning director of photography giving a tutorial on film lighting. In addition, he also tells some entertaining filming anecdotes from his illustrious career and shares his approach to cinematography.

“Gabler on Winchell” takes a look at the columnist that inspired Hunsecker in the film. We learn of Walter Winchell’s importance to American journalism, including the notion of celebrity and the concept of personal style in reporting. He grew to great prominence in the 1930s and wielded a lot of power with the ability to make or break people’s careers.

Finally, there is a 25-minute interview with director James Mangold (Cop Land, Walk the Line) who was one of Mackendrick’s students. Mangold recalls his initial impressions of Mackendrick and what drew him to the man. He says that in his teachings, Mackendrick stressed the ability to tell a story, an understanding of acting, and how a scene worked. Mangold speaks with obvious affection for his mentor in this engaging extra.

Unfaithful

Sometimes it’s frustrating being a Diane Lane fan. For an actress so talented, she appears in a lot of dreck. For every The Outsiders (1983) or A Walk on the Moon (1999), there are three or four Must Love Dogs (2005) type clunkers. Yet, she gamely plugs along, turning in consistently good performances in even the most routine films (Murder at 1600). With Unfaithful (2002), she finally found material that could challenge her by portraying a fascinatingly flawed character in a provocative film. It was a remake of Claude Chabrol’s 1968 film, La femme infidele and was directed by Adrian Lyne, a filmmaker not afraid to court controversy by bringing a European sensibility to sex and sensuality in films like 9½ Weeks (1986), Indecent Proposal (1993), and Lolita (1997). With Unfaithful, he proposed a simple yet intriguing premise: why would a woman with a successful, loving husband and nice child threaten this security with an illicit affair with another man? While his film ultimately conforms to clichéd thriller conventions, Lane transcends the material with a career-best performance that garnered her all kinds of critical accolades and awards, chief among them an Academy Award nomination.


Constance Sumner (Diane Lane) has it all: Edward (Richard Gere), a handsome husband with a successful business in New York City, and Charlie (Erik Per Sullivan), an adorable son. They live in a beautiful house on a lake outside of the city. Not to mention Connie has a body most women her age would kill for. The worst you could say about Connie and Edward’s marriage is that it’s gotten routine. They obviously still love each other and have that familiar shorthand that couples do after living together for years. For example, one morning she notices that he’s wearing a sweater inside out and lets him know before he goes off to work. We first see her in the midst of domesticity, doing the dishes and getting Charlie ready for school. She’s loving and supportive towards her husband and child.

Diane Lane and Richard Gere play this sequence well and are quite believable as a married couple by the way they interact with each other. Lyne inserts little details to reinforce their comfortable domesticity, like how Connie stops the dog bowl from moving around as their pet hungrily chows down on his food – it’s a move that looks like she’s done many times over the years. It also didn’t hurt that Lane and Gere were paired up previously in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Cotton Club (1984) and while they didn’t have much chemistry together on that film, they at least had something to build on.

One particularly windy, blustery day, Connie goes into the city to run some errands and literally runs into a young man (Olivier Martinez) carrying an armful of books. They both go sprawling and she ends up scraping her knees. He invites her up to his apartment so that she can tend to her wounds and call for a taxi. His offer isn’t difficult for her to accept. He’s gorgeous looking and has a sexy French accent. Paul is a book dealer who just happens to look like fashion model – of course he does or how else are the filmmakers going to explain Diane Lane cheating on someone like Richard Gere? Paul is aloof and accommodating but when Connie goes off to use his telephone, he checks her out. The camera adopts his point-of-view, slowly moving up her long legs to her face. No one can quite make a trenchcoat look sexy like Lane does in this scene.

Paul startles Connie by gently placing an ice pack on her knee and first physical contact is made. The look she gives him, a sly smile, makes you wonder if it is at this moment that she first thinks about having an affair with this man. The extremely windy day that starts off this scene is a harbinger, an ominous warning of how turbulent Connie’s life will become once she accepts this man’s invitation. After this alluring encounter, Connie comes home to reality: toys lying around, the dog roaming around and her son watching television. Later, she and Edward try to make love but are interrupted by Charlie – the ultimate mood killer.

Home alone during the day, she checks out the book Paul gave her and inside is his business card. On an impulsive whim, she takes the train into the city and calls him on a pay phone. Paul invites her over and Connie accepts, turned on by the attention she is getting from this mysterious, attractive young man. Once there, he slyly puts the moves on her, taking off her coat so that his fingers brush up against her neck. Lane is excellent in this scene as she conveys the excitement her character feels being with this man, the apprehension of being unsure of what she’s doing, and the inner turmoil as you can tell that she’s trying to decide whether to leave or stay. Ultimately, Connie leaves and visits her husband at work, giving him a present out of the guilt she feels for seeing Paul.

She visits him again and he excites her in the way he looks and touches her. Paul looks at Connie in a very seductive way that makes her feel wanted and desired – something that she doesn’t feel with Edward. She has a moment of conscience where she tells Paul that what they are doing is a mistake, to which he replies, “There’s no such thing as a mistake. There’s what you do and what you don’t do.” Connie leaves and then comes right back to get her coat. Before she can say anything, Paul embraces here and literally sweeps her off her feet. Lyne does an interesting thing here. Instead of just showing their subsequent love scene, he breaks it up by intercutting Connie’s train ride home, juxtaposing her emotional reaction to what she’s done with the act itself. As he demonstrated with 9½ Weeks, Lyne certainly knows how to capture the erotic intimacy of a sex scene.

Lyne shows Paul gently touching Connie’s body which is trembling in fear and excitement. The emotional turmoil that plays across Lane’s face is astounding as she displays a vulnerability that is quite raw. This gentle foreplay segues into something more primal as Connie attempts one more time to stop this and Paul tells her to hit him so that her aggressive passion that he knows lurks under her conflicted surface will take away her fear. It does as she pummels him and this gives way to passionate kisses as she hungrily devours him. This is intercut with Connie’s train ride home as she reflects on what she’s done. The range of emotions that play across her face as she replays it over in her mind is incredible to watch. She smiles to herself and her hand absently runs across her chest. Her mood darkens ever so gradually before lightening again as she smiles and then breaks out into a laugh. Finally, her face takes on a slightly sad expression. In only a few moments, she has run a whole gamut of emotions and pulls it off masterfully.

Edward has been married to Connie long enough to sense when something is off with her. Early on, he doesn’t have any definite indicator that something is amiss except for a possible small lie that she told him. But it’s enough for him to ask her one night if she loves him. Richard Gere asks Lane in such a way that your heart goes out to his character. He’s done nothing wrong while she’s off having an affair with another man.

Lyne orchestrates another fascinating montage that juxtaposes Connie spending time with Edward and her son at their home with her spending time with Paul in the city. She has fun with both men but in different ways. With Edward, she feels safe and secure in domesticity, and with Paul, she feels excited and passionate. Ultimately, she is looking for someone who can make her feel both safe and passionate. Connie’s affair emboldens her to take unnecessary risks, like kissing Paul in a public place and, by chance, one of the men (Chad Lowe) that works with her husband sees them.

As he demonstrated in both 9½ Weeks and Indecent Proposal, Lyne really knows how to photograph women and bring out their beauty. Unfaithful is no different as he does an incredible job of conveying Lane’s beauty, both naked (the scene where she takes a bath) and clothed (she can even make wearing a t-shirt and jeans look sexy). It is the way he lights her and the angles he uses that bring out her natural good looks. Lane has never looked or acted so well.

When Edward suspects that Connie isn’t being truthful with him yet again, he checks up on her excuse and finds out that she lied to him. To add further risk, when she’s in the city to meet Paul for another tryst, Connie runs into a friend of hers with a co-worker. Unable to ditch them, they all go out to lunch. Connie calls Paul and tells him what happened and he shows up. On the spur of the moment, they have sex in a bathroom stall. Lyne shows a playful side during this scene as he cuts between Paul and Connie’s brief but passionate bout of sex and Connie’s friend talking to her co-worker about how good Connie looks, which is rather obvious. As Edward’s suspicions grow, he decides to have Connie followed and what he finds out and how he acts on it, changes the entire complexion of the story and the film.

The longer the affair goes on, the more selfish Connie becomes and she loses sight of what’s important to her – Edward and Charlie. She has become addicted to her rendezvous with Paul as he consumes her thoughts to the point where she even gets jealous when she spots him with another woman. Connie becomes more desperate and her behavior more erratic as the affair continues.

Richard Gere has the thankless role of playing the spurned husband and he does a good job of eliciting sympathy early on. Edward may not be has handsome as Paul but, c’mon, it’s Richard Gere! The man has aged incredibly well and looks handsome no matter how many frumpy sweaters Lyne tries to put him in. Gere’s finest moment in Unfaithful is when his character confronts Paul. Edward starts off angry but Gere doesn’t chew up the scenery – it’s a slow burn as Edward questions Paul and then he gradually becomes unglued. Gere has to convey a wide spectrum of emotions in this scene and does so quite expertly. From that scene on, his character undergoes a very profound change and it is interesting to see how Gere plays it out.

After years of playing heroic roles in films like Judge Dredd (1995), Lane began to seek out projects that gave her the chance to play more flawed characters. In many respects, A Walk on the Moon was a warm-up for her role in Unfaithful. In that film, she played a 1960s housewife who gets caught up in the sexual revolution of the era and cheats on her husband with a good-looking traveling clothes salesman. Whereas her character’s motivation was clearer in that one, it is more ambiguous in Unfaithful. In fact, Lyne cast Lane based on her work in A Walk on the Moon in which he found her to be “very sympathetic and vulnerable.”

During the production, Lyne fought with 20th Century Fox over the source of the affair. Executives felt that there needed to be a reason while the director believed that chance played a large role. Early drafts of the screenplay featured the Sumners with a dysfunctional sexual relationship and the studio wanted them to have a bad marriage with no sex so there would be more sympathy for Connie. Lyne and Gere disagreed and the director had the script rewritten so that the Sumners basically had a good marriage. He said, “the whole point of the movie was the arbitrary nature of infidelity, the fact that you could be the happiest person on Earth and meet somebody over there, and suddenly your life’s changed.”

When it came time to assemble the crew for this film, Lyne asked director of photography Peter Biziou, with whom he had made 9½ Weeks, to shoot Unfaithful. After reading the screenplay, Biziou felt that the story lent itself to the classic 1.85:1 aspect ratio because there was often “two characters working together in frame.” During pre-production, Biziou, Lyne and production designer Brian Morris used a collection of still photographs as style references. These included photos from fashion magazines and shots by prominent photographers.

Initially, the story was set against snowy exteriors but this idea was rejected early on and the film was shot from March 22 to June 1, 2001 with Lyne shooting in sequence whenever possible. Much of the film was shot in Greenwich Village and Lyne ended up incorporating the city’s unpredictable weather. During the windstorm sequence where Connie first meets Paul, it rained and Lyne used the overcast weather conditions for the street scenes.

Lyne also preferred shooting in practical interiors on location so that, according to Biziou, the actors “feel an intimate sense of belonging at locations,” and use natural light as much as possible. A full four weeks of the schedule was dedicated to the scenes in Paul’s loft which was located on the third floor of a six-story building. Biziou often used two cameras for the film’s intimate sex scenes so as to spare the actors as little discomfort as possible. For example, Olivier Martinez wasn’t comfortable with doing nudity. So, to get him and Lane in the proper frame of mind for the sex scenes, Lyne showed them clips from Five Easy Pieces (1970), Last Tango in Paris (1972) and Fatal Attraction (1987). The two actors hadn’t met before filming and didn’t get to know each other well during the shoot, a calculated move on Lyne’s part so that their off-camera relationship mirrored the one of their characters.

Lyne tested his cast and crew’s endurance by using smoke in certain scenes to enhance the atmosphere. According to Biziou, “the texture it gives helps differentiate and separate various density levels of darkness farther back in frame.” Lyne used this technique on all of his films; however, on a set where cast and crew were filming 18-20 hour days, it got to be a bit much. Gere remembered, “Our throats were being blown out. We had a special doctor who was there almost all the time who was shooting people up with antibiotics for bronchial infections.” Lane even used an oxygen bottle for doses of fresh air between takes.

By and large Unfaithful received mixed reviews with Lane often getting singled out for praise for her brave, complex performance. Entertainment Weekly gave the film an “A-" rating and Owen Gleiberman praised Lane for giving, "the most urgent performance of her career, is a revelation. The play of lust, romance, degradation, and guilt on her face is the movie's real story." In his review for The New York Times, Stephen Holden praised the "taut, economical screenplay" that "digs into its characters' marrow (and into the perfectly selected details of domestic life) without wasting a word. That screenplay helps to ground a film whose visual imagination hovers somewhere between soap opera and a portentous pop surrealism.” USA Today gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four and Mike Clark wrote, "Diane Lane also reaches a new career plateau with her best performance since 1979's A Little Romance.” The New York Observer’s Andrew Sarris wrote, "Ultimately Unfaithful is escapism in its purest form, and I am willing to experience it on that level, even though with all the unalloyed joy on display, there's almost no humor," and concluded that it was "one of the very few mainstream movies currently directed exclusively to grown-ups."

However, Roger Ebert wrote, "Instead of pumping up the plot with recycled manufactured thrills, it's content to contemplate two reasonably sane adults who get themselves into an almost insoluble dilemma." In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan wrote, "The only performer who manages to get inside her character is Lane. Whether it's her initial half-distrustful tentativeness, her later sensual abandon or her never-ending ambivalence, Lane's Constance seems to be actually living the role in a way no one else matches, a way we can all connect to." The Washington Post’s Stephen Hunter felt that, "In the end, Unfaithful leaves you dispirited and grumpy: All that money spent, all that talent wasted, all that time gone forever, and for what? It's an ill movie that bloweth no man to good." Newsweek magazine’s David Ansen wrote, "Unfaithful shows what a powerful, sexy, smart filmmaker Lyne can be. It's a shame he substitutes the mechanics of suspense for the real suspense of what goes on between a man and a woman, a husband and a wife.”

The last 25 minutes of Unfaithful slides dangerously into formulaic thriller territory, threatening to derail what had been up to that point an engrossing drama about an illicit affair. Why did Lyne feel the need to go in this direction? Did the studio influence his decision and mandate that he incorporate more commercial elements? Lane and Gere do their best to keep things on track and it’s a credit to their abilities that they keep us interested in what is happening to their characters as they transcend the material. In some respects, Unfaithful is a horror film for married couples or for people in some kind of long-term relationship as it shows the ramifications of cheating on one’s spouse. The tragic thing is that all of this could have been avoided if Connie and Edward just talked to each other openly and honestly about how they felt about things. After all, communication is the key to a successful marriage or any meaningful relationship. As Unfaithful shows, lies only complicate things and drive people apart. It’s a harsh lesson that Connie and Edward learn the hard way.

Also, check out Neil Fulwood's take over at his awesome blog, The Agitation of the Mind. Over at The Cooler, Jason Bellamy did a great job dissecting a pivotal scene from the film.
 

Q & A

Among the many genres prolific filmmaker Sidney Lumet has dabbled in, the one in which he excels and demonstrates the most affinity for is the crime thriller. In particular, he is fascinated with police corruption and how the law and order system works (or, in some cases, doesn’t work) in New York City. In the 1970s, he told the story of an undercover cop who deals with corruption among his fellow officers with Serpico (1973). In the 1980s, he depicted the plight of a police detective that informs on his cohorts after being busted himself in the magnum opus Prince of the City (1981). In the 1990s, Lumet tackled police corruption yet again but this time via the angle of racism with Q & A (1990). Based on the novel of the same name by New York judge Edwin Torres, Lumet’s adaptation received mixed reviews from critics and was largely ignored by audiences of the day. It has become something of a forgotten, underappreciated film in Lumet’s filmography and one that deserves to be rediscovered.

During the opening credits we see the rain-slicked streets of New York City through the back seat of a cop car. This sequence sets a nice, gritty tone and takes us on a mini-tour of the city where most of the film’s action takes place. However, Ruben Blades’ jarring song that plays on the soundtrack almost ruins it. I’m not quite sure what Lumet was thinking but it simply does not work here.

Lieutenant Mike Brennan (Nick Nolte) is a dirty cop as evident from his introduction where he ambushes an unarmed Latino drug dealer, blows the guy’s brains out and then bullies two nearby witnesses into saying that the man had a gun in his hand. Assistant District Attorney Al Reilly (Timothy Hutton) is assigned to the case. His boss tells him that the incident is a cut and dry one. He is told that Brennan is a good cop – a little rough in his methods but all of his cases have been tried successfully with no appeals. Reilly is instructed to collect the facts with the help of a stenographer and present them to a grand jury. His boss instructs him that “the Q & A defines what really happened. If it’s not the Q & A, it didn’t happen.”

Reilly is eager to please and is impressed with Brennan’s imposing presence and reputation. The young A.D.A. questions Roberto “Bobby Tex” Texador (Armand Assante), a drug dealer and racketeer, who, along with his wife Nancy (Jenny Lumet), witnessed the aftermath of the murder. He refutes the theory that the gun was found on the murder victim. Reilly begins to suspect that something might not be right with the case. He is also faced with a personal conflict as he used to be involved with Nancy and still has feelings for her. Reilly soon realizes that’s he’s taken on more than he can possibly handle. Sidney Lumet pits Brennan, Bobby Tex and Reilly against one another, each with their own agenda and the film gradually heads towards an inevitable confrontation between the three men.

Nick Nolte is a lot of fun to watch as a larger than life cop. He sports slicked back hair and a thick mustache that threatens to overtake his mouth. There’s a memorable scene early on where his character recounts a story to some other cops about how a mobster gave him a hard time when he tried to fingerprint him that is hilarious and disgusting. The scene has an authenticity of a veteran that delights in telling old war stories to inflate his own ego. Nolte’s Brennan is a chatty guy that loves to tell stories of past glories as he tries to buddy-up with Reilly until the A.D.A. lets him know that he’ll go after the veteran cop if he finds out he’s dirty. Nolte’s whole demeanor changes in a heartbeat and it is quite exciting to see him go from jovial to threatening in the span of a few seconds. Brennan is as corrupt as they get and enjoys the influence he exerts and the power he wields. He uses fear and intimidation to get what he wants. Nolte put on 40 pounds for the role because he felt that the character required it: “just the sheer mass of brutality. I felt that would be the right kind of thing. He had to be on the edge of his own dissipation.”

Armand Assante is a force of nature as Bobby Tex, portraying the crook with an aggressive swagger and an intensity that is impressively conveyed in his eyes. During Reilly’s initial questioning, Bobby oozes casual confidence and Assante does a great job of conveying it. He also imparts a keen intelligence. Bobby isn’t just some two-bit street punk. He doesn’t even blow his cool when Luis Guzman’s cop gets all in his face. Bobby matches his intensity and it is great to see two skilled character actors go at it. Assante ups his intensity when he warns Reilly to stay away from his wife. He gives the A.D.A. a seriously threatening look that would have most people shaking in their shoes. It’s Bobby’s first appearance in the film and Assante makes quite an impression.

Up against two lead actors playing colorful characters, Timothy Hutton wisely underplays Al Reilly. His character may be young and new to the job but he knows the law as demonstrated when questioning a mobster by the name of Pesch (Dominic Chianese) and his lawyer (Fyvush Finkel) in rather confident fashion. At first, it appears that the slick mob lawyer is going intimidate Reilly but the young man expertly turns the tables with his intelligence. Hutton is good as the straight arrow A.D.A. that decides to take on a highly respected cop and in the process uncovers an intricate web of corruption. The actor avoids stereotyping by showing layers to his character through the revelation of his feelings for Nancy which affects his approach to the case. Reilly starts off as an idealistic person but over the course of the film, as he’s exposed to corruption, he gains experience and becomes savvier when it comes to how things work. Early on in Q & A, there is a revealing conversation he has with Leo Bloomenfeld (Lee Richardson), a veteran attorney that has clearly been working in the system for far too many years. He’s jaded and tells the eager Reilly how things really are, giving him a taste of the corruption he will witness first hand later on. To prepare for the role, Hutton went on squad-car runs with police officers in Manhattan in order to get an idea of the challenges they face on the streets. He said of the experience, “in many cases the hands of the officer on the street are tied.”

Lumet shows how close these cops are by the short-hand between them and the familiarity they have with each other. In the scene where Reilly questions Brennan about the homicide in a room full of cops, the director really captures the camaraderie among these men. The dialogue sounds authentic and is delivered by the actors in a way that is so natural you believe that they are these characters. Consummate character actor Luis Guzman has a memorable role as a homicide detective that first suspects the Brennan case is rotten. He has a memorable moment where he jokingly defends Brennan’s casual racism: “He ain’t no racist. He hates everybody. He’s an equal opportunity hater.” Even though this is said in jest, in actuality it’s not far off the mark.

Q & A received mostly positive reviews from critics. Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "It is fascinating the way this movie works so well as a police thriller on one level, while on other levels it probes feelings we may keep secret even from ourselves." Rolling Stone magazine’s Peter Travers wrote, "Lumet tries to cram too much in ... But he's onto something, and you can sense his excitement. This is Lumet's boldest film in years – a combustible drama with a vivid, shocking immediacy. The director is back at the top of his game.” The Washington Post’s Hal Hinson praised Nick Nolte's performance: "This actor doesn't flinch in the least from his character's unsavoriness; instead he seems to glory in his crumpled suits and unwashed hair, as if they were a kind of spiritual corollary. Nolte gives Brennan a kind of monumental brutishness – he makes him seem utterly indomitable.” In his review for the Globe and Mail, Rick Groen praised Armand Assante's performance: "in a role that could easily descend into cliche – the crook with a moral code – Assante does his best work to date, always keeping on the safe side of the stereotype.” Newsweek magazine’s David Ansen wrote, "Nolte, with a big paunch and a walrus mustache, is a truly dangerous presence here; he uses his threatening body and a high, strained voice to stunning, scary effect. Like the movie, Nolte really gets in your face and, for a long time afterwards, sticks in you craw.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film an “A-“ rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “Q&A is a major film by one of our finest mainstream directors. As both a portrait of modern-day corruption and an act of sheer storytelling bravura, it is not to be missed."

However, in his review for The New York Times, Vincent Canby wrote, "great little scenes overshadow bigger, more important ones. Characters come and go at speed. Watching the movie is an entertaining ride, but when it's over it's difficult to remember where, exactly, one has been." USA Today gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "Overkill ultimately wears Q & A down, despite two bravura performances and some Hutton understatement that's adequate to the task. So, too, does unrelenting sordidness, a deadly love angle and a score (Ruben Blades) almost as awful as Cy Coleman’s sabotage of Lumet’s Family Business.”

One of the major themes Q & A wrestles with is racism. There is the casual kind between black, white and Latino cops and there’s the more damaging kind that resulted in the end of Reilly and Nancy’s relationship years ago. Racism informs a lot of the characters’ decisions and often motivates their actions. The film addresses racism in an honest way that you rarely see outside of a Spike Lee film. As he did with Prince of the City and later with Night Falls on Manhattan (1997), Lumet sheds light on how cops and crooks can be intricately linked and just how deep corruption runs in a sprawling metropolis like New York City. These films show how law and order works in fascinating detail and that feels authentic, much like the television show Law & Order does year in and year out.