To begin with, they wanted Allen to star, but he originally cast Michael Keaton as both Baxter and Shepherd. For a sense of personal nostalgia, the production filmed cinema interiors at Brooklyn’s Kent Theater, a last-run moviehouse where Allen spent much of his time as a boy. The Purple Rose of Cairo. Allen’s film earns comparisons to great surrealist masterworks, like Luis Bunuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (which has been referenced multiple times in Allen’s oeuvre), as everyone onscreen accepts this fantastical event with Tom Baxter and hopes to deal with it in logical terms. All she can do is spend her last bit of change on the moviehouse’s latest, Top Hat, in which Fred Astaire sings “Dancing Cheek to Cheek” to Ginger Rogers. THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO is a movie written and directed by Woody Allen in 1985. Cecelia (), a woman who lives a rather miserable life during the Great Depression-ridden 1930s, is a part-time waitress and full-time film fanatic, frequenting The Jewel, her town’s local movie house. And though “The Purple Rose of Cairo” will not continue, a paying audience sits and waits, because at least it’s something to avert their minds from reality. Years later, when interviewed about the film, Allen, his own harshest critic, said that The Purple Rose of Cairo remains among his favorites of his own works, being that his films so rarely turn out as they were originally conceived, but this one turned out “fairly close”. The film’s most brilliant stroke of realism is not part of the presentation, however; it lies within the dramatic authenticity of Allen’s conclusion, and his refusal to manufacture a fabricated “happy ending” for Cecilia. There, a prostitute (Dianne Wiest, in her first of several roles in Allen films) picks him up and brings him back to her brothel, where a gaggle of entranced working girls find his naïveté endearing. The Purple Rose of Cairo takes influence from Fellini’s The White Sheik and Buster Keaton’s Sherlock, Jr., where the lines of reality and movie fantasy are blurred. Meanwhile, back at the Jewel, the projector runs continuously. Because her creation of Gill is also not real, he leaves her, which is the most authentic outcome Allen can produce for the character who chooses reality over fantasy. Change ). But you’ll be back!” Who can say? And so, Cecelia’s wish may have come true, but it lacks a concrete place in reality. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! University of Michigan: Scarecrow Press, 1995. Escapism is a central theme in The Purple Rose of Cairo, along with staple Allen’s topics, most notably identity: how we define ourselves and how that definition is challenged by people and the world around us. Returning home now would be almost inconceivable; her fantasy man has gone back to his fantasy world; her real-life beaux has deserted her; she has no job and ultimately no hope. She chooses the real world with Gil and, broken-hearted, Tom steps back into the movie screen. Directed by Woody Allen. Her only escape from her mudane reality is the movie theatre. They decide to give him one on the house, but he resists out of his blind love for Cecelia. Of all films about the power of cinema, The Purple Rose of Cairo explores its subject most tenderly, radiating a warm truth in a scenario both surreal and farcical. In her, he sees reflected his own dissatisfaction with modernity and how people have always romanticized the past; and rather than embrace nostalgia, he resolves to improve his present. Cecelia spends her time fantasizing as an escape from the harsh reality of her world, but reality continues to pose the potential for difficult and unexpected misfortune. When Shepherd arrives in New Jersey, he searches for the escaped Tom Baxter but finds Cecelia instead. Appreciations and critical essays on great cinema. There are films we see that burn into our minds and remembrances, while others help define how we see ourselves and help us change. How appropriate then that, for a time, Allen recreates such an escapist experience here, yet also confronts us with how the dream ends when the credits roll. In New Jersey in 1935, a movie character walks off the screen and into the real world. Release Date 03/01/1985. Adding even more drama, Gil Shepherd (also, Jeff Daniels), the actor who performed the character Tom, swoops into town hoping to persuade Tom back into the movie, but he, too, falls in love with Cecelia. Yet, escapism is, perhaps, the most interesting, and certainly most apparent, theme. She has long dreamt about meeting some impossibly adventurous and romantic character from the movies, and now her dream has come true. “You mean me?” All at once, the film character steps from the black-and-white screen and into her color world. She waits for Gil in front of the theater, and waits, but he never arrives. If only there were more guys out there like Tom Baxter; but the sad fact is no man like him has ever existed outside of fiction. Cinematographer Gordon Willis and production designer Stuart Wurtzel render the period without the usual glamour of 1930s-set films. How can Cecelia escape all the misery her life has in order? But then, Gil arrives in the theater and promises to take Cecelia back to Hollywood with him. Perhaps it remains so relatable and touching for audiences because, after all, who better than an audience to identify with Cecelia’s need to escape? In the final scene, the audience, again, hears “Cheek to Cheek,” this time accompanying the film Top Hat, which Cecelia takes her seat to watch the movie. Cecelia (Mia Farrow), a woman who lives a rather miserable life during the Great Depression-ridden 1930s, is a part-time waitress and full-time film fanatic, frequenting The Jewel, her town’s local movie house. 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