Posts Tagged ‘Annie Hall’

Diane Keaton always wanted to be a singer and finally got her wish in And So It Goes

ASIG_02869.NEFBy Richard Crouse – Metro Canada

Diane Keaton’s latest film, the romance And So It Goes, brings the star back to her roots.

As a beginner, long before she won an Academy Award for Annie Hall, or starred in the controversial Looking for Mr. Goodbar or inspired romantic rivalry between her Reds leading men, Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson, Keaton dreamed of being a singer.

“I had a fantasy of being a nightclub singer that I carried through even into my early 20s,” she says.

“I sang a couple of gigs, as they call them, but I was not very good. I began to understand that I was not going to be a singer. I’ve always loved to sing but I’m aware of the limitations of my voice. It was always a disappointing voice. I took singing lessons for years, but it was a very small voice. It’s worse than it ever was. It’s smaller than ever. But I have this love of it. I love music. I love singing ballads and sad songs, it’s just so much fun.”

And sing she does in the new film, a romance co-starring Michael Douglas — “He couldn’t be any more charming,” she says — about Leah, a woman who gets a second chance at a career and love.

“I never thought I’d ever sing again. I had some songs intermittently in some movies but to have it come up again and have the possibility of singing four songs and one song all the way through was a dream come true.”

Keaton describes Leah, a lounge singer who bursts into tears at the mere thought of her late husband, as a woman, “who has had a lovely life but has lost the love of her life. She’s my age, in her late 60s.”

The 68-year-old Oscar winner says playing Leah was “a joy,” but adds, “getting old is a great levelling experience. You really do see the truth, which is that your expression and your goals don’t really mean much in the grand scheme of things.

“With that in mind you start seeing life in a different way. You don’t see it so much as the goals for the future; it’s just now. You live in the moment, in the present. This is what you have.

“So I really feel you’re more grateful, you’re more filled with awe, you’re more amazed because it is a huge, giant question mark this life we live in.

“It’s a huge gift and you need to see yourself for what you are and appreciate what you have while you have it now.”

A quick look at the madly prolific Woody Allen RICHARD CROUSE METRO CANADA Published: September 10, 2010

High Quality WallpaperYou could be forgiven for thinking there is always a Woody Allen movie playing at your local theatre.

Since 1965 he has produced a stream of comedies, romances and dramas at the rate of about one a year.

To place his output in context, look at the film careers of two of his contemporaries; Mel Brooks has made only 12 films in the time it took Allen to direct 45 and Carl Reiner has only written seven pictures against Allen’s list of 49 (and counting).

His productivity is nothing short of amazing — his latest film, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, is at TIFF this week — but he claims to make films only because, “I don’t know what else I would do with my time.

“I’ve made perfectly decent films,” he says, but admits, “some of them may be very good and some may be very bad. If I was the teacher, I’d give myself a B.” Here’s a look back at the films of one of the hardest working men in show business.

La-di-da
1977’s Oscar winning Annie Hall is Allen’s acknowledged masterpiece, a film Roger Ebert called “just about everyone’s favourite Woody Allen movie.” The story of neurotic New York comedian Alvy Singer (Allen) and the ditsy title character (Diane Keaton) is a sweet and funny (“That sex was the most fun I’ve ever had without laughing.”) look at contemporary relationships.

Sex and death
Of all the themes Allen has covered, sex (“Is sex dirty? Only if it’s done right.”) and death (“On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done just as easily lying down.”) are his go-to topics. Of all his sex and death films, the chaotic Sleeper is the funniest. Billed as his “nostalgic look at the future,” it is a satirical sci-fi set to a soundtrack of Dixieland jazz. Funniest scene? Allen trapped inside an Orgasmatron.

Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable
He says he never watches his own films because, “I think I would hate them,” and in fact, there is one, considered a classic by many, he has watched and says he can’t stand — Manhattan. “I hated that one,” he says. On the flip side he does concede to enjoying Purple Rose of Cairo, Match Point, Bullets Over Broadway, Zelig and Vicky Cristina Barcelona.