Blue Allen

“Blue Moon—you know the song? It was playing when Hal and I first met,” the protagonist of Woody Allen’s newest film, Blue Jasmine, repeatedly says. Jasmine seems to be exploring a theme similar to others in Woody Allen’s recent films: regret. It’s a theme audiences see in Midnight in Paris, as Gil desperately tries to find happiness in the years of The Lost Generation, or in To Rome With Love, as John travels back to the city he lived in while he was still young. However, Blue Jasmine is very different from these other films. Allen plays on his audience’s set expectations to draw attention to Jasmine and her demise. The value of Blue Jasmine comes not from being another charming Woody Allen film, but from the rather terrifying truth it imparts, part of Allen’s own experiences. The film ends with Jasmine talking to herself, homeless on a park bench, and perhaps this mirrors Allen’s own regrets.

Blue Jasmine begins, as in any other Allen movie, with the classic titles and vintage jazz that have become his trademarks. The film then proceeds to deliver, in many ways, what audiences would expect from Allen: a warm, golden light, scenes with few cuts, actors of fantastic repute, etc. However, these traditions of the auteur seem ironic when put up against with the serious, almost cruel, theme Blue Jasmine explores. The film does not provide the same comic relief Allen’s more recent films have, and the cheerful music and golden design seem to foil the devastation of Jasmine’s situation. Allen’s tradition gives the audience set expectations, but he effectively wrenches those expectations with Blue Jasmine’s seriousness. This seriousness sets Blue Jasmine apart from other Allen films.

Another element of the film that sets it apart is its lack of tourism. While films in Allen’s past have sold New York apartments for millions and have created a mini-industry for Allen-inspired city tours (Satran), Blue Jasmine hardly explores San Francisco, being completely deficient in loving montages and adoring shots of classic tourist areas. Instead the film limits its locations to the small, run-down neighborhood of Jasmine’s sister or the unrecognizable upscale apartments of Jasmine’s past. San Francisco is definitely not the star in this film, as Allen said himself: "Her sister could have lived anyplace and it would have been fine” (Olsen). By not focusing on the city, Allen draws added attention to Jasmine and her circumstances, making it less about the location, and more about Jasmine’s personal trials.

But what does this have to do with Woody Allen’s own experiences? As shown in his previous films, Allen does not hesitate to make his work somewhat autobiographical. His classic neurotic lead is not a far cry from Allen himself. Here Allen, like Jasmine, fears looking back into the past and seeing what he could have done differently. As he said, quoted in the LA times:

"I would say, I've lived 77 years now, and there have been things in my life that I regret that if I could do over, I would do different…Many things that I think with the perspective of having done them and having time that I would do differently. Maybe even choice of profession. Many things” (Olsen).

Like Jasmine, Allen is looking on his life and realizing that if he had done things differently, things could have gone better.

            In Jasmine’s past life she became good at what she did—throwing parties and attending events—and she did it plentifully. This is also an aligning character trait of Allen’s. Having made 48 films over the course of his career, Allen is easily labeled prolific. And it’s what he will continue to do, as Charles McGrath pointed out in the Washington Street Journal: “Allen continues to write and direct his own movies at an assembly-line pace, just as he has for five decades… they come along—a new one every year—as reliably as the taxman.” However, in the film Jasmine’s world falls apart, and the steadiness of her work is wildly, horribly interrupted.

Allen himself pinpointed his dependence on filmmaking:

"You know in a mental institution they sometimes give a person some clay or some basket weaving? It's the therapy of moviemaking that has been good in my life. If you don't work, it's unhealthy—for me, particularly unhealthy. I could sit here suffering from morbid introspection, ruing my mortality, being anxious. But it's very therapeutic to get up and think, Can I get this actor; does my third act work? All these solvable problems that are delightful puzzles, as opposed to the great puzzles of life that are unsolvable, or that have very bad solutions. So I get pleasure from doing this. It's my version of basket weaving" (McGrath).  

Jasmine’s own “basket weaving”—her garish life previous—ends up falling apart. So what could fall apart for Woody Allen? Actress Cate Blanchett had this interesting insight after working with Allen on Blue Jasmine: "Once you realize that Woody is never pleased, he is never satisfied, that's why he makes a film a year, that's why he's so prolific as a filmmaker. You realize he is actually in some exquisite agony and it's horrific for him often to hear what he's written” (Olsen). With this perspective, Allen has used Blue Jasmine to explore what would happen to him if he lost his craft: his release into absolute neuroticism. 

            Blue Jasmine then ends, not on a positive note—such as when Midnight in Paris’s Gil happily resumes live in modern Paris—but with a rather sadist turn. Jasmine leaves us gibbering to herself on a park bench. But here is where the value of the film lies. The film has been said to be have a “relevant punch.” It has been described as Allen’s “cruelest-ever film” and “a bleak but moving gem.” And yes, the film is these things. Blue Jasmine is ultimately haunting, because its ending is so feasible—feasible because it could happen to Allen himself.

Works Cited

McGrath, Charles. “How Woody Allen Sees It.” The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company, 28 Jun. 2013. Web. 9 Sept. 2013.

Olsen, Mark. “’Blue Jasmine’: Woody Allen on regrets – He’s had a few.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 11 Jul. 2013. Web. 9 Sept. 2013.

Satran, Joe. “’To Rome With Love’, Woody Allen’s Latest, Could Boost Italian Tourism.” Huff Post Travel. The Huffington Post, 6 Jun. 2012. Web. 9 Sept. 2013.