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Love And Death
1975
Woody Allen reinvents himself again with the epic historical satire, Love and Death. A wonderfully funny and eclectic distillation of the Russian literary soul, the film represents a bridge between Allen's early slapstick farces and his darker autobiographical comedies. One of his most visual, philosophical and elaborately .. Read more
| Starring | Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Harold Gould, Alfred Lutter |
|---|---|
| Director | Woody Allen |
| Genres | Comedy |
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Love And Death
Woody Allen reinvents himself again with the epic historical satire, Love and Death. A wonderfully funny and eclectic distillation of the Russian literary soul, the film represents a bridge between Allen's early slapstick farces and his darker autobiographical comedies. One of his most visual, philosophical and elaborately conceived films, Love and Death demonstrates again that Allen is an authentic comic genius.
Cowardly scholar Boris Grushenko (Allen) has the hots for the beautiful Sonja (Diane Keaton), but cold feet for the Napoleonic Wars. Devastated by news of Sonja's plans to wed a foul-smelling herring merchant, Boris enlist in the army - only to return home a penniless hero! Finally agreeing to marry him, Sonja settles down with poor Boris to a rich life of philosophy, celibacy and meals of snow. But when the French troops invade Russia and Sonja hatches a zany scheme to assassinate Napoleon, Boris learns - in a hilarious but fatal coup attempt - that God is an underachiever, there are no girls in the afterlife and the Angel of Death just can't be trusted!
| Starring | Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Harold Gould, Alfred Lutter, Feodor Atkine, Tony Jay, George Birt |
|---|---|
| Director | Woody Allen |
| Studio | MGM ENTERTAINMENT |
| Run time | DVD: 1 hr 21 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Comedy |
| Language | DVD: English |
| Dubbed | French, German, Italian, Spanish |
| Hearing-impaired | English, German |
| Subtitles | DVD: Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish |
| Released | DVD: 19 Feb 2001 Production year: 1975 |
| Format | DVD |
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Critics' reviews (3)
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Clearly taking up where Jean-Luc Godard had left off in his assault on traditional cinema, Rainer Werner Fassbinder made his remarkable debut with this micro-budget deconstruction of the crime thriller. Much of the action is staged as tableaux before a doggedly static camera — indeed, one of the very few tracking shots was lifted from Jean-Marie Straub's The Bridegroom, the Comedienne and the Pimp, in which Fassbinder had acted. The minimalist plot is presented in fragmentary form, while lowlifes Ulli Lommel and Fassbinder (and Hannah Schygulla as the girl caught between them) scarcely exchange a word. It's almost wilfully obscure, but compelling nonetheless.
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Personalized comedy fantasia inspired by War and Peace, Ingmar Bergman and S. J. Perelman. Basically only for star fans.
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Most helpful member's review
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8 out of 8 people found this review helpful
Classic Allen (or Allen re-writes the Classics........... )
Early Allen humour, based on The Great Russian Novel, with wonderful one-liners. If you like your humour laced with philosophical digressions, this is for you!
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Most recent members' review
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1 out of 1 person found this review helpful
Customer Review
Never mind the plot because it peters out into nothing in the end. It's a good setting and the plot is clear, but Napoleon isn't killed along with a lot of shananigans at the end of the film. This renders it a series of connected scenes more than a story. You will forgive this disappointment because the film is so funny and brilliant. In fact, the scene in which Boris can kill Napoleon is plain excruciating. This could be a positive excrutiation for some, but for me it's too sexist and annoying. You have to admit that no matter how much you love 'im, Woody is obsessed with sex and a certain view of it and this can make him a bit tedious for the very people in the audience (hot young women) that he's centering things on.
This film gets five out of five for me because it is so enjoyable. It's not just that it makes you laugh, it's that it makes you agogue at ideas and works on a deep level. What a good title! He doesn't cover every single angle of the debate about love and death, but he does a good job. Woody's acting makes this supremely sensitive transmission of ideas possible. He's a genius! His acting is more trite in future films but here it is fresh and expressive. A raised eyebrow is so well-timed. Even the look in his eye.
I like the way he talks to Death who just passes through with his latest victim and I love the humour of extremely philosophical dialogue, so that you have a philosophical review and the feeling of being a fly on the wall to the human condition which is partly why we laugh so much.
Yup! I would say it's a philosophical and humanistic film that reaches the parts that other films don't reach. I'd even put it up there as a spiritual treatise. It's sympathetic, therapeutic and wonderfully balmy. -
News and features
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Ingmar Bergman, 1918-2007
- 31 Jul 2007
See the entire LOVEFiLM Bergman Collection here Checkmate. Death has finally taken the great Swedish master, Ingmar Bergman, as he always knew it must. No filmmaker wrestled longer and more painfully with the knowledge of his own mortality. His father was a severe Lutheran minister, and a figure who cast a long shadow over Bergman's films, including his premature swansong, Fanny and Alexander (1982), and perhaps his purest masterpiece, Winter Light (1962), a portrait of a pastor who has lost... Read more
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Woody Allen reinvents himself again with the epic historical satire, Love and Death. A wonderfully funny and eclectic distillation of the Russian literary soul, the film represents a bridge between ... -