MATCH POINT - postmod woody allen

I had just been surfing for “art & morality,” and “postmodern films” and come across an article calling Woody Allen “the quintessential postmodern filmmaker,” and “this Nietzschean evangelist of nihilism.” The fact that these pejorative arrows were fired from a Christian based website toward the Atheist New York lapsed Jew, Allen, made me think that it was sadly hyperbolic.

Films have been labeled postmodern by academic cinemaniacs based mostly on their style. The film maker most often mentioned was David Lynch (BLUE VELVET and MULHOLLAND DRIVE). Allen’s films are not like that, at least not in style. Allen doesn’t resist storytelling, his constructions are usually linear, and his visual style (or styles) are derivative of his favorites: Bergman, Fellini, The Marx Brothers.

Then again ... One of the precursors of Postmodernism is certainly Existentialism with its core faith that chance is responsible for more than we care to admit and that therefore, finding rational meaning in the whole mess of life is absurd. Morality is situational in such a world, truth subjective, and all choices can be right AND wrong ... or is it that there is no Right OR Wrong? Hmmm...

So, I start watching MATCH POINT, not having heard much about it during its theatrical run, except that critics generally had praised it as one of Woody’s better recent efforts. And in the very first scene, a voice over tells me that “LUCK” rules our lives more than we admit, using the example of a tennis ball that hits the top of the net and hovers, randomly falling for a loss or a win.

Sure sounds like existential, nihilistic, atheistic postmodern evangelism...

The story that followed was pretty involving, if familiar. Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), a tennis pro, is befriended by Tom Hewett (Matthew Goode), an upperclass airhead and his rich and connected father (Brian Cox) and snooty mother (Penelope Wilton). There is a sister who falls for Chris, and persuades her father to offers him entre into the upper class. He also meets his future brother-in-law’s fiancee, an American actress.

The sister, Chloe, is played by Emily Mortimer, whom I personally would accept as a mate if the opportunity arose (and I like her father, John Mortimer, a British criminal lawyer who wrote RUMPOLE OF THE BAILEY, but not with the same kind of passion). On the other hand, the actress, Nola Rice, is played by Scarlett Johanssen, and it is not a fair fight if the issue is good wife and good life vs. HOT, HOT, HOT.

So of course, Woody's Chris wants both. We are now in murky moral territory previously explored by Allen many times (from HANNAH AND HER SISTERS to CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS).

Because it is Woody, we wait (and hope) for some ironic comic spin on the lusty male philandering, but uh-uh. This is the new Woody. Gone is New York angst or whiny guilt (for the most part). This is England and it is Agatha Christie or Patricia Highsmith who are called upon for literary assistance, and Hitchcock (if anyone) whose style (as in DIAL M FOR MURDER or SUSPICION) is recalled.

So we follow Chris as he relentlessly pursues Nola until he has her, while also struggling to keep his place in the sun —

Hey, now that I mention it... Theodore Dreiser’s novel “An American Tragedy,” which George Stevens adapted as A PLACE IN THE SUN (1951), was about a social climber (Montgomery Clift) who lusted for a plain girl (Shelley Winters), won her, but disposed of her when she got inconveniently pregnant after he saw the 20 year old Elizabeth Taylor, scrumptious daughter of a rich and connected father and raised the aim of his lust and ambition.

Woody knows his film history, so I am sure this “coincidence” didn’t escape him; his idea is much different. Chris marries the plain but rich girl and lusts after the poor and low class goddess, who is the one who gets inconveniently pregnant. Call it an homage, or a variation on a theme.

Anyway, Chris explains his dilemma to a confidante: wealth and comfort vs lust.

Here’s where Chris makes what seems to be a non-postmodern choice, according to my understanding of the "Christian view" of postmodernism, that is. They ascribe selfishness and amorality to the philosophy, but also assert that the postmodernist deviates from Biblical teaching by asserting “heart” vs. “head” when it comes to issues of love vs. duty, desire vs. “the right thing.” (I mean, they point to Clinton as a postmodern president).

So one would think tht Allen, the postmodernist, would choose lust over the choices that provide more security and faithfulness to conventions like marriage.

But in this case, Chris sensibly goes for the gold. He devises a complex plan to get away with murdering Nola.

Now, here I have to note parenthetically that I am by trade a criminal defense lawyer and am almost always disturbed by crime stories that hinge on stupid plot devices that fail the smell test of coming close to “reality.” But in this case, I don’t think the devices used are egregious errors, although English cops might wince at a few false assumptions about their competence. There is the trite device of a trivial item that might expose the crime (like the key in DIAL M and the lighter in STRANGERS ON A TRAIN) and whether it will be discovered is part of the reason this movie has been placed in the “Thriller” genre.

At any rate, Allen’s construction does permit us to think that this is far from a perfect crime. In fact, he wants us to know that it is not, and that only LUCK will decide whether the double murdering culprit will be caught and punished, not morality or reason or the lust for order in the universe.

Chris does feel some pangs of guilt in his lavish apartment overlooking the Thames, but he convinces us (in a ghost scene) that he can overcome his qualms and be pretty happy, despite a few moments of recurring angst, which we accept because we postmodernists are used to living with angst.