Thank you everyone who joined in with our Film Club at Home series and watched The Purple Rose of Cairo this week. Here’s some of the feedback we’ve received from you via the website, email and social media. Do please keep it coming!
Have to admit back in 20th-century visits to the video shop, Woody wasn’t my go-to director. Really enjoyed the film, a bit of escapism in depressed times - an inspired pick. Danny Aiello played some horrible characters in the ‘80s but this fella was right up there! - Kieran Walsh
I loved the Purple Rose of Cairo. Of course I did. I've never seen a Woody Allen film that didn't please me at least to some extent, including those panned by the critics, but of course some are better than others. It's not Love and Death or Radio Days, but it's good. I loved the various shifts and contrasts, and the playfulness with reality: shifting between the black and white and colour scenes, and the sharp and softer focus scenes, and of course Cecilia's different realities: in the diner; at home; in the movie house absorbed in The Purple Rose of Cairo; with Tom Baxter; with the "real" actor who played him; and back in the movie house soothing her woes with Fred and Ginger.
I also enjoyed the contrast between the cliched Hollywood tropes Allen was recreating in so pitch-perfect a fashion, and the surprising conceit of the porousness between the worlds of the film and the "real world". It's all done with such a light touch that I was completely scooped up in it, suspending my disbelief like billy-o and half hoping against hope that the "real" Jeff Daniels character would after all come back for Cecilia. It really doesn't seem so crazy does it in a world where Fred and Ginger can spin such miraculous beauty right there before our eyes? But Cecilia got it right earlier: "you can't have everything". Now I'm reliving it to write this I'm recalling the heady mix of emotions that the film evoked in me, as do all the best Woody Allen films. - Vicky Guedalla
@tpfilmclub Just watched Purple Rose of Cairo, a real gem. Think I've seen it before but didn t remember it. Thanks to Wayne for the intro, it was good because it was real.
— steve bowden (@stevejbowden) April 7, 2020
Mia Farrow was great as well as being so beautiful
Thanks
Steve
I must have seen this before, but I don't remember being so struck by how good the original idea is, and how well it's executed. Bergman did the straight existential bit, but this asks light but big questions about our perceptions of reality and allows us to laugh at them at the same time. Sorry to mention it since we had such an enjoyable time but I did find the threatening husband very chilling, when we know that domestic violence is shooting up just now. Great cast, including the 'cast'. - Tom Schuller
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