Screenshots from “Deconstructing Harry”
[col-sect][column]Since I was writing about writing the other night, I’m including this series of screenshots of the master at his typewriter from “Deconstructing Harry.” Theses shots are from the movie’s final few moments, where Allen’s character, Harry Block comes to a realisation about how he operates in this world, a realisation that inspires him to sit and hack it out. The narration over this scene is:
[To himself]: “I like it. I like it. A character who’s too neurotic to function in life, but can only function in art.”
[Typing]: Notes for a novel. Opening possibility. Rifkin led a fragmented, disjointed existence. He had long ago come to this conclusion: all people know the same truth. Our lives consist of how we choose to distort it. Only his writing was calm, his writing, which had in more ways than one, saved his life.”
The movie is about a novelist whose material is borrowed from events and people in his own life, thinly disguised, slightly distorted and revealed without conscience.
Trivial observation about the name ‘Rifkin’
Woody Allen used the name ‘Rifkin’ similarly in “Husbands and Wives.” Both movies: Allen plays a novelist; ‘Rifkin’ is a character in a novel written by Allen’s character; and the name appears only once and only in narration. In “Husbands and Wives,” the name is mentioned in the final lines of the novel as read by Allen’s character’s mid 20’s pretty love interest who provides critique/encouragement for his writing. In “Deconstructing Harry,” the name is mentioned in the final lines of the movie itself; though he also had a mid 20’s pretty love interest who provides critique/encouragement for his writing. Here’s how the novel ends in “Husbands and Wives” as narrated by Allen in character as novelist Gabriel Roth:
“Feldman longed to meet a woman who attracted him physically and had the following personality: A quick sense of humour equal to his, a love of sports equal to his, a love of classical music equal to his with a particular fondness for Bach and balmy climates. In short, he wanted himself, but as a pretty woman. Pepkin married and raised a family. He led a warm, domestic life. Placid, but dull. Knapp was a swinger. He eschewed nuptial ties and bedded five different women a week: Students, housewives, nurses, actresses, a doctor, a salesgirl. You name it, it held Knapp between its legs. Pepkin, from the calm of his fidelity, envied Knapp. Knapp, lonely beyond belief, envied Pepkin.
What happened after the honeymoon was over? Did desire really grow with the years or did familiarity cause partners to long for other lovers? Was the notion of ever-deepening romance a myth we had grew up on along with simultaneous orgasm? The only time Rifkin and his wife experienced simultaneous orgasm was when they were granted their divorce. Maybe in the end, the idea was not to expect too much out of life.”
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By Patrick O'Sullivan, June 28th, 2009.
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