Analysis of The Purple Rose of Cairo

 

 

    The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) is a movie written and directed by Woody Allen and it's about a woman in the Great Depression in New Jersey who lives a pretty poor and difficult life. The movie is a bittersweet comedy that reflects on issues like life in the Great Depression and metafiction. The movie’s magical realism makes the viewer question the understanding of reality and fantasy. The plot and the scenes in the movie make the viewer question why we watch films and read books and study them. The movie is great in terms of allowing us to analyze the time of the Great Depression and understand the American Dream a little better. The witty dialogues of the movie ease the problems of the harsh reality.

     Woody Allen uses technic called mis en abyme, thus the viewer watches a movie within a movie and it is important in terms of layering because the viewer has one layer of reality in the movie-within-movie, the reality of illusions and shadows where Tom lives and life is wonderful, also they have the second layer of reality within the movie, the reality Cecelia lives in where life is miserable, and lastly they have the last layer of reality as a viewer of this movie. This layering helps the audience to have three different points of view at the same time and it helps to reflect on the issues of what is reality or fantasy and how can one person separate the one from the other. The movie is fantastic in terms of criticizing the function of the seventh art as the way of escaping reality.

     When watching the movie, one can expect in some scenes Cecelia would turn to the audience and talk like Tom did when he talked to Cecelia but she does not break the reality of her character. It makes the viewer realize that the show and the shadows would go on forever until someone decides to break. Moreover, it should be noted that the director uses the shadows of the characters perfectly to create an irony with the lives of shadows in movies. For example, when Cecelia leaves her husband, Monk, he yells at her shadow going from downstairs as ‘’It ain’t the movies, it's real-life!''.

     The major theme of the movie is the clash between the two realities of the two different lives and this clash is seen in the dialogues of Cecelia and Tom. When Cecelia and Tom talk to each other it is clear to see the difference in the mentioned realities; in screen life no one ''disappoint'' and always ''consistent and reliable'' while in real life, the world is a place where everyone ‘’gets sick, die, and never find true love’’. Tom Baxter gets surprised by everything he sees because real cars do not start without a key, money looks different in real life, also when he kisses a girl in the movie the lights fade out and he makes love ‘in some perfect private place’ contrary to real life where he has to find that private place. His way comes to a brothel and he does not even understand its function. Because he is the perfect ideal man he says things like; ‘’Life is too short to think about life, let’s just live’’. However, he later realizes that life, real life, is not a place for one dimensional-fictional man. His naive character shows why the reality of movies does not include the realities of real life because people do not wish to see their miseries on the screen instead they want to watch this ideal man who says all the right things.

     In the abandoned amusement park there is a ripped poster of Carter the Great, who was an American magician who died in 1936, in the back that reminds the audience of the magical context of the situation when Tom asks Cecelia to leave her not-so-great-with-cards husband.

     It can be argued that the husband of Cecelia is the symbol of the other important theme which is the emasculation of man in the Great Depression. In the 1930s many men were unemployed while women worked because they were paid way less. The unemployed man felt emasculated because they were not the breadwinning anymore, thus they filled this blank with alcohol and gambling. For example, in the movie Monk beats Cecelia in many scenes to feel ‘like a man' again instead of accepting the role change or appreciate his wife. He is just an individual symbolizing the problematic society of the time. He also symbolizes the ugly side of realities because every time Cecelia starts to dream her husband pulls her to the ground like a child holding a balloon. Even if she is full of air, she cannot fly. Dancing cheek to cheek

     Many lines should be discussed because they are like pearls hiding in the movie that gives various messages. For instance, the first one is when a character who is left in the movie waiting for Tom says; ‘’Life is amazing isn’t it? One minor character takes some action and the whole world turns upside down’’ It can be argued that Woody Allen implies World War I, also known as the Great War which began in 1914 after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria by some assassin’s bullet, a minor character took some action and it changed the lives of millions of people. The second line is when one character left in the movie says ‘’I wanna go too, I wanna be free, I want out!’’ and then the producer Raoul Hirsch who is in the real-life yells ‘’I’m warning you, that’s Communist talk!'' making a political irony which makes the audience laugh but also makes them think about the intended meaning. There is another character who is left in the movie who says ‘’Let’s readjust our definitions. Let’s redefine ourselves as the real world and them as the world of illusions and shadows. You see we are the reality and they are dreams.'' It is an ironic and wonderful line acting as a spell for a person who wants to change the reality that he lives in and it is a great line for making the viewer question solidity of the reality.

     It is noticeable that there are no children in the movie that plays or runs in the background thus makes one thinks that it was intentional to give the message that all the children are in the factories working instead of living their childhood. The children are the symbol of innocence and potentiality, moreover, they are the next generation thus the future, and the hope that comes with it.

     Lastly, the dialogues between Cecelia and Gil are important in showing the unreal world of Holywood but the most important line is when she says to him; ‘’I’ve just met a wonderful man, he is fictional but you cannot have everything’’. When she chose Gil over Tom, she tries to have everything, the perfect American Dream where a country girl goes to Holywood and gets famous, however in the end it tragically comes in a full circle to the right where she began, a housewife who tries to run away from her problems by watching the wonderful lives of shadows.

     There are many more scenes, dialogues, and lines to discuss and it is safe to say that the movie is worth watching over and over again in terms of discovering new details every time. The movie has a great atmosphere with its soundtracks and costumes that pulls the viewer right away to its reality and its timeline. For closure, Mr. Hirsch’s lawyer's line sums up the movie perfectly: ‘’The real ones want their lives fiction and the fictional ones want their lives real.’’