Strictly the Movies
Strictly the Movies
Play It Again, Sam
Play It Again, Sam is presented as the introduction to Allen films in its evolution from his Broadway play and in its use of self-conscious dramatic/cinematic tropes to convey the antinomy between Allan Felix’s lack of self-esteem and his Humphrey-Bogart-in-his-head’s swaggering self-confidence and sexual bravado. Although distinctly a comedy, Play It dramatizes numerous themes to which Allen’s oeuvre will regularly return: the Allen protagonist’s neurotically narcissistic character, his infatuation with beautiful shiksas, his friendship with a male more erotically confident than he is, and the protagonist’s capacity to prevail (“I’m short enough and ugly enough to succeed on my own”) by the end of the film. Play It also introduces the centrality of films and filmmaking in Allen’s movies, while suggesting that their psychological impacts upon viewers are not thoroughly positive.
Keywords: Humphrey Bogart, Casablanca, self-conscious dramaturgy, cinematic allusions, cinematography
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