Blue Jasmine

[Gothampc]

Posted: 6/4/14 at 9:35pm

It's just a rip-off of A Streetcar Named Desire without the doctor coming in at the end, right?

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 6/4/14 at 9:40pm

Jasmine isn't raped either.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 6/4/14 at 9:45pm

Yeah basically an update--which makes me wish I could have seen Cate in the play. Of course Woody denies this full stop, which I can't tell if he thinks is some sort of big job, or seriously doesn't think it is.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 6/4/14 at 9:52pm

Cate is one of my favorite actresses. She deserved the Oscar for this role.

Has she ever played Lady MacBeth? Maybe she could do it with Guy Pearce as MacBeth?

[Gothampc]

Posted: 6/4/14 at 9:53pm

"Jasmine isn't raped either."

And Bobby Cannavale doesn't get to yell: "JasmineGinger!!"

Updated On: 6/4/14 at 09:53 PM

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 6/4/14 at 10:01pm

Well, it would've actually been "Gingeeeeeeer!".

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 6/4/14 at 10:02pm

Bobby would have yelled, "Ginger!", not Jasmine. I think it's more of a morality play about the current trend of corporate corruption and materialism.

I think Jasmine is an archetype-Blanche-like, but not unlike other strong female roles either. I think Cate's acting choices made it more Blanche-like than it was written.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 6/4/14 at 10:14pm

While I don't disagree, the original play could be seen about how hard it is to deal with the changing times--including economic after the fall of so much of the Old South. And definitely a lot more of the film was inspired by Streetcar on some level than just Anne's acting choices.

[BobbyBubbi]

Posted: 6/5/14 at 3:31am

Blue Jasmine = Tennessee Williams For Dummies.

[StageManager2]

Posted: 6/5/14 at 6:22am

While I don't disagree, the original play could be seen about how hard it is to deal with the changing times--including economic after the fall of so much of the Old South.

Exactly. Blanche is a remnant from an extinct social hierarchy, whereas Stanley represents the new, diversified America; he sees himself as a "social leveler."


And definitely a lot more of the film was inspired by Streetcar on some level than just Anne's acting choices.

Who is Anne?

[GoSmileLaughCryClap]

Posted: 6/5/14 at 8:38am

"Who is Anne?"

Anne Bancroft, who guides all of Cate Blanchett's acting choices from the grave.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 6/5/14 at 9:00am

^ Ha! That's funny!

: rim shot :

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 6/5/14 at 9:56am

The situational similarity is palpable, but far from complete. The two works and the principle characters are very different. Streetcar is a touchstone/springboard. But Blue Jasmine is not a rip off.

Rather a pastiche. Allen is no stranger to pastiche. He's famously been inspired by and deliberately referenced Gogol, Tolstoy and, more incidentally, Bergman (Love and Death), Murnau and Kafka (Shadows and Fog), Fellini (Stardust Memories), Shakespeare, Bergman and Chekhov (A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy), Chekhov (September), Bergman (Interiors), and the Greeks (Mighty Aphrodite).

Of these, Blue Jasmine ranks with Love and Death as the most fully artistically realized.

Though both were great and share many similarities, Blanchett's Blanche and her Jasmine were very different performances. The two women clearly share mental and social decline, geographical and social displacement. The two works have many plot similarities as well as dissimilarities. Blanche's insistence on magic is not equal to Jasmine's insistence on grandeur. Jasmine's progressive break with reality is in sharp contrast to Blanche's enchanted sense of illusion. Blanche's dogged grace is in sharp contrast to Jasmine's pretentious vulgarity. The two women markedly differ in self-awareness. The scene in the booth with the nephews is a perfect illustration of Jasmine's mounting behavioral cluelessness and loss of control. Blanche is never clueless. The overall tone and the pathos are defined as much by the contrasting as the comparable circumstances.

Neither Allen nor Blanchett strictly modeled the rich particulars of Jasmine's tragic arc on those of Blanche's.







Updated On: 6/5/14 at 09:56 AM

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 6/5/14 at 10:01am

The similarities to STREETCAR didn't bother me that much. It's out-of-touch-with-reality characterizations--"I need to take classes to learn how to use a computer"--and situations did.

[GoSmileLaughCryClap]

Posted: 6/5/14 at 10:40am

The Streetcar mirroring didn’t bother me either. What did bother me was the lazy and perfunctory way that plot devices were crudely wedged into the screenplay.

Spoiler alert (which I’ve included as there are people who do nothing but look for posts that can be construed as containing spoilers and then thread jack)

An example: I hated when Cannavale suddenly appears outside the jewelry store to crush Jasmine’s chance at a new life.

I think it may be a function of artists getting old. Some seem to care less about formal structure and aren’t concerned about how certain plot mechanics operate. As a viewer, this sort of coincidental and synthetic plotting drives me nuts.

There’s so much great about the movie, but there are three or four scenes that are shortcuts and they jumped out at me when I saw it the first time.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 6/5/14 at 11:05am

Spoiler alert!

"An example: I hated when Cannavale suddenly appears outside the jewelry store to crush Jasmine’s chance at a new life."

Actually it was Andrew Dice Clay that appeared outside the jewelry store. But there is another point. The sister has three men she's involved with? The married guy made absolutely no sense to the plot. If the sister needed more storyline, it should have been played out between Cannavale and Clay.

I also think the sister, Sally Hawkins, did a great job. If you haven't seen her in Made In Dagenham, it's worth a look. I hope American audiences can see more of her.

And I think Alec Baldwin did the worst acting of his career in this movie. He didn't even bother to phone it in.

[StageStruckLad]

Posted: 6/5/14 at 11:14am

Wait, did Woody Allen actually deny that the movie is based on STREETCAR? If so, that's criminal! There should have been a dedication to Williams at the end of the movie.

[trentsketch]

Posted: 6/5/14 at 11:30am

The Street Car stuff was what I liked about the screenplay. I hated how Jasmine was treated as nothing but the butt of a bunch of jokes at the expense of her clearly compromised mental health. It was two hours of Woody Allen going "women be crazy" and it made me sick. The quality of acting and set dressing are the only things that stopped me from walking out.

[ChgoTheatreGuy]

Posted: 6/6/14 at 8:48pm

Was very excited to see this movie because I am a huge fan of Cate Blanchett. I thought that it was one of the worst Woody Allen movies I had seen in awhile. The only thing that I liked was the ending that came completely out of nowhere and finally made me pay some attention to this movie. I still think that Amy Adams should have won the Oscar for "American Hustle"...

[Gothampc]

Posted: 6/7/14 at 10:19am

"I thought that it was one of the worst Woody Allen movies I had seen in awhile."

I agree. And I think that if it had been anyone other than Cate it would have really been a stinker. I think her performance lifted the material. And I wonder if that's why the Academy gave her the Oscar. It's a great performance, but the Academy knew the material stank.

Also, I believe that all of Woody's movies come out of his personal moments. And so I wonder what part of his life he's exhibiting here. Is Jasmine his portrayal of Mia Farrow as he sees her now?

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 6/7/14 at 12:48pm

Anne is a remnant of my imagination while posting here and enjoying perhaps too many drinks at an airport lounge. I preferred GoSmile's answer tough.

[StageManager2]

Posted: 6/7/14 at 1:52pm

I agree. And I think that if it had been anyone other than Cate it would have really been a stinker. I think her performance lifted the material. And I wonder if that's why the Academy gave her the Oscar. It's a great performance, but the Academy knew the material stank.

They nominated it for Best Original Screenplay.

.

[StageManager2]

Posted: 6/7/14 at 1:52pm

I agree. And I think that if it had been anyone other than Cate it would have really been a stinker. I think her performance lifted the material. And I wonder if that's why the Academy gave her the Oscar. It's a great performance, but the Academy knew the material stank.

They nominated it for Best Original Screenplay.

.

[east side story]

Posted: 6/7/14 at 5:29pm

Blanchett's win was the best in that category in over ten years. I enjoy Amy Adams, but good grief, I thought her film was wretched.