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  Woody Allen’s Matchpoint

  Posted by Philip Boal on January 23, 2006 at 4:37 pm

  Just saw this movie yesterday. It wasn’t what I expected but it was a well crafted, well acted film about human fraility and interpersonal relationships, blah blah blah. I wished the big climax had happened about an hour earlier, but ya know, tough luck for me.

  Here’s the question. I can’t see any reason at all why the filmakers used a scratchy music track. Throughout the movie there is this beautiful opera music. Woody Allen has always used music in a facinating way in his films, Manhatten being my favorite. Most of the music sounds like it comes from ancient vinyl recordings full of hiss and scratches and it was very disrupting to me, especially as there wasn’t any dialogue during many of these passages. Why, why, why ? what was the point?

  thank you for letting me vent.

  Oliver Peters replied 20 years, 3 months ago 3 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

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  Mike Cohen

  January 23, 2006 at 10:42 pm

  have not seen it, but questioning Woody Allen’s motivations is questionable – he clearly does things his own way. I believe he shot this in the UK in order to get away from the American studio system – so he’s no doubt breaking every convention he can.
  Pick up “After the Shooting…the Cutting Begins”. It is the memoirs of a film editor who saved Woody Allen’s first film from disaster, among other notable directors’ first films.
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  Oliver Peters

  February 6, 2006 at 1:14 am

  I agree that it could have stood some less conservative cutting. An easy 30 minutes should have been cut. The reason for the scratchy audio was that these were all opera cuts. The point was that opera was a love of both the lead and his father-in-law. In fact, there was a reference early on about listening to some of his old prize recordings. Did you happen to notice that the mix was all mono? Another Allen hallmark.

  Of course, the whole script was basically an operatic theme and the ending was Allen trying to be Hitchcock, though he couldn’t resist a few comic touches. Not a bad attempt, but it was a better TV movie than a theatrical film and the human questions regarding relationships were tackled better in Closer.

  Sincerely,
  Oliver

  Oliver Peters
  Post-Production & Interactive Media
  Orlando, FL
  http://www.oliverpeters.com

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