Interiors

Interiors (1978), Woody Allen's first attempt at straight-drama, features a cast of characters so laughably narcissistic it would only take a gentle nudge to push the entire production into broad comedy. Modeled after the depressively beautiful films of Ingmar Bergman, Allen and cinematographer Gordon Willis recreate the European aesthetic down to the last detail in this story of a wealthy East Coast family struggling to adjust to their parents' separation and impending divorce.

Sisters Joey, Flyn and Renata are the product of the financially successful but deeply dysfunctional marriage of Arthur (E.G. Marshall) and Eve (Geraldine Page), each dealing with the uncomfortable demise of the family unit in their own way. Flyn (Kristin Griffith), a TV actress, questions her ability to achieve anything else. Renata (Diane Keaton), a critically lauded poet, suffers from writer's block that seeps into her own marriage to a struggling author (Richard Jordan). While Joey (Mary Beth Hurt) fears all her childhood potential is wasting away, buried under the responsibility to care for her emotionally unstable mother.

Despite all the showy family dynamics and elegantly composed shots, Allen is really circling around the same theme shared by many of his "transitional" films from this period: what, if anything, does an artist have to say that's worth sharing? This creative second-guessing was put to much better effect in Stardust Memories (1980), which cleverly melded Bergman and Allen's style more organically. Here, Allen's fat is pulled out of the fire by a cast full of great performers. Diane Keaton adeptly turns the director's self-obsessed speeches about death and taxes into believable and heartfelt confessionals. While Geraldine Page, nominated for Best Actress, turns in a disturbingly realistic portrayal of a mother so manipulative even attempted suicide is a carefully composed affair.

Interiors' dramatic epiphany comes in the form of Pearl (Maureen Stapleton), Arthur's new girlfriend and soon-to-be wife, who's introduced to the family at a tangibly uncomfortable dinner. Pearl's "vulgarian" ways force the sisters - and Allen's narrative - to confront their psychological hang-ups head on. It's at this point that the film finally becomes something more than a Persona-lite meditation on the creative process and actually becomes creative!

Twilight Time's latest addition to their bourgeoning collection of Woody Allen titles is another 3000-copy limited edition Blu-ray, limitedly by way of extras (contractually, I believe) to a sole theatrical trailer and Julie Kirgo's liner notes. But the hi-def transfer is frame-worthy in every sense of the word, elevating Willis' photography to completely new levels of clarity.