The importance of being famous: romance and self-identity in Woody Allen’s celebrity (1998)

Revista de Estudios Norteamericanos nº 12 (2007), pp. 83-98 THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING FAMOUS: ROMANCE AND SELF-IDENTITY IN WOODY ALLEN’S CELEBRITY (1998). BEATRIZ ORIA GÓMEZ Universidad de Zaragoza Released in 1998, Celebrity has been frequently regarded by critics as one of the “light” comedies directed by Allen during the nineties. All these films, like most Allen’s films throughout his career, deal with human relationships, and more specifically with the problems attached to the creation and upkeeping of heterosexual romantic relationships in the contemporary age. In spite of their “light” tone and trivial appearance, these films present an accurate reflection of the society in which they are inscribed; namely, an American, urban, educated, middle-upper class society; and sometimes have more to say about contemporary issues such as love, romance, commitment or marriage than many sociology books. In addition to Allen’s general preoccupation with “the couple,” these films also pay attention to issues such as the particular worries and afflictions of individual characters who are unfaithful, feel lonely, insecure, suffer from jealousy, long to find true love or have lost faith in it. Some of these characters suffer from a mid-life crisis which propels them toward a quest for self-discovery. Such is the case of Lee (Kenneth Branagh) in Celebrity. In this context, this essay will analyse Allen’s use of generic conventions in Celebrity in connection with the wider cultural panorama in which the film is inscribed, trying to determine to what extent the depiction of issues traditionally associated to his filmography, such as the search for self-identity and the state of contemporary intimate relationships between the sexes has changed since these questions were first tackled by Allen in the seventies. Celebrity tells the parallel stories of Lee and Robin Simon (Judy Davis), a couple which takes separate ways after he, suffering from middle-age crisis, decides to leave his partner in order to live the life he has been missing for sixteen years and find his real identity before it is “too late.” From that moment on, the film shows us the different paths their lives take. Lee, a mediocre journalist and wanna-be novelist, tries to get into the world of show business and sell a script for a film. During his pilgrimage through film sets, previews, art galleries, parties and casinos, he meets a number of characters which constitute a direct satire of that shallow world: an actress who is faithful to her husband only from the neck down (Melanie Griffith), a capricious and sexually Beatriz Oria Gómez 84 aggressive supermodel (Charlize Theron) and a spoilt film star (Leonardo DiCaprio). After a series of disastrous attempts to enter the world of celebrities and encouraged by his current girlfriend, Bonnie (Famke Jenssen), who works as an editor, he decides to write a serious novel criticizing precisely the values of that world. The novel is never published because Bonnie throws it in the sea when Lee leaves her for Nola (Winona Ryder), a young woman he met at the beginning of the film. Showing his inconsistent nature, he abandons a solid relationship with Bonnie for a woman he has always idealized in his novels. As was to be expected, Lee and Nola’s relationship is unsuccessful and the film ends in professional and personal failure for Lee. On the other hand, Robin’s trajectory is very different. Insecure and unassertive, she begins the film in a depressive and confused state. Her life changes when she meets Tony (Joe Mantegna), a successful TV-producer who courts her persistently. She starts to work for him and she is gradually introduced in the media world until she becomes a celebrity herself. Robin’s relationship with Tony turns her into a more self-assured woman, allowing her even to drop her catholic inhibitions, which kept her sexually repressed. Robin’s total success (she is now a married and pregnant career woman) contrasts strongly with Lee’s failure in the last scene of the film, when they meet at the premiere of The Liquidator, the film that was being shot at the beginning of Celebrity. Even though the film centres on these two characters, it is Lee that takes more screen time and the one who can be considered the film’s protagonist. This perception is reinforced by the type of character Branagh plays: the prototypical Woody Allen persona we are used to perceiving as the centre of the narrative in his films (he looks, speaks and acts like him). In any case it is Lee’s personal circumstances that motivate the narrative: he realizes how unsatisfying his life is, and decides to do something to change it. A way to start with the analysis of Celebrity would be to consider its generic profile. A straightforward categorization of a film into a single genre is always problematic, as most films tend to draw on conventions from different genres, never belonging to just one “pure” genre. Celebrity is not an exception. The first part of the film induces us to think that we are watching a comedy of remarriage.1 The basic narrative of this genre involves a “couple who divorce but then remarry each other by the story’s conclusion” (Musser 283). The beginning of Celebrity¸ which starts with the separation of its protagonists, could make us think that, after a series of different vicissitudes in their separate lives, they will finally get together in order to form a more perfect union. However, as the film progresses these hopes start to dissolve because, unlike traditional remarriage comedy, Celebrity does not send any signs of a possible final reunion. Robin and Lee are 1 Term coined by Stanley Cavell in his book Pursuits of Happiness. The Importance of Being Famous 85 shown together just once after their separation (apart from the final scene): they meet at a preview and their encounter is not exactly friendly, as Robin starts to insult Lee hysterically in the middle of the film’s projection. The lack of interaction between them throughout the film makes us dismiss real possibilities of reconciliation, so it could be said that this is a divorce comedy whose protagonists, unlike traditional examples of the genre, really do divorce. Keeping this in mind, maybe it would be safer to refer to Celebrity by the broader term of romantic comedy, a genre which, as I shall show, is flexible enough to allow for variations in its structure. One of these “variations” is observed in the mixture of a more or less comic-romantic plot with sharp social satire, something that is not commonly found in this genre. Meant to “discourage vice and folly by means of ridicule,” unlike the comedy of pure play, satire carries a meaning, a social or moral evaluation (Nelson 23). Celebrity makes use of all its visual and verbal devices to criticize the world of show business, within which the romantic plot is inscribed. It could be said that in this movie satire functions as a wider frame for romantic comedy, impregnating everything: the romantic vicissitudes of the characters take place among actresses of dubious sexual morality whose only appeal resides in their looks, supermodels who believe that the whole world is there to adore them, priests and plastic surgeons that are TV celebrities, talk shows which would do anything to raise their audience ratings, and spoilt film stars who are not arrested for their outrageous behaviour thanks to their popularity. In a word, Celebrity ridicules almost all the sectors of the show business: actors, directors, reviewers, producers, models, painters, scriptwriters… The satire is so far-reaching that it is even made extensive to Allen himself: at one point he criticizes pretentious directors who shoot in black and white and whose films are full of flashbacks, a healthy case of self-irony meant to recognize that the director himself is not completely above the world he is mocking. In spite of this satiric “frame,” romantic comedy can be considered as the “predominant” genre in Celebrity, a genre traditionally associated with the topic of self-identity. The relationship between both concepts was made explicit by Northrop Frye first, and later by Henderson, who links cultural representations of romantic love with a project of the self (19). This should be read in the light of Foucault’s ideas about sex, which is seen by him as the site where most people long to find their true self. It also relates to Giddens’s views of romantic love as the path towards the achievement of personal self-realization. According to him, romantic love, which is a cultural construct, is perceived nowadays as the means by which the individual is made whole, and also as a quest, an “Odyssey in which self-identity awaits its validation from the discovery of the other” (The Transformation 45). Celebrity can therefore be read as the obsessive search of a character for selfidentity, an identity he expects to find in the romantic relationship with a partner of Beatriz Oria Gómez 86 the opposite sex. This “quest” for meaning is made explicit in the case of Lee and not openly stated in Robin’s story. One of the most remarkable aspects of romantic comedy is its capability to reflect social changes and the state of contemporary intimate culture, helping define the changing relationship between the sexes through time. The seventies, for instance, witnessed the advances of the “sexual revolution,” a phenomenon which was conveniently depicted by romantic comedy, for example by the so-called “nervous romances” Allen made during the late seventies. This new type of romantic comedy had its roots in the radical changes that took place between the sixties and early eighties in the field of sexuality and intimate relationships. The sexual liberation brought about not only the conception of sex as a domain of pleasure, self-expression and self-realization, but also an uncoupling of sex from love which prompted the acceptance of non-monogamous and non-heterosexual lifestyles (Seidman 155). In this way, the weakening of the link between sex, love, commitment and marriage caused a deep crisis in the traditional heterosexual couple which, in accordance with the times, was faithfully represented by Allen in Annie Hall (1977) and subsequent films. Just as these films portrayed seventies preoccupations such as the breakdown of marriage, Celebrity also shows a notable engagement with its historical context: as I will argue later on, the film retains some elements of the “nervous romance,” putting forward that the impact of the sexual revolution is far from over in the late nineties. In fact, Celebrity suggests that some of its effects may have actually intensified, bringing about in some cases an even greater sense of instability within the couple than in the seventies. Thanks to the historical perspective given by the decades gone by since the beginning of the sexual revolution, some sociologists have been able to evaluate its effects on succeeding generations. The disconnection of sex and marriage was made extensive to an uncoupling from any form of commitment, which proved to have a devastating effect in the successful formation and upkeeping of solid relationships, a phenomenon which has seen a steady increase from the early seventies up to the present day. This disconnection has hampered the construction of meaningful relationships and has created a society in which “sex is available [...] but love is not” (Evans 142). Instead, we only have easy access to “free” love, a term coined in the sixties, which, today is “neither ‘free’ (in the sense of given without ties) nor ‘love’ (in the sense of the involvement of feelings and emotions other than those of immediate sexual desire)” (Evans 135). Freed from the constrains of the past, love is invested with a higher potential for self-realization and personal satisfaction. The result of this is higher hopes on what relationships can offer, which brings about greater disenchantment when they fail to materialize. This rise of expectations renders today’s search for love much more problematic than it was in the past. Although discourses of personal satisfaction and equality within the couple continue to exist ever since the sexual revolution, Evans sees a significant increase of The Importance of Being Famous 87 expectations “of complete personal fulfilment in the private sphere” as the only desirable pattern of relationships between human beings (127). This excess of hope brings about deeper disappointment than in the past when expectations are not met, because the emphasis on the private sphere as “haven” from the public world is more marked today than in previous decades. The gap between the degree of satisfaction expected from a relationship and reality creates increasingly fragile relationships, a situation which is faithfully reflected in Celebrity: since Lee’s marriage does not meet the levels of selfrealization and the emotional and sexual fulfilment promised by contemporary views of love, he leaves his wife with the hope to find his true self somewhere else, presumably in another kind of relationship, this time more in agreement with contemporary discourses on intimacy. According to Evans, the result of this rise of expectations and the subsequent impossibility to fulfil them is an increase in our appetite for love (130), which is precisely what Lee experiences, as he propels himself into a frantic search for his perfect match. This quest for love, (which is actually a quest for self-identity) may be directly related to an unacknowledged dependence on women. According to Giddens, after the break with the mother the boy’s dependence upon women becomes masked, which is why his need for love is greater, since it is more deeply buried. In order to make up for this situation, at first he looks for reassurance in episodic sexuality and also in “the rule of the phallus,” that is, the assertion of social status and power (The Transformation 125,129). In Celebrity, Lee’s various sexual affairs and his search for recognition are a way to conceal his unconscious dependence on women. When he realizes that sexual activity alone can only fulfil him momentarily he finally decides to pursue the pure relationship as a means to attain self-identity. He believes to have found it with Nola, but he is wrong, because he confuses confluent love with romantic love and his quest for identity fails. This is so because, according to Giddens, the reflexive project of the self can only be realized within the pure relationship, which is not the same as romantic love. The pure relationship implies a “rolling contract” between the two members of the couple which keeps the relationship open to negotiation. It is also characterized by open communication and the free expression of individual needs, as well as by a democratisation of sex which sets no limits upon sexual activity. It also presupposes equality of resources between the members of the couple (Giddens, The Transformation 193-5). According to Giddens, the pure relationship is connected with the concept of “confluent love,” which constitutes the right path towards the achievement of self-identity. While romantic love depends upon “the projective identification of amour passion,” which “cuts across the development of a relationship whose continuation depends upon intimacy” (The Transformation 61), “confluent love” implies opening oneself to the other. In contrast with romantic love, which brackets off the ars erotica and presents an imbalance in gender terms, Beatriz Oria Gómez 88 “confluent love” presumes emotional equality within the couple and introduces the ars erotica into its core (The Transformation 62). In the case of Celebrity, it is clear that Lee’s love for Nola is much more “romantic” than “confluent.” His total idealization of his (unknown) partner leads him to see in her the answer to his flawed identity. The reason for this is that romantic love “presumes a psychic communication, a meeting of souls which is reparative in character. The other, by being who he or she is, answers a lack […] And this lack is directly to do with self-identity” (The Transformation 45). Celebrity, in fact, enacts this “meeting of souls” when Lee thinks he has identified his right partner in Nola when, in fact, what he sees is an idealized image of himself projected by romantic love. However, as has been mentioned before, this “projective identification” is not the best path towards the achievement of a coherent selfidentity. For Giddens, this is found in the pure relationship, in which “the individual does not simply ‘recognize the other’ and in the responses of that other find his selfidentity affirmed. Rather, […] self-identity is negotiated through linked processes of self-exploration and the development of intimacy with the other” (Modernity 97). As was to be expected, Nola does not turn out to be Lee’s twin soul because the basis of the pure relationship is absent. In this way, when she refuses to settle in a serious relationship he is taken back to the starting point of his quest. Indeed, the film ends as it began for Lee: single and in the same unsatisfying social position as before. In this way, the film tries to depict contemporary discourses of intimacy, showing the difficulties experienced by both sexes in the establishment and upkeeping of fruitful relationships. As I have said before, one of the reasons for this difficulty lies in the fact that some of the conflicts aroused by the sexual revolution are far from resolved today. That is why Celebrity still retains some ingredients of Allen’s “nervous romance” in its representation of the “difficulties men and women face in initiating, establishing and sustaining attachments in an age that has seen the splitting of sex and self from previous guarantees of romantic and emotional fulfilment” (Krutnik, “Love” 18). This is specially true in the case of Lee: although he starts out advocating the principles of sexual liberation (he left his wife because he wanted to “explore” other possibilities), the film shows, in the line of other “nervous romances,” that this freedom has turned sour for him. Although we are no longer in the seventies, when female liberation shook the pillars of heterosexual relationships, third-wave feminism teaches Lee that the sexual revolution is not just a male prerogative, as he meets a series of powerful and sexually liberated women (Nicole, the supermodel, Nola…) who exercize total control over him. This reversal of roles, the proliferation of masculinized women such as those mentioned before and feminized men like Lee is directly related to contemporary discourses on gender equality, which entail the narrowing of the gap between the sexes (Potter 245). In this way, Lee comes to realize that one of the consequences of this new climate of equality is that women no longer want to commit to a serious relationship, which he The Importance of Being Famous 89 discovers when he is turned down by Nola. Therefore, Lee learns that “the breakdown of marriage is revealed to bring not plenitude but loss” (Krutnik, “The Faint Aroma” 69), a typical conclusion of the “nervous romance.” In spite of Celebrity’s affinity with some elements of the “nervous romance,” its contemporary character is perceived in its awareness of romantic comedy’s conventions. This knowledge on the part of the film leads to a selfconscious rejection of some of its classical conventions: to start with, the film disrupts romantic comedy’s belief in the existence of the perfect match and the uniqueness of the relationship. There is no happy ending for Lee, no final union with the right partner. In fact, at the end of the film we cannot help but wonder if there was a right partner for him at all. Following the conventions of the comedy of remarriage Robin could have been Lee’s right partner. However, there is no real interaction between them throughout the film, so their compatibility is never a real issue. On the other hand, Bonnie is presented as the most caring of all the women Lee is involved with, but he does not show enough passion with her, as he does with Nola. The latter seems to appear as Lee’s right partner at first since their union follows all the conventions of romantic comedy: love at first sight, Lee’s total idealization and adoration, the way in which they are portrayed by the camera when they are together… She also appears at the beginning and the end of the film, being the only “recurrent” woman in Lee’s life. Nevertheless, her shallowness and disloyalty finally disqualifies her as a possible right partner. Lee’s relationship with Nola is the best example of this rejection of classical romantic comedy’s conventions. As I said before, their relationship seems to meet at first all the prerequisites of the received romantic union. This is specially evident in the scene at the kiosk, when Lee declares his love to Nola. Being a black and white film this scene almost looks like a classical film moment, as several romantic conventions are self-consciously deployed by Allen in this highly idealized moment: after Nola and Lee’s initial meeting, which meant love at first sight for Lee, this scene appears to constitute the final meeting of two twin souls, the sudden realization that they are made for each other, which is sealed with the close-up of a kiss. Their love is perfect because they do not really know each other and therefore their union is ideal. Lee sees in Nola only what he wants to see, projecting on to her his idealized romantic longings: “I know you, because I’ve written about you twice. Twice you were the obscure object of desire in books that I’ve written […] I know you inside out.” To which she replies “Don’t be misled. You didn’t make me up,” something Lee cannot see. Beatriz Oria Gómez 90 Meeting at the kiosk: The fulfilment of desire. This is the point where most romantic comedies end, with the union of the lovers. In these films everything is perfect because the story is frozen at the highest peak of passion. We do not see what will happen tomorrow or in ten years time. In Nelson’s words, the moment the desire is fulfilled the curtain falls, and this momentary satisfaction goes on echoing in our minds… In the real world the play continues after the curtain has fallen, and when it is raised again there is not so much pleasure to be gained by seeing or hearing what is going on. (46) This is precisely what happens in Celebrity. The film deviates from the conventions of romantic comedy in not allowing the curtain to fall after this scene so that we can see what happens after the “happy ending.” Firstly, Bonnie’s point of view is displayed. Usually, when a character leaves a partner for a more suitable one the “abandoned” partner’s point of view is kept in the background in order not to disrupt the harmonious resolution. If the film dwelled too much on his/her grief the happy ending of comedy would be ruined. However, in Celebrity we have access to Bonnie’s reaction to the news, a reaction which involves rage and, more The Importance of Being Famous 91 importantly, revenge, not a frequent element in romantic comedy indeed, something which farther problematizes the generic adscription of the film. The happy ending is also subverted by Allen’s desire to show us Lee and Nola’s life together. Some months have gone by, and they are not a happy couple, as she (who warned Lee about her unfaithfulness) keeps on flirting with other men. Lee had denied this fact to himself thinking he could make her change, but now he cannot keep on deluding himself any longer. Romantic conventions are undermined again in the final scene between Lee and Nola at the theatre rehearsals when he asks her to marry him: “So what do you want for dinner? What should I buy?” “Spaghetti.” “I was going to ask you to marry me.” “No, penne… with marinara.” In this way Allen ruins the illusion of the “happily ever after” so important in romantic comedy. He denies the possibility of a happy union here but, ironically, he seems to assert the contrary in Robin’s case. In order to do so he uses the same device he has undermined in Lee’s story: to stop the narrative just at the moment in which desire is fulfilled, with Robin and Tony just married and expecting a child. So, in a way, it could be argued that Allen plays with the audience’s expectations and knowledge of romantic comedy’s conventions, both confirming and disrupting them. However, Robin’s case is completely different from Lee’s. Her story is not framed by the conventions of the “nervous romance,” but by another “type” of romantic comedy which stemmed from the eighties’ social climate. The appearance of AIDS in this decade led to the stigmatization of casual sex, which provoked a revival of the conception of sex in connection with love, something intimately linked to courtship, romance and monogamy. In this way, the values attached to love as a source of individual pleasure were not erased; rather, its social and spiritual aspects were emphasized again (Seidman 194-196). These evolving social conditions were reflected by romantic comedy in what Neale called the “new romance,” which being aware of the long tradition of romantic comedy behind it, tried to recuperate the values of “old-fashioned” romance (287), thus reinforcing dominant discourses of the time, which, under the influence of the New Right, proposed a return to traditional values regarding the family and the heterosexual couple. In the case of Celebrity, this situation is reflected mainly in Robin’s story with Tony. It could be argued that this “part” of the film makes use of some of the conventions that define traditional romantic comedy, and more specifically the “new romance.” To start with, Robin meets Tony in quite an extraordinary situation, as the “meet-cute” convention outlined by Neale in the “new romance” canon demands Beatriz Oria Gómez 98 WORKS CITED Babington, Bruce, and Peter W. Evans. Affairs to Remember: The Hollywood Comedy of the Sexes. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1989. Cavell, Stanley. Pursuits of Happiness. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1984. Deleyto, Celestino. “Love and other Triangles: Alice and the Conventions of Romantic Comedy.” Eds. Peter Evans and Celestino Deleyto. Terms of Endearment: Hollywood Romantic Comedy in the 1980s and 1990s. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1998. 129-147. Evans, Mary. Love, An Unromantic Discussion. Cambridge: Polity P, 2003. García Mainar, L. 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