Interiors

For other uses, see Interiors (disambiguation).

Interiors
Directed by	Woody Allen
Produced by	Charles H. Joffe
Written by	Woody Allen
Starring	Geraldine Page Diane Keaton Mary Beth Hurt Kristin Griffith Richard Jordan E. G. Marshall Maureen Stapleton Sam Waterston
Cinematography	Gordon Willis
Editing by	Ralph Rosenblum
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date(s)	August 2, 1978
Running time	99 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$10 million
Box office	$10,432,366

Interiors is a 1978 drama film written and directed by Woody Allen. Featured performers are Kristin Griffith, Mary Beth Hurt, Richard Jordan, Diane Keaton, E. G. Marshall, Geraldine Page, Maureen Stapleton and Sam Waterston.

Page received a BAFTA Film Award for Best Supporting Actress and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. The film received four other Oscar nominations, two for Allen's screenplay and direction, one for Stapleton as Best Actress in a Supporting Role and another for Mel Bourne and Daniel Robert for their art direction and set decoration. It is Allen's first full-fledged film in the drama genre.

Plot

Three sisters, Renata (Diane Keaton), Flyn (Kristin Griffith), and Joey (Mary Beth Hurt) live through the painful separation of their parents. Their father, Arthur (E. G. Marshall), parts from their controlling and mentally unstable but artistically inclined mother, Eve (Geraldine Page), going on to marry a more "normal" but plainer woman Pearl (Maureen Stapleton). The evening after Arthur marries Pearl, Eve attempts suicide by walking into the ocean.

Cast

• Geraldine Page as Eve
• Diane Keaton as Renata
• Mary Beth Hurt as Joey
• Kristin Griffith as Flyn
• Richard Jordan as Frederick
• E.G. Marshall as Arthur
• Maureen Stapleton as Pearl
• Sam Waterston as Mike

Reception

Allen's own fears about the film's reception are recounted in a biography of Allen by Eric Lax (2nd edition: ISBN 0-306-80985-0), where he quotes Ralph Rosenblum, the film's editor:

He [Allen] managed to rescue Interiors, much to his credit. He was against the wall. I think he was afraid. He was testy, he was slightly short-tempered. He was fearful. He thought he had a real bomb. But he managed to pull it out with his own work. The day the reviews came out, he said to me, 'Well, we pulled this one out by the short hairs, didn't we?'

Later, while watching the film with an acquaintance, Allen reportedly said "It's always been my fear. I think I'm writing Long Day's Journey Into Night and it turns into Edge of Night."

Vincent Canby of The New York Times called the film "beautiful" and complimented Gordon Willis on his "use of cool colors that suggest civilization's precarious control of natural forces", but noted:

My problem with Interiors is that although I admire the performances and isolated moments, as well as the techniques and the sheer, headlong courage of this great, comic, film-making philosopher, I haven't any real idea what the film is up to. It's almost as if Mr. Allen had set out to make someone else's movie, say a film in the manner of Mr. Bergman, without having any grasp of the material, or first-hand, gut feelings about the characters. They seem like other people's characters, known only through other people's art.

Richard Schickel of Time wrote that the film's "desperate sobriety ... robs it of energy and passion"; Allen's "style is Bergmanesque, but his material is Mankiewiczian, and the discontinuity is fatal. Doubtless this was a necessary movie for Allen, but it is both unnecessary and a minor embarrassment for his well-wishers."

On the other hand, Roger Ebert gave the film four stars and praised it highly, saying, "Here we have a Woody Allen film, and we're talking about O'Neill and Bergman and traditions and influences? Yes, and correctly. Allen, whose comedies have been among the cheerful tonics of recent years, is astonishingly assured in his first drama."

Nearly 30 years after the film was released, essayist David Rakoff slammed the film in an article for Nextbook's online magazine of Jewish culture, calling it pretentious, with a "narcotized affect ... as chilly as an Alex Katz painting, with a similar goyische naches [goyish pleasure] anti-Semitic-by-omission Easthampton Waspiness obtaining to it all."

Interiors grossed $10.43 million in the United States, and currently has a 77% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average score of 6.8/10.

Influence

The song "Death of an Interior Decorator" by Death Cab for Cutie is based on the plot of Interiors.

The movie is at least partly the inspiration for the song "Alice and Interiors" by the band Manchester Orchestra from their album I'm Like a Virgin Losing a Child.

Author, NPR commentator and political satirist Sarah Vowell explicitly mentions Interiors in her book Assassination Vacation during a comedic tangent about Maureen Stapleton playing Emma Goldman in the film Reds: "And remember Stapleton in that Woody Allen movie, Interiors? Geraldine Page is all beige this and bland that so her husband divorces her and hooks up with noisy, klutzy Maureen Stapleton, who laughs too loud and smashes pottery and wears a blood-red dress to symbolize that she is Alive, capital A. Wait. I lost my train of thought. Where was I?"

External links

• Interiors at the Internet Movie Database
• Interiors at Rotten Tomatoes