Café Society (2016)

Kristen Stewart is at her most appealing in Woody Allen's Café Society (2016). Photo: Sabrina Lantos.

Woody Allen: Café Society (2016). Woody Allen, Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg promoting the movie.

Café Society / Café Society.
    US © 2016 Gravier Productions, Inc. An Amazon Studios release of a Gravier Productions presentation of a Perdido production. P: Letty Aronson, Stephen Tenenbaum, Edward Walson.
    D+SC: Woody Allen. Cin: Vittorio Storaro – digital: AXSWM, SRMemory – Sony Cinealta F65 – colour: ACES – 2.00:1 – digital intermediate 4K – release: D-Cinema. PD: Santo Loquasto. AD: Michael E. Goldman, Doug Huszti. Set dec: Regina Graves, Nancy Haigh. Cost: Suzy Benzinger. Makeup: Stacey Panepinto. Hair: Christine Fennell. SFX: Phillip Beck. VFX: Brainstorm Digital. Soundtrack listing beyond the jump break.* S: Robert Hein. ED: Alisa Lepselter. Casting: Patricia DiCerto, Juliet Taylor.
    C from Wikipedia:
    Jesse Eisenberg as Bobby Dorfman
    Kristen Stewart as Veronica "Vonnie" Sybil
    Steve Carell as Phil Stern
    Blake Lively as Veronica Hayes
    Parker Posey as Rad Taylor
    Corey Stoll as Ben Dorfman
    Jeannie Berlin as Rose Dorfman
    Ken Stott as Marty Dorfman
    Anna Camp as Candy
    Paul Schneider as Steve
    Sheryl Lee as Karen Stern
    Tony Sirico as Vito
    Stephen Kunken as Leonard
    Sari Lennick as Evelyn Dorfman
    Laurel Griggs as Evelyn Dorfman's daughter
    Max Adler as Walt
    Don Stark as Sol
    Gregg Binkley as Mike
    Woody Allen (uncredited) as Narrator (voice)
Films that Bobby and Vonnie see: The Woman in Red (1935) and Libeled Lady (1936).
Loc: Los Angeles, Pasadena, New York City.
Typeface: Windsor Light Condensed.
96 min
    Festival premiere: 11 May 2016 Cannes Film Festival.
    Premiere: 13 July 2016 New York City.
    Finnish premiere: 7 Oct 2016, distributed by Finnkino.
    Corona lockdown viewings.
    Yle Teema broadcast with Finnish subtitles by Jaana Wiik viewed on a 4K tv set at home, Helsinki, 8 May 2020.

AA: Whoever designed the poster of Café Society deserves credit, but poster designers are usually not credited anymore. The stylized image of a woman with a golden tear sums up a key theme of the movie.

Much of the film is reassuringly familiar: the 1930s oldie jazz favourites, the Windsor Light Condensed typeface, familiar names in the opening credits (missing here: Jack Rollins, who had just died at age 100).

Much is new: this is Woody Allen's first digitally captured film (but since Midnight in Paris his films had been processed via digital intermediate) and his first film shot by the Italian maestro Vittorio Storaro. Café Society is also Allen's most expensive film by far, and it shows.

No director in the history of the cinema has had more fantastic casts than Woody Allen, and here Kristen Stewart (Veronica "Vonnie"), Blake Lively (Veronica Hayes), Jeannie Berlin (Rose Dorfman), Anna Camp (Candy) and Sheryl Lee (Karen Stern) make their Woody Allen debuts. This is a film about warm and tender love, and Stewart and Lively are glowing and radiant as the two Veronicas of this romance. This is the most beautiful performance of Kristen Stewart I have seen, and it changes my view about her.

Jesse Eisenberg is in the male leading role as Bobby, creating an original incarnation of the Allenian schlemiel protagonist. Steve Carell's Uncle Phil starts as a stock character: a married man, a big boss with a young "back street" girlfriend. But during the movie Phil grows in complexity, humanity and dignity, and he finally keeps his promise to his girlfriend. Like all great comedy since Molière, Allen starts from cliché and then twists it around.

The themes are familiar. All great themes are familiar. The treatment is fresh and new. In Midnight in Paris the theme of "everything was better in the past" was explored with a time travel fantasy device. Here the theme is "the grass is greener".

Café Society is light entertainment on the surface and philosophical at the core. Towards the finale we hear Leonard sum up: "Socrates said, 'The unexamined life is not worth living.' But the examined one is no bargain". Because "life has its own agenda".

In the first part of the movie Vonnie gives Bobby the classical Hollywood tour complete with a sight-seeing of the stars' homes. The stars are bigger than life, but Vonnie confesses that she is happy to be life-size.

Comedy is the most merciless genre: either you laugh or you don't. We laughed out loud many times, but I look forward to revisiting Café Society after the corona lockdown to hear a cinema audience reacting to its anthology pieces. Among them is one of the most memorable scenes of prostitution in the history of the cinema. The lonely Bobby has booked an appointment with Candy (Anna Camp), but even commercial love remains unrequited in this poignant and human scene.

More devastatingly, Bobby's romance with Vonnie ends with her choosing another man. Together in Hollywood Bobby and Vonnie had satirized industry talk, small talk, "name-dropping and backstabbing". When years later Bobby meets Vonnie, "the former girlfriend is now an aunt", and she has also become a master of "name-dropping and backstabbing". In Allen's comédie humaine Vonnie now belongs with Monica (Ellen Page) who "knows one line from every poem" in To Rome with Love.

Café Society belongs to Allen's films with a strong Jewish presence, featuring a Hollywood uncle and a New York gangster, Bobby's big brother Ben Dorfman (Corey Stoll, who played Hemingway in Midnight in Paris). The last straw for the Dorfman family is that on death row Ben converts to Christianity: "First a murderer, and now a Christian!".

New Year is being celebrated both in New York and Hollywood. Bobby and Vonnie never stop loving each other, but they have decided that it is better not to see each other any more. As everybody else joins in "Auld Lang Syne", a faraway look is noticed in Bobby's eyes in New York and Vonnie's in Hollywood. There is no "The End" card.

I think that Bobby and Vonnie have stopped looking for the greener grass in romance, and the faraway look has a deeper meaning. When they were together, they were dreaming of a better life than Hollywood backstabbing and New York café society. They still are.

The cinematography by Vittorio Storaro and the production design by Santo Loquasto got rave reviews, and the look of the movie is impressively glossy even viewed at home. I also sensed a digital unreality, like in the Coen Brothers' Hail, Caesar! (2016) made in the same year. Maybe it is an intentional aesthetic choice in both cases.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: SYNOPSIS FROM WIKIPEDIA:
BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: SYNOPSIS FROM WIKIPEDIA:

Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg) is the youngest son of a Jewish family in New York City in the 1930s; his elder sister Evelyn is a married school teacher, while his elder brother Ben is a gangster. Discontented with working for his father, a jeweler, Bobby decides to move to Hollywood, where he takes a job running menial errands for his uncle Phil (Steve Carell), a powerhouse talent agent.

Phil introduces Bobby to his secretary Veronica, nicknamed Vonnie (Kristen Stewart), who is tasked with helping Bobby settle into Hollywood. Bobby is drawn to her unpretentiousness as opposed to most young women living in Hollywood, and falls deeply in love with her. She rebuffs his advances, telling him she has a journalist boyfriend named Doug. In reality, "Doug" is Phil, with whom Vonnie is carrying on an illicit romance; he promises to divorce his wife and marry her.

On the first-year "paper anniversary" of their affair, Vonnie gives Phil a letter written and signed by Rudolph Valentino as a gift. However, Phil proceeds to tell her that he is incapable of divorcing his wife, so he ends the affair. Vonnie subsequently surrenders to Bobby's love for her and their friendship turns into a romance.

A forlorn Phil confides in Bobby about his affair—without naming his mistress—before telling him he has determined to divorce his wife. Bobby passingly mentions his relationship with Vonnie and his intention to marry her and return to New York. Phil begins petitioning Vonnie privately to leave Bobby and marry him instead.

While having a conversation with Phil in his office, Bobby notices the Valentino letter. Recognizing it from Vonnie's account about her breakup with "Doug", he confronts her and asks her to choose between himself and Phil. Vonnie chooses Phil.

A heartbroken Bobby returns to New York City where he begins to run a high-end nightclub with his gangster brother, Ben (Corey Stoll). It soon becomes a famous hangout for the rich and powerful, from politicians to gangsters. Bobby meets divorcée Veronica Hayes (Blake Lively) at the nightclub, and they begin dating, soon getting married and starting a family together.

On an extended visit to New York, a happily married Phil and Vonnie stop at the nightclub and insist on seeing Bobby. Vonnie has become a pretentious name-dropper and Bobby is at first repulsed by her. However, he agrees to show her around New York—as she had once done for him in Hollywood. They spend an evening without Phil, visiting Bobby's favorite haunts and, as dawn breaks over Central Park, share a kiss; but it's clear that it can go no further.

Bobby's sister Evelyn (Sari Lennick) asks their brother, Ben, to "talk to" her disagreeable neighbor; Ben promptly kills him. He is arrested and convicted for murder and racketeering. Shortly before he goes to the electric chair, he converts to Christianity, mortifying his parents. His late brother's notoriety propels the nightclub to new heights, and Bobby travels to Los Angeles to contemplate opening a Hollywood version. He ultimately decides against it, but, before he leaves, he and Vonnie have lunch together, where she mentions that she and Phil will be returning to New York for a short visit. However, they both decide that it is better if they don't see each other.

Months later, on New Year's Eve, Bobby and Vonnie are apart—Bobby in New York City hosting festivities in his nightclub, and Vonnie with her husband at a Hollywood house party. As the new year is rung in, they both seem distant to their spouses, and both have a faraway look in their eyes.

* SOUNDTRACK CREDITS FROM THE IMDB:

I Didn't Know What Time It Was
Composed by Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart
Performed by Benny Goodman and His Orchestra
Courtesy of RCA Records
By arrangement with Sony Music Licensing

Have You Met Miss Jones?
Composed by Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart
Performed by Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks

Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart
Composed by James F. Hanley
Performed by Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks

Pick Yourself Up
Written by Dorothy Fields & Jerome Kern
Performed by Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks

Taxi War Dance
Composed by Count Basie & Lester Young
Performed by Count Basie and His Orchestra
Courtesy of Columbia Records
By arrangement with Sony Music Licensing

Too Marvelous for Words
Composed by Johnny Mercer & Richard A. Whiting
Performed by Eddy Duchin's Orchestra (as Eddy Duchin and His Orchestra)
Courtesy of RCA Records
By arrangement with Sony Music Licensing

My Melancholy Baby
Composed by Ernie Burnett & George Norton
Performed by Benny Goodman Quartet
Courtesy of RCA Records
By arrangement with Sony Music Licensing

The Lady Is a Tramp
Written by Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart
Performed by Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks

I Only Have Eyes for You
(from The Woman in Red (1935))
Composed by Al Dubin & Harry Warren
Performed by Gene Raymond
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment

I Only Have Eyes for You
Composed by Al Dubin & Harry Warren
Performed by Ben Selvin
Courtesy of Columbia Records
By arrangement with Sony Music Licensing

Black Stockings
Composed by Ray Davies
Courtesy of Audio Network

My Romance
Composed by Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart
Performed by Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks

It's Been So Long
Composed by Harold Adamson & Walter Donaldson
Performed by Benny Goodman and His Orchestra with Helen Ward
Courtesy of RCA Records
By arrangement with Sony Music Licensing

I Didn't Know What Time It Was
Composed by Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart
Performed by Conal Fowkes

Out of Nowhere
Composed by Johnny Green, Harry Harris & Edward Heyman
Performed by Conal Fowkes, Brian Nalepka & John Gill

You Oughta Be in Pictures
Composed by Edward Heyman & Dana Suesse
Performed by Bert Ambrose and His Orchestra (as Ambrose and His Orchestra)
Courtesy of Columbia Records
By arrangement with Sony Music Licensing

More Than You Know
Composed by Vincent Youmans, Billy Rose & Edward Eliscu
Performed by Benny Goodman (as Benny Goodman Trio)
Courtesy of RCA Records
By arrangement with Sony Music Licensing

'The Peanut Vendor' - 'El Manisero'
Composed by Moïse Simons
Performed by YeraSon

Un Beso Mas
Composed by Francisco Rodriguez & Matt Hirt
Courtesy of FirstCom Music

Street Scene (Sentimental Rhapsody)
Composed by Alfred Newman & Domenico Savino
Performed by Harry James and His Orchestra
Courtesy of Capitol Records, LLC
Under license from Universal Music Enterprises

You Turned the Tables on Me
Composed by Louis Alter & Sidney D. Mitchell (as Sidney Mitchell)
Performed by Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks

June in January
Composed by Leo Robin & Ralph Rainger
Performed by Patrick Bartley, Marion Felder, Russell Hall & Chris Pattishall

MC Boogie
Composed by Christopher Ashmore
Courtesy of Audio Network

Mountain Greenery
Composed by Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart
Performed by Kat Edmonson & Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks

There's a Small Hotel
Composed by Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart
Performed by Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks

Manhattan
Composed by Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart
Performed by Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks

This Can't Be Love
Composed by Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart
Performed by Conal Fowkes

Did I Remember
Composed by Harold Adamson & Walter Donaldson
Performed by Patrick Bartley, Marion Felder, Russell Hall & Chris Pattishall

Jeepers Creepers
Composed by Johnny Mercer & Harry Warren
Performed by Kat Edmonson & Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks

Auld Lang Syne
Traditional, Lyrics by Robert Burns
Performed by Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks

PRESS KIT: SYNOPSIS:

New York in the 1930s. As he has more and more trouble putting up with his bickering parents, his gangster brother and the family jewelry store, Bobby Dorfman feels like he needs a change of scenery! So he decides to go and try his luck in Hollywood where his high-powered agent uncle Phil hires him as an errand boy. In Hollywood he soon falls in love but unfortunately the girl has a boyfriend. Bobby settles for friendship – up until the day the girl knocks at his door, telling him her boyfriend just broke up with her. All of a sudden Bobby’s life takes a new turn, and a very romantic one at that.

PRESS KIT: ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

Woody Allen’s CAFÉ SOCIETY is a panoramic tale of 1930s New
York and Hollywood with a kaleidoscopic cast of characters that
range from movie stars to millionaires, playboys to professors, and
working girls to wise guys.

The film’s broad scope was integral from the start. “When
I wrote the script, I structured it like a novel, says Allen. As in
a book, you stop for a little while in this movie and see a scene
with the protagonist with his girlfriend, a scene with his parents,
followed by a scene with his sister or gangster brother, a scene with
Hollywood stars and wheeler-dealers, and then the Café Society
with politicians, debutantes, playboys, and the people cheating on
their wives or shooting their husbands. To me it was always a story
not of one person but of everybody.”

Within the sweep of the movie is the story of Bobby Dorfman, a
Bronx boy whose ambitions take him to Hollywood and back again
to New York. “Bobby’s love story is the armature that the film is
hung on, says Allen, but all these other characters make up the
atmosphere and fabric of the story itself.”

As in a novel, the movie’s story is related through an authorial
voice, so Allen decided it would be appropriate for the film to have
narration, and to take on that job himself. “I put myself in because
I knew exactly how I wanted the words to be inflected, he says. I
figured that since I wrote the book, it would be like I was reading
from my novel.”

“Café Society” refers to the socialites, aristocrats, artists, and
celebrities who gathered in fashionable cafes and restaurants in
New York, Paris, and London in the late 19th and early 20th Century.
The term became popular in New York City in the ’30s, after the
end of Prohibition and the rise of the tabloid journalism that avidly
covered the denizens of Café Society. There were dozens of dazzling
clubs in New York City at the time, including some with 50-piece
orchestras. Every night the glitterati donned tuxedoes and gowns
and made the circuit from Greenwich Village jazz spots to legendary
midtown venues like El Morocco, to 142nd Street in Harlem, site of
the Cotton Club. “That era has always fascinated me, says Allen.
It was one of the most exciting times in the history of the city, with
tremendous theatre life, café life, and restaurants. Up and down
the line, wherever you were, the whole island was jumping with
nighttime sophisticated activities.”

Golden Age Hollywood also had its haunts for the rich and famous,
but their nightlife was markedly different from the one in New York.
“It was the glamour of the Cocoanut Grove and the Trocadero, says
Allen. There weren’t many places to go to, the hours were earlier,
the clothes were lighter, and everyone was driving their cars places.
There was a certain amount of it that was very glamorous because
they had the movie stars, but New York had a certain all night
sophistication that Hollywood didn’t have.”

In addition to being a portrait of an era, CAFÉ SOCIETY is a family
saga. Bobby’s father Marty (Ken Stott) is a gruff but deeply moral
man who owns a modest jewelry store in the Bronx. His wife Rose
(Jeannie Berlin) is always ready with negative assessments of his
mental capacity and other failings. “She feels, probably inaccurately,
that with a different husband she might have had a better life,
says Allen. They fight all the time, but they’re very committed to
each other and they love each other – it’s just a different kind of
demonstration of it. They would be right there at the hospital bed if
anything happened to either one of them.”

Ben (Corey Stoll), the oldest of the three Dorfman children, is a
gangster. “Ben sees that his father could never afford anything and
was always struggling, says Allen. He got in with the gangs, found
jobs that paid good money, but were not legal, and found that there
was a very lucrative and glamorous life to be led outside the law.”
While Ben has strayed ethically from the family, his devotion to his
relatives doesn’t change – he is always around for family events and
available to help everyone. Evelyn (Sari Lennick), the bright middle
sister, becomes a teacher and marries Leonard (Stephen Kunken),
a professor, and pursues a more cerebral life. Leonard, while
something of a egghead, is a principled man who adores Evelyn.
As the story begins, Bobby (Jesse Eisenberg), sets out for Los
Angeles, hoping for something more interesting than working in his
father’s jewelry store. Working for his mother’s high-powered agent
brother, Phil Stern (Steve Carell), seems much more promising.

“Bobby starts the movie as an almost blank slate, a kind of naïve
dreamer who thinks he can go to Hollywood and will be swept up
by a welcoming industry, says Eisenberg. Of course that’s not what
happens. But he thinks that he wants something more exciting and
he is part of a generation and a culture that made that dream feel
like it was possible, especially because he had an uncle who did it.
As he is exposed to the real world, both the beauty of it and the
struggle, he self-actualizes in a sweet and flawed way.”

Bobby’s uncle Phil is a high-energy mover and shaker who is on a
first name basis with many of the biggest stars in Hollywood, but
is slow to recognize his own sister’s voice on the phone. “When
you first meet Phil, he’s very formidable, says Carell. He’s always
multi-tasking, always has a call and a meeting going on at the same
time, and he embraces that role fully. But the more you see him,
you realize he has a softer and more vulnerable side, and that he
has a decency – he doesn’t make decisions at the expense of other
people’s feelings. I think this makes him more human and more
endearing.”

As Bobby is new to LA, Phil asks his assistant, Vonnie (Kristen
Stewart), to show him around town. After she takes him on a tour
of movie star homes and shares her experiences and opinions about
Hollywood, Bobby is immediately smitten. “Vonnie is an ambitious,
fresh girl who is completely aware of the surface nature of the
business she’s in, says Stewart. It’s fun and exciting, but there’s
also an emptiness she sees – and that gives her charm.” Says
Eisenberg: “I think both characters are constantly attracted to and
resisting the allure of the glitzier side of the city of entertainment.
But Vonnie provides a wonderful antidote for Bobby. She is cynical,
funny, and seems to have a real world perspective.” Unfortunately,
Vonnie has a boyfriend, and he must settle for her friendship.
While in Los Angeles, Bobby befriends two fellow New Yorkers,
Rad Taylor (Parker Posey), a vivacious woman who owns a modeling
agency, and her wealthy producer husband Steve (Paul Schneider).
Steve invites Bobby to a screening of one of his movies at their
home, and Bobby gets his first taste of what a life in Hollywood
might hold for him.

When Vonnie’s boyfriend abruptly breaks up with her, Bobby
seizes the opening to romance her, and eventually she returns his
affections. While he is starting to move up the ladder at Phil’s
agency, he comes to the conclusion that Los Angeles is not for him.
He asks Vonnie to marry him and come back to New York and lead
a bohemian life in Greenwich Village. Vonnie seems on the verge
of saying yes when her ex-boyfriend comes back into the picture.
Although she loves Bobby, she decides on her ex-boyfriend instead,
leaving Bobby devastated.

Returning to New York, Bobby goes to work for big brother Ben,
who has taken over a nightclub called “Club Hangover.” Bobby
quickly proves a smooth operator, naturally able to work a crowd,
with an instinct for how to attract the brightest members of Café
Society to the club. Rad convinces him to remodel and change
the club’s name to the more chic-sounding “Les Tropiques.” Soon
the place is teeming with socialites, celebrities, politicians, and
playboys, and Bobby roams freely among them, the genial host of
the never-ending party.

One night, Rad introduces Bobby to Veronica (Blake Lively),
a socialite whose husband has just left her for her best friend.
“Veronica is definitely hurt and a little damaged by what happened,
but she’s not yet jaded by the world, says Lively. There’s a purity
about her that’s refreshing, in the way she hears about Bobby’s
heritage and she meets it with curiosity rather than judgment.
She has an openness that removes any of the social and political
boundaries that were prevalent back in those days.” Veronica is
quickly won over by Bobby’s charm and confidence, and after a
whirlwind courtship, she tells him that she’s pregnant. While Bobby
still hasn’t gotten Vonnie out of his head, he proposes, and they
marry. “Veronica was a really interesting character to take on
because this film is a love story, and you’re really rooting for the
two people at the heart of the love story, says Lively. Then Veronica
comes in, and you’re supposed to like her but also want the two
original lovers to be together again. You really root for her, and at
the same time you root for them. It was a neat character to play to
come in and shake things up a bit.”

Meanwhile, Evelyn and Leonard are struggling with a surly next
door neighbor who is becoming increasingly threatening. Leonard’s
mild attempts to resolve their conflicts in a reasonable way only
seem to make the situation more volatile. Concerned for Leonard’s
safety, Evelyn asks Ben to speak to him, a request she will later
regret.

Having worked with many of the world’s greatest cinematographers,
Allen teamed for the first time on CAFÉ SOCIETY with three-time
Academy Award winner Vittorio Storaro. “The cinematography in
a film to me is very important in my telling of the story and Vittorio
is a superb artist,” says Allen. In a first for both of them, they shot
the film digitally. Storaro had experimented with digital cameras for
years, and he felt that the technology had advanced to a level where
the results satisfied him. The two worked closely together to give
diverging aesthetics for the three worlds of the film. “In the Bronx,
it is a desaturated, almost winter-like evening light,” says Storaro.
Los Angeles was the opposite: “In Hollywood there is a very strong
primary color in a warm tonality, very sunny, he says. After Bobby
returns to New York, everything is much brighter, and everything is
much more colorful, particularly the scenes done in the nightclubs.
As the film moves on, there’s more balance between the visual
elements in the two opposite cities. That’s something that I love to
add all the time: parts that are opposite visually at the beginning,
but step by step get closer, until they connect to each other.”

While the film is generally shot with static images and wider
angle shots appropriate to the period, Storaro and Allen utilized
a Steadicam whenever the narrator was speaking. “The narrator
doesn’t belong to any period, to any time, any geographic place,
says Storaro. The narrator is completely abstract. So when the
narrator is telling the story, we felt that the narrator should have his
own view. We decided that this would be a great moment to use the
Steadicam, in order to be much more around the character, much
more free to tell the story according to the emotional story itself.”
Both “Club Hangover,” and “Les Tropiques,” were built on the same
Manhattan sound stage. The biggest element in the changeover
was the walls, which were crafted by production designer Santo
Loquasto so that large panels could easily be removed and swapped.

“I modeled the clubs after the movies of the period as well as
pictures from the actual places, says production designer Santo
Loquasto. Over the years, we’ve accumulated a library of references
for that world – we even shot in El Morocco for RADIO DAYS.
I used elements of things I remembered Woody liked in scouting
over the years, like the spiral staircase and the way the bar is laid
out. When I work, I always have to acknowledge that it’s Woody’s
view of this world more than it’s a recreation. I always say it’s a
recollection, it’s not a recreation, which is really the truth of it. He
always worries if we obsess about accuracy in the decor that we’ll
seem fussy in a way that doesn’t appeal to his eye.”

The film’s opening scene was shot by the pool of a home once owned
by Hollywood star Dolores del Rio, pictures of which Loquasto had
loved when he saw them in a book on Los Angeles. Loquasto sent
the location department photos, and fortunately they were able to
find it. The house epitomizes the contrast between Los Angeles and
New York that Loquasto was going for. “While the New York club
was black and white and red, says Loquasto, the Dolores del Rio
house had the pool and the white house and the green grass, and
very beautiful silver and aqua furniture of the period.”

Rose and Marty Dorfman’s gloomy apartment was shot in an
apartment on Riverside Drive that was currently empty. “It was in
pretty dreadful shape already, and they allowed us to age it further
and refurnish it,” says Loquasto. Evelyn and Leonard’s place was
intended to be someplace outside the city, and they scouted both
sides of the Hudson. “It was difficult to find houses and sidewalks
that were appropriate. Vittorio wanted this location to be grayer
than usual, and we made it taupe and gray.”

Costume designer Suzy Benzinger’s work illuminated the differences
between New York and Hollywood glamour. “Hollywood was built on
an incredibly fake world that was created to drive millions of people
to movies, says Benzinger. It was very important for them to make
the starlets glamorous – they dressed them every time they exited
their homes. We’ve all seen these pictures of Hollywood premieres
in the ‘30s where the ladies are wearing these fur coats with orchids
on them. And when you look at the date of these premieres, they’re
in August, when it’s a million degrees in California. In New York,
it’s more realistic: It’s cold outside, so women come in with hats.”

New York style had a different feel because people, influenced by
the heady cultural life that was swirling around them, were buying
the tuxedos and couture fashion themselves. “New York women
were a little more European, a little more chic than the women in
California, says Benzinger. This was the time when all these French
designers were appearing in New York, and among the ladies
there was a huge competition with Chanel and Schiaparelli.” As
she couldn’t rely on the mostly black and white pictures of the era,
Benzinger had to resort to other techniques: “I would read articles
from ‘30s fashion magazines that said things like ‘This is the hot
color from Paris!’” she says.

Eisenberg, a writer and soon-to-be director himself, who previously
appeared in Allen’s TO ROME WITH LOVE, describes working
with Allen as both challenging and fulfilling. “It’s nerve-racking
because you are not going to spend all day on the same shots, and
so if you feel like you didn’t get it exactly the way you wanted, it’ll
still be in the movie, he says. But it’s also a relief to realize you are
being watched and corrected by somebody who is able to focus on
whatever it is that’s most important in a given scene, and highlight
it in the most efficient, clear, and artful way.” Carell appreciated that
Allen didn’t do a lot of takes: “When you do too many, you can start
over-thinking it, and that’s when you can come up with artificial
moments or reactions. I think he loves immediacy and I think it
pays off.” Stewart felt that Allen pushed her outside of her comfort
zone. “There’s a buoyancy and a levity to Vonnie’s personality that
I just don’t easily encompass, she says. And so he was really on me
about that and forced me to lighten up and find that sort of airy
nature.” Lively says that Allen was never overbearing or intrusive,
and yet always there when she needed him to be. “He doesn’t give
you line readings exactly, she says. He’ll say ‘The mood should be a
little like…’ and then he’ll say a line. And it will completely change
your idea of what the line should be.” Carell believes that Allen’s
approach to directing is grounded in an appreciation for actors and
their work: “I think he respects actors so much that he assumes that
they will come in prepared and that they will do their job. He leaves
the acting up to the actors. So unless you have a question or unless
he has a concern, it’s very simple – if it’s working, you don’t really
hear anything.”

Stewart felt she needed little guidance because the script made her
character so clear: “Rather than him explaining what it was about,
I spent most of my time convincing him: ‘Oh man, I know this
moment! I really want you to know that I’m not just acting this; this
is something that I have experienced.’ And he was always surprised
by that.” Says Lively: “What I liked about the script is that each
person has their own reason for being worthy of being loved very
well, and yet they’re each treated differently. Some are loved less,
some are loved more, and not for any reason. It’s just an emotional,
chemical thing. In love it doesn’t mean that any one person is better
than the other – it’s just who makes your heart beat faster.”

The love story at the heart of CAFÉ SOCIETY is bittersweet. The
characters wonder about the choices they have made and the paths
their lives have taken. “Life is like putting together a huge mosaic –
but you only get to see one little stone at a time, you don’t get to see
the big picture, says Stewart. You’re responsible for the decisions
you’ve made, but your decisions weren’t fully informed. There’s
a ‘what-if’ at play during this whole movie that drives me crazy,
because that’s life – you always wonder if the decisions you’ve made
were the right ones.” Says Carell: “What you think is your ultimate
dream might not necessarily be so. There can always be a yearning
and a dream beyond the one that you have at hand.”

“It’s just choices that people make in life, says Allen. Things work
out for Bobby and Vonnie to some degree, but they still dream
about each other and it’s not going to happen. If Vonnie had made a
different decision earlier, they’d be together. But the way things are,
they can only be together in their dreams.”