Monday, March 28, 2016

Great Moments In Movie Shelves #63

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Woody Allen's 1986 film Hannah and Her Sisters just turned 30 two weeks back and one of my favorite scenes in the movie (a movie with a great many favorite scenes indeed) is the one where Mia Farrow's sister Lee (played by Barbara Hershey) and Mia Farrow's husband Elliot (played by Michael Caine) go to a bookstore together and flirt themselves silly among the stacks. Lee's current boyfriend Frederick (played by Max fuckin' von Sydow) has already warned her that Elliot is romancing her with literature...

... and so it only makes sense that their dalliance would be initially dallied this way. Elliot buys her a book of e.e. cummings poetry and insists repeatedly that she read the poem on "page a hundred and twelve" and when she does it's the poem called "somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond," which you can read right here. It basically translates to "Let's betray our loved one with lots of sex, lady." And it totally works!

I've always thought that Hershey's performance in this movie is underrated, and so today I've gone and given the world the opportunity to prove me super wrong (once again) -- it's Dianne Wiest's birthday and so over at The Film Experience I've devoted today's edition of "Beauty vs Beast" to these two sisters o' Hannah. I assume Wiest will kick ass because she always does (and she's totally wonderful, so it's not like she's undeserving) but who knows, maybe there are other Hershey Super Fans out there too.

1 comment:

Lucky said...

I love Hershey in this film. Best in show for me.