Interiors by Woody Allen

I recently saw the film "Interiors" by Wood Allen which was released in 1978. The film is considered to be Bergmanesque which means that it has been largely influenced by Bergman films which the director doesn't hesitate to agree with the idea. I find the film very important in the sense that I thought that the whole film was an attempt to make a large definition of art or history of art.It is about personal feelings (interiors) that we all possess as individuals and it is about how hard it is to find a way to express ourselves. It is about a family, three sisters, a mother and a father, and sister's husbands. The father is a successful lawyer in New York and he is in his late sixties. The mother is interested in art in general and because of that all his daughters are somehow related to art business. The older sister is a poem writer who is very successful at what she does, the other sister doesn't really know what to do but she is looking for a way to express her feelings through several mediums and the elder sister is an actress who appears mostly on television serials and B movies. One day, the father, suddenly decides to leave her wife and go on by his own. Devastated by the idea, the mother goes into depression and tries to kill herself several times. And the relations in the family becomes very complicated. In a way, the mother wants her husband back but the father already meets with someone and decides to marry her.
Now you may ask, what has got all of these to do with art. Actually, I am much more interested in oral references that the film provides us. During the film, we hear the characters talking about Henri Matisse, African Masks, Ancient Greek Architectures and churches in Europe. And I believe that these are the essential key points that the director wants us to look at.
When the father and the mother first meet after their separation, the mother mentions about the exhibition of a Matisse painting in New York. In 1908, Matisse wrote "A work of art must carry in itself its complete significance and impose itself upon the beholder even before he can identify the subject matter." That was one of the first overt claims that an artist's responsibility is only to himself and that he is bound by no rules in seeking to express himself.


But is this what the father wanted? Let's try to understand his new girlfriend which he is about to marry. The first time he introduces his girlfriend to his daughters, they are shocked by her relaxed and open behavior and that makes them sick. The reason why is because the daughters cannot be that open minded and free in expressing whatever they like to say. The women unlike them is not sophisticated intellectuality but knows how to enjoy life, how to dance, how to drink and eat. And in a particular time, the father mentions her passion to the African Masks and talks about her collections. Now if we think about African art and masks in general, we will understand that most them influenced impressionism and therefore modernism. Artists such as Picasso for example were also collectors of African Masks because they were in fact fascinated by the way they found ways to express themselves, for them what was important was not representing the reality but the reality they saw or imagine. There work was based on essentials and they were mostly abstract. For this subject matter, I believe it is very important to read the first chapters of "The Story of Art" by Gombrich to get a better understanding.


Later on, in the diner, the couple mentions about their trip to Greece, Athens. And the women later adds that she has been in Europe before and visited all the churches and she was sick of it. But she was fascinated by the architecture of Athens. We all know that for years in Europe, churches had great impact in art making. It was only after the churches lost their power in the eighteen century that art became a more self centered craft. Therefore I find very important to look at the scene where the father declares that he is going to marry with someone else. There are in the church.