Bullets Over Broadway

Woody Allen has long been concerned with the intersection between philosophical questions and entertainment, and his oeuvre documents this interest. Bullets Over Broadway (1994), while generally concerned with farce and pleasantry, is nonetheless formulated around a single philosophical imperative: questioning which is ultimately more important—a work of literary art or a human life?

Utilizing this construct, Allen writes a story wherein playwright David Shayne (John Cusack) can only get his newest work onto Broadway if he accepts mob funding, and if he allows the mob boss’s girlfriend, the horrendously untalented Olive Neal (played to perfection by Jennifer Tilly) a part in the play. While the other performers are all more than capable, Olive consistently mangles the lines and the integrity of David’s work. David receives unexpected help, though, from Cheech (Chazz Palminteri), a mob bodyguard assigned to protect Olive, who slowly helps David shape his play away from something artificial and into something that is dynamic and more realistic.

However, Cheech eventually becomes so invested in the refashioning of David’s play that it becomes Cheech’s work more so than it is David’s play. As such, the butchering that is Olive’s acting endangers all the brilliance that Cheech has brought to the play. Cheech recourse is simple: kill Olive so that the work can prosper. Consequently, we arrive at one answer to the philosophical imperative.

Within this framework, there is also the subplot of David sacrificing his supportive and loyal girlfriend Ellen (Mary Louise Parker) to be with the actress Helen Sinclair (Dianne Wiest). When Cheech kills Olive, though, David has his spiritual awakening and goes to reunite with Ellen. As such, David has accepted in his heart that, unlike Cheech, he values human life over all the pretenses and artificiality that are generated from art.

Within this perspective, since David is our narrator, it would appear that David’s ideal is the one which should be more valued. But since Cheech brings such life and vitality to the film, it seems to put the film into a philosophical quandary. Yet, in his review of the film, Jeff misconstrues the two contradicting answers for the lack of a single decisive answer.

When one understands that Allen is fundamentally a pessimist it becomes clearer that Allen the filmmaker does not side with the naïve protagonist David. Instead, his sympathies lie with Cheech, the character who is most alive and fully-rendered, who manipulated all of the characters in order to fashion the most perfect literary art. Even Cheech’s return to the Broadway opening night, after his mob boss suspects him of killing Olive, helps further the play. As gangsters mow him down backstage, the gunfire ironically accents the action onstage. Moreover, even in dying, Cheech is concerned with refashioning the play to create a perfect ending.

Having attempted to defend Allen’s dual answers as subterfuge for letting the audience side with David and, thus, able to leave the film contented rather than disheartened, I still cannot praise the film without reservation. Though the film is philosophically sound, at times the scenes with David and Helen carry on far too long, and since Cheech is the most interesting character in the film, one wishes there was even more focus on him. Also, since David chooses life over art, one wishes that there was a more dynamic relationship between he and his girlfriend so that we could care about their future fate. However, the dialogue in the end, where couples shift loyalties and banter about sexual politics, is quite enjoyable, and Bullets Over Broadway does figure in as one of Allen’s stronger 90’s films.

Bullets Over Broadway: 7/10