The Purple Rose of Cairo

A few days ago I was watching Woody Allen’s film, The Purple Rose of Cairo, and realized it fits in quite well with our ongoing class discussion of the ‘real’ and ‘reality.’ For those who have not seen it, The Purple Rose of Cairo is about a young woman, Cecilia, who is a waitress during the Great Depression. To escape the bleak life that surrounds her (poverty, an abusive husband, etc.) she goes to the movies as often as possible, particularly fond of the latest RKO blockbuster, “The Purple Rose of Cairo.” On one of Cecilia’s many viewings, the main character of the film, Tom Baxtor, begins to shift his eyes towards Cecilia, sitting in the audience, and eventually walks out of the screen to speak to her. Naturally chaos ensues for both the characters left stranded in the movie as well as in the real world, where a fictional character is running loose around town. You can find the trailer as well as the pivotal scene where Baxter leaves the screen on Youtube.

The film addresses the concept of the real and the reality on many levels. Take for instance the meanings held in the theatre arrangement alone. The dark theatre itself represents reality, much like the car in Jurassic park. However, within the theatre is the film screen, representing the real, which the theatre contains or confines. Eventually we see the real erupt out of its confines and into reality when Tom Baxter walks out of the screen and into the theatre.

Further, the film addresses Zizek’s notion of desire versus drive. He states that desire is shaped by reality and we see this clearly in Cecilia’s actions. Her reality is bleak and therefore her desire is to enter a world of luxury and happiness; she manifests this desire through the action of going to the movies, where she can escape in her fantasies for a few hours a day. Drive, on the other hand, Zizek states is connected to the ‘real,’ as it is independent of the symbolic and “makes no sense.” Tom Baxtor’s drive for leaving the film and being with Cecilia makes no sense as he is a fictional character and, for all intents and purposes, should not be able to have autonomous desires.

The only falling in this film’s pertinence to the real/reality theory is that the ‘real’ in this film would be representing the opposite of what we’ve seen it represent elsewhere in class. The way I understand it, the ‘real’ always seems to be an area that we cannot access, and fear accessing, because it reminds us of death and mortality. However, the reverse seems true in this film, because the ‘real’ is where we want to be, that is, a happiness that can only be found in fiction.

Even if this last point lessons the argument that the film is an example of the ‘real’ and ‘reality,’ I think it’s still well worth seeing (if you haven’t already) as it puts an interesting perspective on the concept, and how merely watching films is in a way connected to this real/reality idea. Also, it’s just a fantastic movie!