Bullets Over Broadway



This 1994 film is one of Woody Allen's dramedies on the creative process.

In the 1920s, idealist playwright David Shayne (John Cusack) moves to New York City to produce a play. He and his girlfriend Ellen (Mary-Louise Parker) fit in well enough in the show business world and David finds a mentor in Sheldon Flender (Rob Reiner), a bohemian artist who says that artists can get away with things normal people can't because artists live in their own moral universe.

With the help of his associate Julian Marx, David gets a play produced even though his last two endeavors were flops. Unfortunately there's a catch: the play is backed by Nick Valenti, the head of a violent Mafia gang. Despite worries that he's selling out, David agrees to direct the play according to Valenti's conditions. The main condition being that Valenti's girlfriend Olive (Jennifer Tilly) receive a starring role in the play despite her terrible acting skills. Olive's hostile bodyguard Cheech (Chazz Palminteri) is required to sit in on rehearsals and guarantee that everyone treats her right.

The rest of the cast is David's dream cast. He manages to persuade one-time legendary actress Helen Sinclair (Dianne Wiest in her second Academy Award under Woody Allen) to play the lead role, but her overbearing personality and constant demand for script changes proves problematic. David also hires Warner Purcell (Jim Broadbent), an excellent performer with a serious eating addiction.

But the biggest problem is with the play itself. It is pretentious and badly written, so much so that Cheech starts making suggestions on how to improve it. David begrudgingly takes Cheech's writing advice and ends up having to decide whether art or life is more important.

Tropes:
"Helen: She's perky all right. She makes you want to sneak up behind her with a pillow and suffocate her."
 * All Part of the Show: During the show's opening night on Broadway,
 * Author Existence Failure: In-Universe, It Makes Sense in Context
 * Bad Bad Acting: Olive, and it's not an Informed Ability. We get to see how bad she is - HA!
 * Big Eater: Warner Purcell is a compulsive eater.
 * Bittersweet Ending / Downer Ending:
 * Broken Pedestal
 * Contemplate Our Navels
 * Doing It for the Art: David and eventually Cheech as they write the play.
 * Enforced Method Acting: Near the end.
 * Genki Girl: Eden Brent is a giggly flapper.

"Helen: Two martinis, please, very dry.
 * I'll Take Two Beers, Too!:

David: How'd you know what I drank?

Helen: Oh, you want one too? Three."

"Sid: The monkey glands are working."
 * Ironic Echo: "Don't speak. Don't speak. Don't speak." Doubles as a Freud Was Right.
 * Lady Drunk: Helen Sinclair.
 * The Mafia
 * Omniscient Morality License
 * One-Scene Wonder: Sid Loomis, played by Harvey Firestein.

"Venus: (to Olive) You better get in the mood, honey, 'cause he's payin' the rent."
 * Pre-Mortem One-Liner: ", I just want you to know one thing: you're a horrible actress."
 * Reality Subtext: The running theme of the film is that a true artist has their own moral code. This is probably a rebuke by Allen to those who decried his affair and marriage to Soon-Yi Previn.
 * The Roaring Twenties
 * Rule of Symbolism
 * Running Gag:
 * Cheech's favorite spot to execute rival gang members.
 * Warner Purcell keeps eating... and eating... and eating...
 * Sassy Black Woman / Servile Snarker: Venus.

"Helen: I never play frumps or virgins."
 * Show Within a Show: We get to see a lot of the play in various states of development.
 * Throw It In: Olive thinks you can do this in a play. She claims it's ad-libbing, but it's completely inappropriate.
 * Triang Relations
 * White Dwarf Starlet: Helen, though She Really Can Act.


 * Wide-Eyed Idealist: David Shayne is painfully naive at times when it comes to producing a play.