Shadows and Fog

Shadows and Fog is a 1991 American black-and-white comedy film directed by Woody Allen and based on his one-act play Death (1975). It stars Allen, Mia Farrow, John Malkovich, Kathy Bates, David Ogden Stiers, Jodie Foster, Lily Tomlin, John Cusack, Madonna, and Kenneth Mars. It was filmed on a set at Kaufman Astoria Studios, which was the biggest set ever built in New York. It was also Allen's last film for Orion Pictures. Shadows and Fog is an homage to German Expressionist filmmakers Fritz Lang, G. W. Pabst and F. W. Murnau in its visual presentation, and to the writer Franz Kafka in theme. Critical reception of the work was lukewarm. Plot Kleinman is awakened from his sleep by a vigilante mob, which claims to be looking for a serial killer and therefore to be needing his help. Kleinman's landlady gives him a bag containing pepper. Irmy and her boyfriend Paul, a pair of circus performers, quarrel about getting married and having a baby. Paul leaves and goes to another tent where he has sex with Marie, another artist. Seeing this, Irmy runs to the city and enters a brothel. A student named Jack, besotted by Irmy, offers her increasingly large sums to have sex with him. She finally succumbs when the sum reaches $700. Kleinman visits a coroner's house and has a glass of sherry with him. But after he leaves, the coroner is murdered by the killer. Kleinman comes to the police station to protest a local family's eviction. There, the police talk about the coroner's murder, saying that they have a clue about the killer in the fingerprints on the sherry glass. A panicked Kleinman meets Irmy in the police station, who had been arrested at the brothel for prostitution. She protests against the police calling her "whore,” and in the confusion Kleinman confiscates the evidence. Irmy is allowed to leave the police station after a $50 fine, and she meets Kleinman outside. Together they start exploring the city, seeing its different scenes — a man peeping into a woman's room, a starving mother and child, a church — and decide to go back.