Director Woody Allen cast and shot this film twice, without telling the original cast.
читать дальшеWoody Allen decided to make the film for two main reasons.
One was because he had always wanted to do a "chamber piece", a film with a small cast
(there are only six principal characters, and only nine in the entire film) in a single location.
The other was for the location itself, Mia Farrow's Connecticut country house,
which inspired Woody Allen to write the screenplay with the intention that it would be shot at the house.
Unfortunately, by the time Allen finished the screenplay, it was winter
and the location was unusable for a movie so firmly planted in September.
The entire movie (which takes place in Vermont) was shot on a single soundstage
at the Kaufman Astoria Studios in New York.
According to Mia Farrow's autobiography "What Falls Away",
Woody Allen filmed two or three versions of every scene, took all of the footage into the editing
suite, cut the film together and then decided that he hated it.
He then rewrote the entire sсript, fired and recast virtually every major part,
and re-filmed the entire thing. This meant that he doubled his production costs
and came in well behind schedule. Allen was reportedly keen to do it all again for a third time.
Allen's intention was that the production should feel like a play captured on film.
For that reason, he generally shot in long, uninterrupted takes with very few close-ups.
One of the main plot thrusts of "September" is taken from the life of Lana Turner,
whose daughter killed her gangster lover in the 50s.