The Woody Cunundrum
It's a question (sometimes rhetorical) I've asked quite a bit this decade:
What has happened to Woody Allen?
I can still recall that night back in 2000. I was sitting in the lobby of the Regal Cinemas in Royal Palm Beach. I glanced over to see a poster for something called SMALL TIME CROOKS. A silhouette of a figure clad in a trenchcoat was taking a bite out of a cookie. It reminded me of one of those old posters for THE PINK PANTHER films. I got up and scanned the credits. I read them again. Yep, "written and directed by Woody Allen." And it was distributed by Dreamworks?! It didn't make sense. These elements did not add up. Something was amiss.
Of course, Woody had always made the occasional madcap comedy, even as late as the 90s with MIGHTY APHRODITE. But it was something else. The poster smacked of marketing, no doubt concocted by some dimwits at this new studio who didn't know about the austerity of a bona-fide Woody Allen film. Sure, former home studio Orion had gone belly-up, but it felt just, wrong. I got this notion that Woody had finally sold out.
CROOKS turned out to be a nice little piece of whimsy. Harmless fun in the vein of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SEX COMEDY or BROADWAY DANNY ROSE, even MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY. Fine. Then came THE CURSE OF THE JADE SCORPION, then HOLLYWOOD ENDING, then, well, I gave up. I was getting weary of waiting for the comeback.
Then, it came. 2005's MATCH POINT was a return to form. The familiar themes of justice, fate, divine intervention (or lack of), guilt; it was all there in a tight, grim little package. I breathed a sigh of relief. He's still got it. Apparently though, after the last few years, I've changed that opinion to Maybe he got lucky.
Such a shame. Woody Allen has carved out a most fascinating place in film history. He began with goofy laugh riots like WHAT'S UP TIGER LILY and BANANAS, segued into more highbrow comedy like ANNIE HALL, and even tread Ingmar Bergman (one of Woody's idols) territory with INTERIORS. The best Woodys, to me, are the ones that deftly blend the hilarity and pathos. CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS is such an example. One minute Woody's character is tossing off gems like "the last time I was inside a woman was when I visted the Statue of Liberty", the next, he is exploring the moral quandary of a physician who ponders the offing of his mistress. This quandary develops into quite a philosphical treatise on morality. Why does Ben, the moral and righteous rabbi go blind while the physician, who has engineered a murder, go scot free?
HUSBANDS AND WIVES is another stunner. It was 1992, Woody's relationship with actress Mia Farrow (the female lead in every film of his for 10 years) crashed to pieces in the midst of a rather tawdry family affair. Even though the film was completed prior to the break-up, you can see the pain through the performances. This was Woody Unbound. A raw, wounded, patently adult drama with realistic dialogue. I had always enjoyed the wit spouted by all of the urban sophisticates which populated Woody's New York, but it was refreshing to finally hear characters just scream their frustrations. It was draining, cathartic. For him, too, I would think.
I count ANNIE HALL, MANHATTAN, HANNAH & HER SISTERS, CRIMES..., and HUSBANDS... as Woody's A-listers, his top films. But there's one more: THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO. I was entirely expecting this to be a pleasant "in between the big ones" trifle, ala RADIO DAYS or ZELIG. I was wrong. PURPLE ROSE is one of the most literate, clever, and ultimately heartbreaking works in Woody's oeuvre. The story follows a Depression era housewife who escapes societal and homelife gloom at the local bijou. She becomes captivated with the hero of the latest melodrama. She drinks in the luxurious world portrayed onscreen. Over, and over. Finally, the hero decides to literally walk off the screen and join the housewife in the Real World. Needless to say, this causes all manner of complication in the real world AND back onscreen. Allen quite brilliantly examines the entire filmmaking mythos, how it defines individuals, creates paper thin svengalis, and ultimate leads to...nope. You just have to see it. But that ending is one of the most shattering I've ever seen. It takes a lot to make this viewer weep, but even my teenage self was reduced to a misty mess when the familiar credits flashed.
That was the Woody of decades past. No longer. The 00s has been the decade when the seams finally showed. Or, maybe the prolific mantra just doesn't work anymore; the law of averages has finally turned, and not favorably. He just cranks them out. Year after year. I keep wondering why.
Last week, I got my answer. In the latest Newsweek, Jennie Yabroff profiles the reclusive, workaholic auteur. It says it all, really.
At 72, he says he still lies awake at night,
terrified of the void. He cannot reconcile
his strident atheism with his superstition
about the banana, but he knows why he makes
movies: not because he has any grand state-
ment to offer, but simply to take his mind off
the existential horror of being alive. Movies
are a great diversion, he says, "because it's
much more pleasant to be obsessed over how the
hero gets out of his predicament than it is
over how I get out of mine."
What has happened to Woody Allen?
I can still recall that night back in 2000. I was sitting in the lobby of the Regal Cinemas in Royal Palm Beach. I glanced over to see a poster for something called SMALL TIME CROOKS. A silhouette of a figure clad in a trenchcoat was taking a bite out of a cookie. It reminded me of one of those old posters for THE PINK PANTHER films. I got up and scanned the credits. I read them again. Yep, "written and directed by Woody Allen." And it was distributed by Dreamworks?! It didn't make sense. These elements did not add up. Something was amiss.
Of course, Woody had always made the occasional madcap comedy, even as late as the 90s with MIGHTY APHRODITE. But it was something else. The poster smacked of marketing, no doubt concocted by some dimwits at this new studio who didn't know about the austerity of a bona-fide Woody Allen film. Sure, former home studio Orion had gone belly-up, but it felt just, wrong. I got this notion that Woody had finally sold out.
CROOKS turned out to be a nice little piece of whimsy. Harmless fun in the vein of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SEX COMEDY or BROADWAY DANNY ROSE, even MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY. Fine. Then came THE CURSE OF THE JADE SCORPION, then HOLLYWOOD ENDING, then, well, I gave up. I was getting weary of waiting for the comeback.
Then, it came. 2005's MATCH POINT was a return to form. The familiar themes of justice, fate, divine intervention (or lack of), guilt; it was all there in a tight, grim little package. I breathed a sigh of relief. He's still got it. Apparently though, after the last few years, I've changed that opinion to Maybe he got lucky.
Such a shame. Woody Allen has carved out a most fascinating place in film history. He began with goofy laugh riots like WHAT'S UP TIGER LILY and BANANAS, segued into more highbrow comedy like ANNIE HALL, and even tread Ingmar Bergman (one of Woody's idols) territory with INTERIORS. The best Woodys, to me, are the ones that deftly blend the hilarity and pathos. CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS is such an example. One minute Woody's character is tossing off gems like "the last time I was inside a woman was when I visted the Statue of Liberty", the next, he is exploring the moral quandary of a physician who ponders the offing of his mistress. This quandary develops into quite a philosphical treatise on morality. Why does Ben, the moral and righteous rabbi go blind while the physician, who has engineered a murder, go scot free?
HUSBANDS AND WIVES is another stunner. It was 1992, Woody's relationship with actress Mia Farrow (the female lead in every film of his for 10 years) crashed to pieces in the midst of a rather tawdry family affair. Even though the film was completed prior to the break-up, you can see the pain through the performances. This was Woody Unbound. A raw, wounded, patently adult drama with realistic dialogue. I had always enjoyed the wit spouted by all of the urban sophisticates which populated Woody's New York, but it was refreshing to finally hear characters just scream their frustrations. It was draining, cathartic. For him, too, I would think.
I count ANNIE HALL, MANHATTAN, HANNAH & HER SISTERS, CRIMES..., and HUSBANDS... as Woody's A-listers, his top films. But there's one more: THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO. I was entirely expecting this to be a pleasant "in between the big ones" trifle, ala RADIO DAYS or ZELIG. I was wrong. PURPLE ROSE is one of the most literate, clever, and ultimately heartbreaking works in Woody's oeuvre. The story follows a Depression era housewife who escapes societal and homelife gloom at the local bijou. She becomes captivated with the hero of the latest melodrama. She drinks in the luxurious world portrayed onscreen. Over, and over. Finally, the hero decides to literally walk off the screen and join the housewife in the Real World. Needless to say, this causes all manner of complication in the real world AND back onscreen. Allen quite brilliantly examines the entire filmmaking mythos, how it defines individuals, creates paper thin svengalis, and ultimate leads to...nope. You just have to see it. But that ending is one of the most shattering I've ever seen. It takes a lot to make this viewer weep, but even my teenage self was reduced to a misty mess when the familiar credits flashed.
That was the Woody of decades past. No longer. The 00s has been the decade when the seams finally showed. Or, maybe the prolific mantra just doesn't work anymore; the law of averages has finally turned, and not favorably. He just cranks them out. Year after year. I keep wondering why.
Last week, I got my answer. In the latest Newsweek, Jennie Yabroff profiles the reclusive, workaholic auteur. It says it all, really.
At 72, he says he still lies awake at night,
terrified of the void. He cannot reconcile
his strident atheism with his superstition
about the banana, but he knows why he makes
movies: not because he has any grand state-
ment to offer, but simply to take his mind off
the existential horror of being alive. Movies
are a great diversion, he says, "because it's
much more pleasant to be obsessed over how the
hero gets out of his predicament than it is
over how I get out of mine."
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