“There comes a time in any Jew’s life where he has to say goodbye to Woody Allen” would probably have been the first sentence of this text three years ago. And it actually is in 2013 as well, and 60pages wasn’t around then anyway. So I have manoeuvred myself into an inextricable time-travel scenario two sentences in just to make a simple point. The point being: Look, I’m Jewish, of course I have an opinion on Woody Allen. Not necessarily deep love, but an opinion.
Because thinking you have to be like Woody Allen, or that Woody Allen is you, is a common occurence – especially in a place where being Jewish is nowhere close to being the norm. So you need role models. And on the surface he’s a good role model, too: he likes Jazz and books and isn’t a pig and suffers just the right amount because of that. Obviously that’s the *persona*.
The real WA is different, of course – much more conniving, not as shlubby. Not that into books. Also an asshole, and even more than that. I seriously hope nobody believed that a nebech is able to make close to 50 films in almost as many years. But obviously that’s what he wants you to think. He’s a faux-nebech.
A faux-nebech who is also a faux-artist, according to Jonathan Rosenbaum. It’s true that his filmic style is almost completely cribbed from Fellini and Bergman, and that without Sven Nykvist and Gordon Willis (and Marshall Brickman as a co-writer) he’d be nothing anyway. It’s also true that he’s lost touch with anything resembling vitality a long long time ago – almost every movie after 1999 seems to be made by someone totally unengaged with the world, whatever that world might be.
His “ain’t no such thing as happiness” philosophy is bullshit anyway, but at least he used to look for new ways to illustrate that. And sometimes he even allowed evidence to the contrary to sneak in. Not anymore though.
His “early funny films” as he himself put it dismissively in “Stardust Memories” are indeed that: funny. Very funny even. For whatever reason “Take The Money And Run” is the one I return to, and the one I think of the most.
Because then comes his serious phase. I don’t think his much maligned “Interiors” is a catastrophe but it is an embarassment because, again, it really is just Bergman. “Manhattan” is a mood film and to be treasured as such. “Stardust Memory” is has a very entertaining acidity. “Annie Hall” is held up as his masterpiece, and that’s actually where the problem starts. It’s just become part of the culture, to the point that the prospect of never seeing it again isn’t that scary because there are 100 films like it around, some of them even better than the original. Is that a hypocritical attitude? Maybe.
There are films of his I would miss though: Broadway Danny Rose, Zelig, Crimes & Misdemeanors. That last one probably the most: I think his attempts at philosophy usually fall flat, but not here. It’s also a film that is able to transcend its clear influences: sure, there’s a lot of Dostoevsky and Bergman in it, but it’s something that only he could have made. (Apparently he himself thinks that movie’s ending ruins it, and made “Match Point” as a correction.)
The Allen character in that movie goes to the movies with a 12 year old girl a lot. Let’s just say that’s problematic in retrospect. I’m not sure how far back the allegations go – or, quite simply, who’s telling the truth. But there *is* something creepy there. And *that* definitely started early: it’s in his very first film “What’s Up, Tiger Lily?” in fact.
Man, saying I’ve outgrown Woody Allen really sounds shitty. Pompous. So I won’t say it. What I’ll say: that there’s some good there, and a whole lot of bad. Which is to be expected if you make a film a year. At the same time: well, nobody forced him. Not even he himself. If there such a thing as lazy industriousness?
Meanwhile: Albert Brooks!