RSS
Home
Woody Allen: the man behind the glasses
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
.jpg)
Photo: nerdfighters.ning.com
Those thick black plastic frames. That red hair, now white. And the hands, always wringing and writhing in neurotic discontent. This is Woody Allen.
From nervous stand-up, to simple slapstick, to elegant storytelling, Woody Allen has accomplished a feat that warrants recognition and admiration. Every year since 1970, Allen has written, directed and occasionally starred in an original film.
Born Allan Konigsberg in 1935, Woody Allen grew up in Brooklyn during the golden age of cinema. He saw every movie that played at one of the 26 movie theatres within walking distance of his home. He adored the Marx Brothers and early romantic comedies (according to the book “Woody Allen on Woody Allen: In Conversation with Stig Bjorkman”).
In his early works like Take the Money and Run and Bananas it is easy to see the influence the Marx brothers had on Allen. These films feature clever physical gags: in Take the Money and Run, Allen’s character struggles as a cellist in a marching band.
The romantic comedy genre is one that Allen has mastered. Annie Hall is perhaps his most famous work. It won four Academy Awards in 1977: best picture, director, actress and original screenplay (Allen was also nominated for best actor). A tad autobiographical, the film follows the relationship of Alvy Singer (Allen) and Annie Hall (Diane Keaton) from first meeting to their post break-up friendship.
Allen challenged the way romantic male leads could be written. As Chuck Klosterman points out in the introduction to his book “Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs,” Woody Allen made it cool and attractive for a man to be a bit of nerd.
A common theme in Allen’s movies, romantic comedy or not, is the difference between fantasy and reality. “It comes up very frequently in my films. I think what it boils down to, really, is that I hate reality,” he says in Bjorkman’s book. “And you know, unfortunately it’s the only place where we can get a good steak dinner.”
This twist-on-the-truth humor is classic Woody Allen. His wit amuses viewers by surprising them with a silly turn on a cliché, or pointing out the obvious absurdities of everyday life. He does this not only in his films, but in his four collections of short fiction and an occasional piece for The New Yorker.
Audiences often associate Allen’s real-life persona with the clumsy neurotic characters he has written himself into. However, he and those who have met him promise he is shy and quietly brilliant. His private life is shrouded in mystery since his very public divorce in the 1980s with Mia Farrow.
Critics of Woody Allen often rip the filmmaker for recycling storylines, particularly in his romantic comedies. They often feature a male lead that is fed up with humanity but changes his mind and himself upon meeting a charming young female. While this general base is often one Allen starts with, each story is fresh and the characters are always unique.
Allen notes in the biography by Eric Lax that one of his favorites is The Purple Rose of Cairo starring Mia Farrow and Jeff Daniels. Set in the depression, Farrow plays a down-on-her-luck waitress who takes solace in the glamour of Hollywood pictures. She is shocked when one day, the leading man in her favorite picture (Daniels) walks off the screen and into her life.
It is easy to love this film because it captures the awe and reverence with which Allen regarded cinema as a child. It emphasizes how going to the theatre provides a temporary escape from life. It also illuminates the tension between reality and fiction and Farrow’s character sums it up well: “I just met a wonderful new man – he’s fictional, but you can’t have everything.”
In his book “The Films of Woody Allen,” Neil Synard comments on the fact that although Allen is not on screen, he is still there: “His presence is felt, as the critic Robert Benayoun has said, rather in the manner of the Cheshire Cat’s invisible grin – appropriate for movie[s] with a logic and yet surreal imagination worthy of Lewis Carroll.”
Nearing 74 years old, it seems Allen has now situated himself comfortably behind the camera. His last appearance was in 2006’s Scoop in which he played a senile magician.
Even though he doesn’t play them, new characters are often reminiscent of the roles for which Allen is famous. In 2004’s Melinda and Melinda, Will Ferrell plays a married man in love with another woman. His character struggles with neuroses unmistakably similar to those of Allen’s character in Manhattan.
Woody Allen’s nervous, clumsy humor is unlike anything produced in Hollywood. His formula must work, or he wouldn’t create a film every year. As he says in Bjorkman’s book: “Making a film is a big struggle. But the fact that there’s a struggle helps me. I’d rather struggle with films than struggle with other things.”
Here’s to hoping he struggles for a few more years.
For more info: “Woody Allen” by Eric Lax; “The Films of Woody Allen” by Neil Synard, “Woody Allen on Woody Allen: In Conversation with Stig Bjorkman”
Woody Allen on Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000095/
Watch the opening scene of Annie Hall: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrxlfvI17oY&feature=related
Related Articles:
Comments
.jpg)
