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The Wednesday 10 : The Top 10 Woody Allen Movies
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Few filmmakers have ever worked at the constant rate Woody Allen has since the late 1960s. With over 40 films under his belt, Allen still churns out a new picture nearly every year - the last Woody-free year was 1981. Though his career has had peaks and valleys, there is no doubt he is one of this country’s cinematic treasures. Now, on the verge of the DVD releases of his latest picture Whatever Works, a look back at the man’s career by counting down his top 10 movies. There are very few directors or writers who make limiting it to double digits a challenge.
10. Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* But Were Afraid to Ask (1972): Seven vignettes make up this bizarre film, which asks “Do Aphrodisiacs Work?” and “Whare Are Sex Perverts?” Not each one is gold, but the ones that are demand to be seen, displaying the intelligently absurd. Gene Wilder’s love for a sheep and Regis Philbin’s lack of skill at a “What’s My Line?” style game dubbed “What’s My Perversion?” are fantastic, but its the final segment, “What Happens During Ejaculation” that tops them all. Tony Randall and Burt Reynolds run a single man’s mind as he struggles on a date, the two barking out fears and digesting far too much Italian food, before achieving the chapter’s title in outlandish fashion.
9. The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985): It is no secret that Woody Allen loves cinemas. Many of his works feature characters going to or talking about movies, often from legendary European auteurs like Bergman. In The Purple Rose of Cairo, Cecilia (the amazing Mia Farrow) heads to the theater to escape from her job and horrific husband Monk (Danny Aiello). However, unlike most of us who leave a film with maybe some leftover popcorn, Cecilia leaves with an actual character, romantic lead Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels). Baxter literally jumps off the screen to be with Cecilia, adoring her and this new world’s lack of restraints (“You make love without fading out”). The concept is sensationally done, with a deep melancholy running throughout. The addition of a second suitor - Gip Shepherd a.k.a. the actor who played Baxter - is wonderfully interwoven. Cairo is Allen’s ode to getting lost in a dark room with a projector overhead, letting the world’s problems disappear for awhile.
8. Sleeper (1973): A lot of people today forget how playful and goofy Allen used to be. At the beginning of his career, the artist went for laughs, laughs and more laughs, concocting ridiculous situations whose influence is all over modern comedy. Watch Sleeper and then “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” and you can imagine the host studying the movie piece by piece. The tagline says it all - “A love story about two people who hate each other. 200 years in the future.” With barely a budget, Allen relied on his one-liners (“This stuff tastes awful. I could make a fortune selling it in my health food store”) and running with ridiculous premises (his character’s futile attempt at blending in as a robot). Though baggy in parts, Sleeper is one of the filmmaker’s most quotable movies, that can be mined time and again for further laughs
7. Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989): Touching on darker territory then normal, Allen investigated what depths married men will go to in order to be with another woman. Alan Alda is ruthless and a joy to hate as the director’s romantic rival Lester but the stars of the show are Martin Landau and Anjelica Huston. Landau’s Judah, a successful opthamologist with wife and kids, falls for Huston’s Dolores. They have been sleeping together for years, Judah always saying his divorce is just around the corner. When Dolores threatens to reveal their trysts, Judah ponders the unthinkable. Allen delved into similar themes, and story-arcs, with Match Point, but there, the passion is steeped in youth. The age of Landau and Huston, both desperate, lonely and worn out with life, gives a different layer of sadness to Crimes and Misdemeanors.
6. Love and Death (1975): Though not Allen’ last comedy, he never made one quite as silly again. Love and Death’s framing device is paper-thin - Allen’s Russian soldier Boris is enlisted into the military when Napoleon invades, wackiness ensues - but none of that matters when the gags are this inspired. Satirizing Russian literature, plus directors from Sergei Eisenstein to Bergman, the film is rapturous and has regular 70s companion Diane Keaton giving her funniest performance, both as the straight-man and as jokester. Their repartee is flawless (Allen - “You think I was made in God’s image? Take a look at me. You think He wears glasses?” Keaton - “Not with those frames.”). The movie’s ending, with a spastically joyous Danse Macabre, is fascinating to watch in retrospect to the morose places Allen would later investigate in his career.
5. Match Point (2005): Success or sex. Those are the options on the table for Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers). He can have the big house, high-paying job and a slightly plain wife (Emily Mortimer) or Chris can take the poor, struggling seductress (Scarlett Johansson). These aren’t new ideas, or even plots, for Allen but the first of his European jaunts is full of energy and edge. Rhys Meyers is a key to that, exuberant about living in a posh new world, his character’s dislike of the snobbery that comes with it is all over the young actor’s eyes, as they dart for the nearest exit. That he is almost sympathetic is astonishing, the film’s finest trick. Johanasson has never been better and Mortimer, who could have easily played the rich girl as shrewish, is inviting, a welcoming demeanor that is nonetheless dull. As the tension crackles up towards its final act, Match Point never falters, ending with a memorable last shot.
4. Stardust Memories (1980): At the height of his popularity, many believe this is the movie that hurt Allen’s career the most. Often cited as a diatribe against his fans, Stardust Memories is the filmmanker’s riff on Fellini’s 8 1/2, with a director plagued by self-doubt, retreating to his own mind, fantasizing about the person who wishes he could be and the man others expect him to be. Cinematographer Gordon Willis, who also worked on the equally gorgeous Manhattan, lends the movie a dreamlike aura, steeped in the surreal and anxious. Other than perhaps Zelig, Allen was never again this experimental.
3. Manhattan (1979): Emotionally sweeping but rooted in the personal, Manhattan is one of the finest romantic comedies ever filmed, while also a tribute to New York City, home of Allen’s finest works and his longest lasting muse. With commentary on the idiots who tear down true artists and the nincompoops who refuse to see their faults, the movie’s couples are never truly happy, always with one foot out the door in case a younger, or merely different, pleasure might trip and take a notice. Though Keaton would receive her highest accolades for Annie Hall, her work as Mary is a career pinnacle, an intellectual who can talk in circles around others but has no clue how to sustain a happy life, a sad and alluring figure.
2. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986): In the discussion of the all-time best Woody movies, Hannah always gets a mention. It’s a shame the talk ends there, for few films study the ups and downs of marriage with the skill Allen displays here. With an unbelievably talented ensemble (Max von Sydow, Mia Farrow, Barbara Hershey and a pair of Oscar winners in Michael Caine and Dianne Wiest), Allen was able to investigate the fading feelings and confusing affections of everyday life, complete with his standard humor and character based interplay, including asides on Nietzsche and Nazis. Not a two-dimensional part to be found, Hannah clutches onto your head and heart, forcing them to fight it out gladiator-style for your compassion.
1. Annie Hall (1977): Maybe the defining example of how to show two strangers falling love, not with easy montages and a pop song, instead slowly, like the tide inching towards shore inch by inch. Like the oceans, such a passion can dissipate until you don’t realize it’s already gone. The perfect romantic comedy, Annie Hall is more playful than all of its imitators, with more authentic emotions and laughs to boot. Every inch of the picture works, even as its narrative leaps from the literally animated to the fourth-wall breaking. Annie Hall’s heart - confused, bitter and eager - is always pushing things forward. Allen’s never been as good since, and who could be. He pumps out a new one every year and people will always continue to go, because, to paraphrase Alvy Singer, we need the eggs.
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