In which we welcome you to Woody Week

7/29/2019 In which we welcome you to Woody Week

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In Which We Welcome You to Woody Week

Monday, June 29, 2009 at 7:51AM

Welcome to Woody by KARINA WOLF

Where else can you be paranoid and right so often?

All of Manhattan is Woody Allens Manhattan: the reservoir, the restaurants, the skyline, theshrinks office, the horse and carriage, the modern art, Central Park, Minetta Lane, the GreatWhite Way, the Pierre, and Elaines. Most of all, and most importantly, the patois.
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New York is a solipsistic, humanistic kind of village. Despite his singularly white and wealthycast of characters, Woody Allens work reflects the way we live and speak. His post-9/11 short,Sounds of the Town I Love , is illustrative: in one-sided phone chats, New Yorkers arenarcissistic, petulant, self-serving (the comedy often masks the aggression), hypochondriacal andhigh-handed. Theyre also survivors, with a measure of warmth that keeps them human. Theyreall of us.

Its the idiom that makes Allen believablethat grasping, uncertain mode of talk. When itworks, his dialogue is spot on, full of latent aggression and open insecurity. For actors, his wordsare perfect storms of contradiction. And the delivery, tossed off, half-recalled, is probably theelement that allows people to conflate Woody Allen the actor with his characters. His wordssound like him, how could this be fiction?


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But Allen is a more complicated talent than his hapless schnook act suggests. Hes a comicworkaholic, a tireless spinner of jokes, gags, sketches, sex comedies, murder mysteries, chamber

pieces, ensemble dramas, fictional biopics, false documentary and ragtime jazz. Hes been at itsince he was 15 and commuted from Brooklyn to churn out punch lines for $40 a week. His is aformidable discipline: writing, directing, exercising, practicing the clarinet, going to bed and

rising on a precise schedule. Woody Allen leaves no room for muses.

According to Allen, many of his films are unsuccessful in some sense or another, but the work ishis goal. Just as his characters seek a meaningful experience of the universe, Allen finds purposethrough creativity. He explains why he continues to make films (his latest, Whatever Works , ishis 40th): You dont think about the outside world, and youre faced with solvable problems,and if theyre not solvable, you dont die because of it. And then, if its the right film...for severalmonths, I get to live with very beautiful women and very witty men.


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He writes for his limited range as an actor he says he can play only low lives or intellectuals but its a broad canvas for film: bank heists, mysteries and magic acts for the comedies;adulterous love and morality plays for drama. If he returns to certain motifs, he is a kaleidoscopicinnovator. If the wind-up to the jokes seems wordy or his sense of drama derivative, theres stillthe inescapable: hes created a vocabulary for the urban American.

Allens art has progressed in leaps he was dismissed from NYU film school in the 50s, thenimmediately employed writing for TV. When he moved to filmmaking, he received an on-the-

job apprenticeship with some of the worlds finest technicians. Ralph Rosenblum, the editor whocut Annie Hall , taught Allen about shaping a story; Gordon Willis, who lit The Godfather ,instructed him in framing a shot. Then Allen moved on to simpatico collaborators who matchedhis on the fly approach: cameraman Carlo Ponti, for example, whod arrive on set withoutknowing the days shot list.

With these artisans, Allen created the signatures of his filmmaking: the long takes with littlecoverage, the amber glow that makes his actors beautiful and his interiors romantic. He claims

his aesthetic is borne of practicality. Husbands and Wives , composed with a handheld camera,mid-scene cuts and equally jagged exposures of the human heart, was the result, says Allen, of laziness. He didnt want to be bothered with the formal niceties of American films.

Can ones work be influenced by Groucho Marx and Ingmar Bergman? he ponders in aremembrance of the Swedish director. Allens idols are the somber giants of world cinema, andwhen he stretches himself, its because he wants to make the kinds of films that fulfill him: thestark emotional landscapes of Bergman or Kurosawa, the family melodramas of TennesseeWilliams and Arthur Miller. This attitude may be forged (just as his view of Manhattan was) in


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the traditions of Hollywood, where comedy is a jester and drama is artistic king. As Eric Laxsays, for Allen, the comedy was never disparaged but it certainly was considered a route todrama.

Woody Allens descendents are numerous what contemporary filmic romance doesnt owe

something to Annie Hall ? But his movies often subvert the laughs, with Allen supplying happyendings when they disturb and less sanguine ones when theyre hoped for. When a man getsaway with murderand goes unpunished, and feels finehere, you see his darker view of human nature. Your mind will never be able to give you a convincing justification for livingyour life, because from a logical point of view, if your life is indeed meaningless which it is

and theres nothing out there, what is the point of it?

But whatever his diagnosis of humanity, his comedy has healing powers. In a way, the 2002Oscar ceremony was the worlds reconciliation with Woody Allen. The heart wants what itwants, says Allen, but punishing judgment was passed upon the direction of his desire when heleft Mia Farrow for Soon-Yi Previn. More than a decade later, the couple was still together and

Manhattan falling apart; the world needed Woody.His appearance at the Oscars, after hed so frequently refused to show, was a gesture for survival. Allen introduced some clips about New York and brought the audience to their feet. Isaid, 'You know, God, you can do much better than me. You know, you might want to get MartinScorsese, or, or Mike Nichols, or Spike Lee, or Sidney Lumet...' I kept naming names, you know,and um, I said, 'Look, I've given you fifteen names of guys who are more talented than I am, and,and smarter and classier...' And they said, 'Yes, but they were not available.'" He wastransformed from a polarizing figure to a reassuring one. And by remaining recognizablyhimself, he made New York itself again.

When I saw him perform at the Carlyle, there was a similar elation in the audience. Ive never felt the same lift as when Woody came out: good will, excitement, childish thrill. The CafCarlyle is caf-sized. Every seat was a good seat and from where we perched we could see thatWoody was suffering a cold. He stared fixedly at the floor, as a friend whos worked with himhad warned, and he slumped through the beginning of his performance, but roused himself to

play the tunes of Jelly Roll Morton. His balding piano player sang Because My Hair Is Curly,one of Sams comic songs from Casablanca (this, even though Allen has confessed that hedoesnt much like the classic film).


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Geoffrey Rush stood at the back, spattered with rain, just in from his Broadway performance of Ionesco. The maitre d was unerringly hospitable as we shuffled a wad of dollars to pay thedaunting dinner bill. It was a packed house: tourists and Upper East Siders and locals likeourselves, who arrived at Bobby Short Way to listen to the jazz we hear in his films and share a

bit of his time. He played for two hours, and left the crowd wanting more: Thats all folks. Imgoing home. And he wove through the tables, nodding at a few, disappearing, perhaps, to his

planned, early bedtime.

Some will say that Allen doesnt speak for them, or that his films are no longer relevant, nolonger funny. But what hes done is create a consciousness: some of his works shape how we

perceive places, people, even feeling. Some of his lessons are so persuasive that you want to be a

part of them. In Manhattan , his character constructs a convincing list of things that make lifeworth living. As viewers, we have the pleasure of adding to that list the films of Woody Allen.

Karina Wolf is the senior contributor to This Recording. She tumbls here .
http://wolfandfox.tumblr.com/http://wolfandfox.tumblr.com/


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"Winter Lady" - Leonard Cohen ( mp3 )

"Stories of the Street" - Leonard Cohen ( mp3 )

"One of Us Cannot Be Wrong" - Leonard Cohen ( mp3)
http://www.mediafire.com/file/oouznyvtnhi/03%20Winter%20Lady.m4ahttp://www.mediafire.com/file/jynmdwt4dii/08%20Stories%20Of%20The%20Street.m4ahttp://www.mediafire.com/file/ov4dvmwyitt/10%20One%20Of%20Us%20Cannot%20Be%20Wrong.m4ahttp://www.mediafire.com/file/oouznyvtnhi/03%20Winter%20Lady.m4ahttp://www.mediafire.com/file/jynmdwt4dii/08%20Stories%20Of%20The%20Street.m4ahttp://www.mediafire.com/file/ov4dvmwyitt/10%20One%20Of%20Us%20Cannot%20Be%20Wrong.m4a

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In which we welcome you to Woody Week