pattinase: What Happened to Woody Allen?

Monday, November 08, 2010

What Happened to Woody Allen?

What advice would you give him? How can he correct this downward spiral that began at least ten

years ago? Tell Woody what to do? He needs some advice--despite the fact he can still attract great actors.

62 comments:

George said...: Other than VICKY CHRISTINA BARCELONA, the last decade of Woody movies have been mediocre. Perhaps if Woody partnered with another artist, that might create a spark.; 9:11 AM
George said...: Or he could make a zombie movie.; 9:12 AM
Margot Kinberg said...: Patti - You're so right about Woody Allen! I've never tried film-making, so I don't know how intelligent anything I'd offer would be. But I would suggest really looking through his old films, and really - no, really - seeing the elements that made them great.; 9:35 AM
Richard R. said...: Don't ask me, I haven't liked an Allen film since Banannas.; 9:46 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...: Personally, I think he lives in a bubble and no longer has any idea of what the world is like--or what people are like.; 9:46 AM
Todd Mason said...: 1. Quit being such an arrogant bastard.

2. Women didn't like you, when they didn't, not because they're shallow, capricious, cruel beings inherently on balance, but because in many ways you're not that attractive. No matter who you are, this will be true. So quit trying to make them pay (no matter how many Kool-Aid drinkers gush about how you love women, and write well for them [albeit that's a low bar in Hwood, but you've not been in Hwood for a long while], we both have known for an increasingly large number of decades this isn't true).

3. Easy jokes, like easy pathos, only work in the short run.

4. A reference that requires an education doesn't make an easy joke more sophisticated, just a bit more recondite.

5.Characters can be unpleasant and unempathetic, but they and their circumstances must be interesting...beyond one's own navel.

--Again, nice to make your (and Phil's) non-virtual acquaintance.; 9:50 AM
Todd Mason said...: Which last almost makes it sound like I'm addressing my numbered points to you, Patti! Quite taking your misogyny out in your film-writing for your women characters!

And I hadn't looked closely enough at the NoirCon booklet cover to see the Abbott in the urban wilderness...; 9:55 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...: I have a feeling you have been waiting to tell Woody that for years, Todd and you, too.
Rick-I like most of his movies into the nineties. But the last decade has been awful with two exceptions. The one George mentioned and Matchpoint.
I would suggest that he take on another person's screenplay and see what he can do with that.; 9:56 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...: Me either until someone mentioned it on a panel.; 9:57 AM
Todd Mason said...: It was hard to miss that all the conventionally beautiful female leads were supposed to be dense for not immediately noting the wonderfulness lurking just under the surface of the Woodman role's erratic behaviour, bursts of hostility, and unfortunate fashion and grooming choices.

At least when Elaine May made A NEW LEAF, she didn't pretend that Walter Matthau's character was an obvious fool for not falling for hers immediately.

With the small size of the image and my current deficit, my first thought of the NoirCon cover query was, that's not Soon-Yi Previn, is it?

The unfortunate events in the Farrow/Allen/Previn affair were not really a surprise to me at the time.; 10:03 AM
Todd Mason said...: PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM felt like one of his own screenplays, as the film played...albeit more disciplined.; 10:07 AM
John McFetridge said...: Todd nailed it.; 10:11 AM
Paul D. Brazill said...: Edit. Direct. Direct again. Frame. Don't let actors improvise. Work with women instead of teenage girls. Maybe go to film school. Never, ever, ever make a film in England.; 10:29 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...: I am preparing this list for Woody. I think the key might be, get out of the house and notice that people aren't rich, don't read, don't watch Bergman movies, don't live on the upper east side or its London equivalent, arent't all pedophiles.; 10:38 AM
Todd Mason said...: Too kind.

I'd say his least bad film since WHAT'S UP, TIGER LILY? has been A MIDSUMMER'S NIGHT'S SEX COMEDY...and in both of those, he had a pre-existing model to bounce off. And the flaws as I see them in his work were readily apparent in both of those, too...

He isn't Too shabby, however, as a New Orleans-style/Hot Club/klezmer clarinetist.; 10:50 AM
Todd Mason said...: ...but, then, for obvious reasons, I've been missing a lot latter-day Allen films. Did see some of VICKI... and finally got around to MIGHTY APHRODITE when Kate Laity mentioned that the only celebrity impression she did was of Mira Sorvino, in her Aphrodite persona/voice, transposed into her role in MIMIC, the humanoid roach movie loosely based on the (great) Donald Wollheim vignette and directed by Guillermo del Toro: "What's With All the COCKroaches, already?"; 10:54 AM
Sandra Scoppettone said...: Any Woody Allen movie is ok with me as long as he isn't in it.

That said, I ask how many wonderful to good movies, books, paintings can one person make?; 11:13 AM
Charles Gramlich said...: I've actually never watched much Woody Allen stuff. Maybe his sex comedy. I think that's the only one.; 11:19 AM
Todd Mason said...: Ingmar Bergman, Sandra. Michael Powell. George Roy Hill. Val Lewton.; 11:24 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...: I loved his first twenty years worth of films. But why keep making a movie a year when they've fallen off so much. The one with Larry David was particularly bad to me.
Why not bring in a new writer, or a new director or make fewer movies? There must be a way to resuscitate his creativity. I liked Mighty Aphrodite. It's this last batch.; 11:27 AM
Todd Mason said...: Books: well, that's less collaborative, as is painting even more.

There are lots of prolific good to great writers (who have written a lot of great work, though some, like Robert Silverberg, also intentionally wrote a lot of mediocre and some worse material at one point), ranging from the likes of Robert Benchley and P.G. Wodehouse to Robert Bloch and Ramsey Campbell to Kate Wilhelm and Joyce Carol Oates to Elmer Kelton and Larry McMurtry to Margaret Atwood and...hm, Joan Aiken was so prolific that I haven't read enough of her to say much about her complete works...rather like Christie, I've liked what I've read, but I've read only a small fraction...; 11:36 AM
Todd Mason said...: I think he wants to prove to someone or everyone he's Still a viable, fully-realized artist. By me, he never has been. But lots of people would've disagreed at one point...fewer than might now, I suspect.; 11:38 AM
John McFetridge said...: I don't know Patti, there are rich people who read books and they watch movies sometimes so there's no harm in making movies for them. Not every movie has to be for the biggest possible audience.

The problem Woody has these days is that's now his only audience (and they, like most moviegoers, don't seem troubled by the fact that all the women are teenaged girls).; 11:52 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...: And humor is not always timeless. It demands an engagement with the real world. He is not funny anymore. IMHO.; 12:08 PM
Todd Mason said...: And, again, I suggest, he was always willing to resort to the easy laugh, the cheap joke. That shtick grows tired. The McLuhan thing in ANNIE HALL, for example. Boy, you really expended a lot of effort to ineffectually mock windy pseudo-intellectuals there. Unimaginative argument-losers or resentful line-members rejoice.

Sometimes a string of those is funny, as in TIGER LILY, particularly when one is young. But taking the next step, in one clever direction or another, is what often makes actually good comedy.; 12:21 PM
Todd Mason said...: What did you particularly like about his first thirty-five years of films, ca. 1965-2000?; 1:33 PM
Anonymous said...: It's easy for me to say but ... retire. I can't remember the last Woody movie I really liked, the last one I was looking forward to seeing, even the last one I did see.

Oh well, we'll always have the early ones. I don't tire of ANNIE HALL or HANNAH AND HER SISTERS.

Patti, I'm sure I'm in the minority but I found MIGHTY APHRODITE annoying and could not believe Mira Sorvino won an Oscar for it.

Jeff M.; 2:02 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: I have to say it doesn't age well. Especially her voice in it. I saw a few scenes on TV the other night and was a bit shocked. But at the time, I found it okay.; 2:34 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: Todd-He seemed to be making movies about bright, anxiety-ridden, articulate people. The problems of family, friends, etc. in that era and with humor. Humor is subjective and I found him very funny for a long time. Subjective in that I don't find Mel Brooks funny. Nor Abbott and Costello, nor the Marx Brothers. I do find Albert Brooks funny, Larry David sometimes. I was going to do this next week, but what is your favorite comedy, Todd.; 2:38 PM
Charlieopera said...: I still love Woody's films ... especially the last few.

Than again, what do I know? I'm still rooting for my beloved new york state buffalo bills to run the table (I mean wins, so save the wisecracks) ...; 2:50 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: New Yorker through and through. If I hadn't been such a huge fan, it would upset me less.; 2:59 PM
Anonymous said...: Woody admitted his crime in Crimes and Misdemeanors and hasn't done anything interesting since.

He should've quit then

Dan Luft; 3:01 PM
Naomi Johnson said...: My eyesight is very poor, but is that Megan?; 3:05 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: YES! I didn't realize it was Megan until someone mentioned it on a panel. The artist was there and a very cool guy. The woman on the cover of DAMN NEAR DEAD 2 is also a version of her. Albeit more robust.; 3:19 PM
John McFetridge said...: Albert Brooks and Larry David, where does Neil Simon figure into this?; 3:39 PM
Todd Mason said...: I like comedies that don't overblow their jokes (hence my lack of appreciation for the McLuhan gag in ANNIE HALL, for example), and I am particularly happy if I'm suprised--surprise me, and a mild joke that will be worth an amused grunt if anticipated will work better. Even in Allen's best films, such as SLEEPER and MIDSUMMER'S, the best jokes are often telegraphed or Exactly what one might expect to happen. While the better Mel Brooks films (YOUNG FRANKENTSTEIN, at least) work for me (they did work better when I was young), as did the best Marx Bros. (the elaborate wordplay routines of DUCK SOUP or A NIGHT AT THE OPERA, and even the good workout of the largely physical comedy ending of GO WEST, which is up till then merely mildly pleasant [the ending ain't Keaton at his peak, but it's along that path]...but you don't want to start with AT THE CIRCUS or THE COCOANUTS [very stiff, their first surviving and first sound film] or particularly the very dire THE BIG STORE]. Noel Coward...Albert Brooks I like as well, as he doesn't attempt to make his own role heroic, if only you weren't too dense to realize it...he plays his flawed characters as flawed characters who have good qualities, usually, even if DEFENDING YOUR LIFE, which I like, might go a little easy on the Eternal Boy-Man. Brooks is usually much less self-congratulatory than Allen, or even David, who often as not casts himself as the victim other's prejudices or self-righteousness. Aforementioned Keaton at his best, which gives the lie to those who insist that humor is about someone else getting hurt...the genius of Keaton in those films is that he Doesn't get hurt when it seems as if he should, he must. Chaplin liked more pathos, so he got hurt some, but in his less moody items, he was along the same lines. DR. STRANGELOVE and PATHS OF GLORY. HOTEL, the Mike Figgis horror film with many dark comic elements. MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL, particularly.

I'm surprised you didn't like (the often humorous) ONCE AND AGAIN better, as it was largely about bright, anxiety-ridden, articulate people...many but not all of whom were much more self-aware than Allen is in his films, or than the THIRTYSOMETHING folks were...perhaps that's a deal-breaker?

SCRUBS (though it had a weak season or so...the similarly good if more heartless and even more surreal CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL is now filming in the abandoned hospital it used as a set), SCTV, NEWSRADIO while Phil Hartman was still alive, SEINFELD in the first three seasons or so, GILMORE GIRLS for most of its run, TRYING TIMES, have all been items I've made a point of seeing while they were on. The better FRASIERs includes some of the best farce we've had in sitcoms, as well as other good things.

I listen to comedians' podcasts and BBC and US public radio comedy, and THE DAILY SHOW and COLBERT at work all week.

I'm pretty catholic in my comedy tastes, but there are for me as for anyone triggers that will put me off. Just being monstrously rude, as with the last seasons of SEINFELD or IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA or TWO AND A HALF MEN, in and of itself without any particular wit to it to help make it palatable, puts me off...hence, some of the sketch comedy of discomfort very popular on Adult Swim frequently doesn't work for me (though it's better than the previous three series).

The appreciation of art is Always subjective. There is nothing obvjective about that...the closest to objectivity one can come is the structure of any given work of art, and even there the strictures are often if not always arbitrary, driven by expectations and cultural norms rather than anything inherent in art. Though we do crave narrative. But where did that leave Henny Youngman, or even Bob Hope's standup? (Yes, the joke machines only occasionally hit for me, too. But others loved them.); 3:56 PM
Todd Mason said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 3:57 PM
Todd Mason said...: Robust as delicate euphemism, I hope...as Ms. Abbott the younger doesn't seem physically fragile or unhealthily delicate herself so much as slender...; 4:00 PM
Paul D. Brazill said...: I quite liked 'whatever works' & I think it would have been a good film if he'd spent a bit of time on it. Not great but not cringy like Cassandra's Dream (Eastenders written by a posh drama student) or Vicky Cristina (Oh, the Spanish are so..sexy aren't they? Well, compared to you Woody ...)

I think Sandra's right about him being in his films since he's not a great or even good actor.But he got away with it in the old days.But then he probably rehearsed then...

His private life seems to put some people off his work but doesn't bother me at all. (And if you were married to The Child Catcher Farrow, wouldn't you?) (I remember actually having an interest in Hugh Grant after he publicly put his foot in his mouth. Or something. But then he made About A Boy and all hope was gone ...)

Directors seem to be good at directing these days and Allen's sloppy '70s style looks a bit naff on the big screen. Mind you, could be worse. Could be Mike Leigh. 'Another Year,' another nap.; 4:04 PM
Todd Mason said...: or, even, "Larry David often as not casts himself as the victim of another's prejudices or self-righteousness."; 4:09 PM
Todd Mason said...: Mmmm. In answer to your question in re Farrow and eloping with one's daughter-equivalent, Paul...no. While I can still appreciate the work of bastards like Miles Davis or Roman Polanski or Bing Crosby, when the work becomes All About Self-Promotion of bastardy, it tends to lose me. (Whereas the two good Dabney Coleman series about him being an utter bastard and no one not realizing that, BUFFALO BILL and THE 'SLAP' MAXWELL STORY, were fine). ZELIG is, I guess, one of his better films, too, but again little there that isn't obvious, telegraphed, elbowing you Nudge Nudge.; 4:16 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: I adored ONCE AND AGAIN. And THIRTY SOMETHING. Although am not sure they are really comedies.
BRINGING UP BABY and MY GIRL FRIDAY and SOME LIKE IT HOT are three favorites.
My favorite TV comedy is Frasier.; 4:17 PM
Todd Mason said...: And feet in mouth was more Eddie Murphy's prostitute thing, I think.; 4:18 PM
Paul D. Brazill said...: Patti, you're right about comedy dating. Silent comedy is a waste of good film. Stupid people being stupid really, really slowly...Chaplin was always unfunny and is super cringy to watch now.The Marx Brothers are mostly just annoying. Keaton? We've got CGI now ,thank you! Maybe comedy, like all the best things in life, is throw-away?

In his favour, Allen makes cheap films and that fact that no one watches them doesn't matter to the producers.But god do they LOOK cheap!; 4:24 PM
Paul D. Brazill said...: Todd, Buffallo Bill! That WAS brilliant! And what was the cop show with the weird bassline in the title music?

Maybe comedy is better for TV?; 4:27 PM
Todd Mason said...: Not wholly comedies, but incorporating more (intentional) comic aspects than the likes of HAWAII FIVE-0, though the original series had a few darkly comic episodes, or entirely too many sitcoms. I sure wish RELATIVITY (perhaps the most comic of their series so far, without being wholly comic) and the last season of O&A were commercially available, and I wonder if that new Zwick/Herskovitz series is in "turnaround"...HIS GIRL FRIDAY is certainly one of my favorites as well...no one's done a better staging of THE FRONT PAGE that I've seen...utterly unafraid of going dark, usually around Maggie Malloy, when she's desperately trying to get them stop libelling her ("Gentlemen of the Press," as Hildy notes after Malloy's dragged away) and when she might've killed herself.

THE TESTAMENT OF ORPHEUS.
And, on the low comedy end, NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE.

But, then again, ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, in large part, among the other Kaufman films, perhaps particularly ADAPTATION.; 4:28 PM
Mike Dennis said...: Right on, Patti! Tell him over and over that most people don't live on the upper east side of Manhattan and they definitely DON'T WATCH Ingmar Bergman movies.

Through Woody's best period (1977-2000), he tossed in a few of these films where he was trying to be Bergman. Result: snoozing audiences. I include in this list SEPTEMBER, INTERIORS, and yes, CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS, which was nothing more than a Bergman-type movie with a few funny scenes grafted onto it.

Through most of his career, Woody's been trying to run away from the "funny movies" that are his strength and toward tedious Euro-intellectual flicks with lots of closeups of hands and lit cigarettes.

That said, however, it feels like even with his funny movies, he's said pretty much everything he has to say. There's not much originality left.; 4:31 PM
Todd Mason said...: Well, Paul, BARNEY MILLER (with a jazz electric bass opening theme, with horns eventually) has episode by episode often aged worse than Chaplin, much less Keaton...but there are certainly good episodes. If anything, that's an example of a series that mostly improved as it went along. Steve Landesburg in for Abe Vigoda alone...

TV does allow for more flexibility with comedic drama than film...pity the usual run of sitcoms don't take advantage of that, anywhere.; 4:33 PM
Todd Mason said...: Imgmar Bergman's THE DEVIL'S EYE is hilarious.

I'm not kidding. Sad that I usually have to add that. Hell, there are funny bits to most of his films, albeit SHAME and HOUR OF THE WOLF not so much. Even THE VIRGIN SPRING, as grim as much of that is (if less so than its US ripoffs).; 4:35 PM
Paul D. Brazill said...: Barney Miller! About 20 years since I've seen it but I still remember laughing till I cried at some episodes. Maybe it's best not to see them now. Actually, I bet we could mention loads of US sitcoms that were funnier than Woody's films. And more involving. (And I like his stuff but, you know, ...); 4:38 PM
Todd Mason said...: I bet we could mention loads of US sitcoms that were funnier than Woody's films. And more involving.

I already have, Paul. Or to me, anyway. And could add such non-US fare as BUTTERFLIES; YES, MINISTER; NO, HONESTLY; THE BOOK GROUP (though that one is close!); BLACK BOOKS; A BIT OF FRY AND LAURIE, etc.

Certainly the best of Hugh Wilson's sitcoms, WKRP IN CINCINNATI and FRANK'S PLACE, are ahead of anything from Allen in my affections.; 5:03 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: Buffalo Bill was amazing. Loved it. Same with Barney Miller. It took its time. The pace was perfect. Eternal Sunshine was a brilliant movie, wasn't it? Nearly reaching profound. And I will add Groundhog Day, which was the most cogent example of someone finding out that doing good had its own reward aside from winning the girl.
Have never even heard of the Devil's Eye. But I let netflix go.; 5:05 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: Yes, to the last two, Todd. Both were wonderful. Fry and Laurie were terrific. No one watching HOUSE knows the man's depths.; 5:07 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: September and Interiors were colossal snooze fests so I guess he had off films early on, Mike.; 5:08 PM
Todd Mason said...: The cast, and the occasional sharp script, make HOUSE. The formula is too rigid, but nonetheless it moves.

I'd say ETERNAL SUNSHINE was profound enough, ahead of most statements reaching thus. Few better films in the last decade, if any. STRANGER THAN FICTION is another fantasy film which manages a resolution similar to what you found in GROUNDHOG DAY.; 5:16 PM
Todd Mason said...: THE DEVIL'S EYE is Bergman's DON JUAN comedy.; 5:25 PM
Paul D. Brazill said...: WKRP IN CINCINNATI .Another gem.I don't know Frank's Place.

I'm not a big fan of British comedy series but The Likely Lads, Porridge, the Royal Family, Alan Patrdridge, Paul Calf, Hancock, Phoenix Nights all stand up to repeated viewing.I like House too.; 5:48 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: Frank's Place was short-lived. Maybe one season and probably never shown abroad. Stranger Than Fiction was good too but Groundhog Day really caught my attention because of the rural setting.; 5:49 PM
Todd Mason said...: FRANK'S PLACE got a short second season along with its short first season...set in New Orleans (some years before the failure of the levees), but CBS didn't support it any better than they had WKRP. It was also done as a one-camera show with no laugh track, so CBS execs resented it (this was still newish for sitcoms that weren't the 1960s BATMAN).; 6:02 PM
Todd Mason said...: Nope, memory bad...only one full-season of 22 episodes.

Lots of music, even more than WKRP, lots of local color, usually very funny. A bit noirish.; 6:12 PM
Deb said...: I think the writer Joe Queenan probably nailed it when he said (I'm paraphrasing here) that Woody Allen is the eternal college sophomore who spends his time grappling with issues (life, women, relationships) that those of us who either finished or never attended college find ways to come to grips with. I haven't really liked a Woody Allen movie since "Annie Hall" (although I thought both "Hannah and Her Sisters" and "Crimes and Misdameanors" had their moments). I suspect part of that is because I was in my first year of college when it was released and it seemed to speak to a lot of thoughts about relationships that I had then (the fact that Woody was my parents' age and was still grappling with those issues did not strike me as odd then, but it does now).

In other words, artistically, he's never grown up--and, at this point, I doubt he ever will.; 6:51 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...: Yes, I think there is a lot of truth in that.; 7:14 AM