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Cloud In the Silver Lining
"When you invest in a Woody Allen movie," says Letty Aronson, his sister and longtime co-executive producer, "you don't get to read his script, you don't get a say in casting, you don't see the dailies. And the studio system in Hollywood has been taken over by people who think of themselves as creative forces, not just bankers."
A group of European investors, among them the BBC, underwrote "Match Point," on the condition that Allen shoot in England. When the film was released and went on to gross some $90 million worldwide, a narrative emerged in reviews and profiles: Woody Allen was back. It was surprising that he reclaimed his audience with a movie that lacked a single chuckle. But so what? He was back.
  "I never wanted movies to be an end," Woody Allen says. "I wanted them to be a means so that I could have a decent life." (By Cary Conover For The Washington Post) |
That was the story, anyway. Woody Allen isn't buying it.
"I wasn't away," he says patiently. "And I'm not back. 'Match Point' was a film about luck, and it was a very lucky film for me. I did it the way I do all my pictures, and it just worked. I needed a rainy day, I got a rainy day. I needed sun, I got sun. Kate Winslet dropped out at the last moment because she wanted to be with her family, and Scarlett Johansson was available on two days' notice. It's like I couldn't ruin this picture no matter how hard I tried."
Filling the Cosmic Void
It's safe to say that nobody is less impressed by Woody Allen than Woody Allen. He has long confessed to what his "Stardust Memories" character called "Ozymandias melancholy," the sadness of looking at a body of work and believing it won't last. This isn't false modesty. He hated "Manhattan" so much that after it was finished he wanted to buy it from the studio and destroy it. On a good day he'll admit to liking four of his movies. ("Stardust Memories" and "Match Point" are right up there.) The rest he could take or leave.
"It's strange," he says, "because I'm a comedian doing comic films with this bleak view all the time, and either that's what makes my movies interesting or it's what torpedoes them."
He is sitting in the middle of a mostly empty room at a small round table, a setup ideal for either tea or an interrogation. His publicist on this sunny afternoon treats him like an exotic plant that can be viewed only in half-hour increments lest it wilt. Allen seems hardier than that. Diane Keaton once said he has you-know-whats of steel. There is a gravity about him that he doesn't show in his movies.
A good caricaturist could still capture Allen with a few squiggles -- the isosceles head, the black frames, the politely befuddled eyes. He is grayer and little frailer than you might remember, his voice softer and a touch raspy, but he's aging with dignity, if not grace. His father died at 100, which he finds encouraging.
"It's a constant struggle to see that your body doesn't break down," he says. "You put more time into maintenance and it's boring, as you'll see someday."
If Allen lives another couple decades and works half as hard, he could easily make another dozen movies. But if he stops tomorrow, he'll have created a filmography that has no precedent. With the possible exception of Charlie Chaplin, nobody has ever directed, written and acted in as many standout movies as Woody Allen, and he did it without anyone else, except for an occasional co-writer, vetting his lines.
The critics and public have panned more than a few of his efforts, but among the 37 movies he's made -- that's counting "New York Stories," a trilogy to which he contributed one film -- there's an astounding variety of keepers. Lyrical takes on love and neurosis ("Annie Hall," "Husbands and Wives"), Big Question comedies ("Crimes and Misdemeanors," "Zelig,") and leaps into magical realism ("The Purple Rose of Cairo"). Plus the occasional period piece, like "Bullets Over Broadway," and some deeply serious chin-strokers, like "Interiors" and "Another Woman." A total of 21 Academy Award nominations, mostly for directing and screenwriting. Three wins, including Best Picture for "Annie Hall."
We can marvel at this list and still acknowledge that our relationship with Woody Allen has been fraught of late. He is the only director whom moviegoers break up with, like he's a boyfriend or something. You hear a lot of variations on this theme. A fter "Celebrity" I called it quits . Or I gave up after "Deconstructing Harry. "
