SÉPTUM
(the september issue)
No.1-09-2011
THE WOODY ALLEN ISSUE
1ST. NUMBER-09-2011-SEPTEMBER-WOODY ALLEN
THE EDITOR.-
(enthusiastic and nervous-talking fast) CHAPTER ONE: ‘She adored films. She idolized them all out of proportion’- er, no, make that: ‘She romanticized them all out of proportion.’ -Yes.- ‘To her, no matter what the situation was, those were still places that existed in black and white and pulsated to the great tunes of George Getshwin.’Er, tsch, no, missed out something.‘CHAPTER ONE: She was too romantic about films, as she was about everything else. She thrived on the hustle bustle of the sounds and pictures. To her, movies meant handsome guys and perfect girls who seemed to know all the moves.’ –No, no, corny, too corny for a woman of my taste. Can we… can we try and make it more profound? –‘CHAPTER ONE: She adored Films. To her, it was a metaphor for the decay of contemporary culture. The same lack of individual integrity that caused so many people to take the easy way out was rapidly turning the town of his dreams into…’ –no, that’s a little bit too preachy. I mean, you know, let’s face it, I want to sell some magazines here. -‘CHAPTER ONE: She adored Films, although to her it was a metaphor for the decay of contemporary culture. How hard it was to exist in a society desensitized by drugs, loud music, television, crime, garbage’– Too angry. I don’t want to be angry. –‘CHAPTER ONE: She was as tough and romantic as the films she loved. Behind her black-rimmed glasses she saw the coiled sexual power of a jungle cat.’ – I love this. – ‘Movies were her life, and they always would be…’ Thank you for joining us through this adventure, we hope you like Woody Allen, if not, after this, keep our hopes high you will. -Your editor in chief. (Leaves frame- public keeps reading.)
PAGE ONE-INDEX.PAGE 3- WHO IS WOODY ALLEN.Who is this guy and why does he have a magazine issue?
PAGE 6- THE WOODY ALLEN QUICK QUIPS SURVIVAL GUIDE.Everyday topics, Woody Allen’s solutions.
PAGE 9- THE APPEAL OF WOODY.The magic behind the film maker.
PAGE 15- THE DIRECTOR’S CUT.An interview with Woody Allen.
PAGE 20- STARDUST MEMORIES.Woody Allen talks about 7 of his own films.
Writer, actor, director. Knowing Woody and his work.
WHO IS WOODY ALLEN?
by Gregory Simes.
WOODY ALLEN.The foremost American filmmaker of the 1970s and 1980s, Woody Allen has written, directed, and starred in an impressive body of work, exhibiting an extraordinary ability to grow and change as a filmmaker. Woody Allen was born Allen Stewart Konigsberg in Brooklyn, New York, and lived a life not terribly unlike his young protagonist’s in his autobiographical film, Radio Days (1987). While still in high school, Woody Allen was selling jokes that appeared in Earl Wilson’s syndicated newspaper column. After flunking out of New York University (he failed motion picture production), he joined the NBC Writer’s Program and, at the ripe age of 18, began to write for television, eventually teaming up with such writers for the classic 1950s TV series Your Show of Shows as Neil Simon, Mel Brooks, and Carl Reiner.
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.- Ed Sullivan, from The Ed Sullivan Show.
EARLY STADOM.Woody Allen first came to national attention during the early 1960s when, instead of writing for others, he told his own jokes as a stand-up comic. His comic persona, developed during those nightclub years, was a truly modern creation: the neurotic everyman. In 1964, he was paid $35,000 to rewrite the screenplay of What’s New, Pussycat? The film became the most successful comedy of its time, earning $17 million. Though unhappy with the changes made in his work, Woody Allen was suddenly a recognized screenwriter and actor (he had a small part in the movie). His next film project was What’s Up, Tiger Lily? (1966). This unique comedy was created by redubbing a Japanese spy thriller and giving it an entirely new comic sound track. With a Japanese superspy named Phil Moscowitz in search of the stolen recipe for the world’s greatest egg salad, this James Bond spoof became a cult classic.
.- Ed Sullivan, from The Ed Sullivan Show.
MONEY.It wasn’t until 1969, however, that Woody Allen was given a $1.6 million budget to write, direct, and star in his own film. The result was Take the Money and Run. It was followed by Bananas (1971), a film many fans consider his funniest. Both films were hits, and these two back-to-back moneymakers gave Woody Allen the freedom to continue making his own kind of films without studio interference. Considering that Woody Allen writes, directs, and stars in the majority of his movies, his output throughout the last two decades has been remarkable. Not counting Tiger Lily, he has written and directed more than 18 high-quality films. His 1977 film Annie Hall was a landmark comedy. It won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actress (Diane Keaton), Best Screenplay (with Marshall Brickman), and Best Director. Though he didn’t win, Woody Allen was also nominated for Best Actor. It was the biggest sweep of top nominations since
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.- Woody Allen starring in “Take the money and run.”
ORSON WELLES’s CITIZEN KANE (1941), and it was the first comedy since the 1930s to be honored as Best Picture. But then Annie Hall was more than a comedy. Woody Allen had juxtaposed comic human foibles with the sadness of a relationship gone awry and created a hysterical yet sweet love story.
NEW DIRECTIONS.It seemed as if Woody Allen had reached the pinnacle of his creative and commercial powers. He could have gone on to make Annie Hall clones, but instead he chose a new direction, writing and directing Interiors (1978), a Bergmanesque film that was purposefully lacking in humor; Woody Allen refused to do the expected. Interiors is an example of Woody Allen’s constant experimentation to find a new voice. A notable aspect of this filmic searching is how often he has managed to create successful movies without seriously repeating himself. Manhattan (1979), Zelig (1983), Broadway Danny Rose (1984), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Another Woman (1988), and Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) have all established Woody Allen as an independent-minded AUTEUR who has been able to create a vision of the world that is distinctly his own. Although not all of his films have been hits, all of them have been provocative and compelling. Woody Allen’s comic antecedents are many. His New York Jewish humor is in the great tradition of Groucho Marx. His impeccable comic timing came from studying Bob Hope movies. But both as a filmmaker and as a comic personality, Woody Allen is closest to Charlie Chaplin. Like Chaplin, he created a character of the little man who triumphs (after a fashion) against all odds, and, like Chaplin, he has allowed his meek character to grow and change with his increasingly sophisticated artistic vision.
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.- Diane Keaton starring in “Interiors.”
THE WOODY ALLEN QUICK QUIPS SURVIVAL GUIDE.by Saleem, R.
How do we handle the stress of life? Zen and yoga are probably on top of the list. But what’s the next best thing?
Humor. Definitely humor. Somehow it clears the mind. It’s hard to be mad or sad when you’re laughing. When impending clouds of gloom are pierced with a ray of sunny wit, they appear to dissolve quicker. But sometimes we need help in finding something funny about our dilemma. Fortunately, to our rescue comes Woody Allen. In his movies, despite the pathos of the plots, the hopeless dilemma of his characters, and the somber notes about the human condition, the one-liners keep you light-hearted about the unfolding existential angst. Here are some one-liners you can use when you need to add levity to a challenging situation. And now here’s W-o-o-d-y:
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-Bills piling up? Try:
“MONEY IS BETTER THAN POVERTY, IF ONLY FOR FINANCIAL REASONS.” -Government harassing you? Try:
“I BELIEVE THERE IS SOMETHING OUT THERE WATCHING US. UNFORTUNATELY, IT’S THE GOVERNMENT.” -Feeling persecuted by morbid thoughts? Try:
“THERE ARE WORSE THINGS IN LIFE THAN DEATH. HAVE YOU EVER SPENT AN EVENING WITH AN INSURANCE SALESMAN?” -Relationship falling apart? Try:
“LOVE IS THE ANSWER, BUT WHILE YOU’RE WAITING FOR THE ANSWER, SEX RAISES SOME PRETTY INTERESTING QUESTIONS.” -Got rejected after a date? Try:
“A FAST WORD ABOUT ORAL CONTRACEPTION. I ASKED A GIRL TO GO TO BED WITH ME, SHE SAID ‘NO’.”
-Spouse driving you nuts? Try:
“BASICALLY MY WIFE WAS IMMATURE. I’D BE AT HOME IN THE BATH AND SHE’D COME IN AND SINK MY BOATS.”
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-Deep questions about the meaning of life? Try:
““I AM NOT AFRAID OF DEATH, I JUST DON’T WANT TO BE THERE WHEN IT HAPPENS.” -Deep questions about the meaning of life? Try:
““I AM NOT AFRAID OF DEATH, I JUST DON’T WANT TO BE THERE WHEN IT HAPPENS.” -Embarrassed by inappropriate laughter? Try:
“I AM THANKFUL FOR LAUGHTER, EXCEPT WHEN MILK COMES OUT OF MY NOSE.”
-Stuck listening to a religious lecture? Try:
“IF YOU WANT TO MAKE GOD LAUGH, TELL HIM ABOUT YOUR PLANS.” -Need to shake off some gloom? Try:
“THE TALENT FOR BEING HAPPY IS APPRECIATING AND LIKING WHAT YOU HAVE, INSTEAD OF WHAT YOU DON’T HAVE.”
-WOODY ALLEN. -8-
THE APPEAL OF WOODY by chris neumer. -9-
DESPITE BEING NOMINATED FOR FOURTEEN ACADEMY AWARDS AND WINNING THREE, WRITER DIRECTOR WOODY ALLENIS HARDLY VIEWED AS A MAINSTREAM HOLLYWOOD PLAYER. RARELY LEAVING THE COMFORTS OF NEW YORK CITY, THE OFT MISUNDERSTOOD FILMMAKER CONTINUES TO TURN OUT A SURPRISING NUMBER OF WELL-MADE MOVIES. MOST PEOPLE WE TALKED TO COULDN’T STAND ALLEN OR HIS FILMS. JUST WHAT IS THE APPEAL OF WOODY ALLEN? -10-
Three months ago, I hated Woody Allen and his movies with a passion I usually reserve for Barbra Streisand. I simply could not stand to look at the man, and the thought of watching more of his films appealed to me like the thought of driving a nail through my foot. My feelings of contempt toward Allen were thusly reinforced with the knowledge that these were not only my feelings, they were the popular opinion of America as well; the only person I associated with who was film saavy and viewed Allen as a great writer/director was Stumped’s editor, Jackson Casey.
aged to understand it and think it was good. They must be a lot smarter than I am.” My line of thinking about Allen was influenced for good when I had the opportunity to read a scene excerpt from Allen’s 1977 Oscar winning picture, Annie Hall, in a recent issue of Premiere Magazine. To my surprise, I enjoyed the dialogue I saw on paper, and actually laughed out loud at Allen’s character’s remark that he would “like to hit [another character] on a gut level”. At first, I thought Allen was just another writer/director like Kevin Smith (Clerks, Dogma), a director whose words were a lot funnier and more enjoyable on paper. But I was wrong.
Late in ’99, I entered into a discussion with him about the merits of Allen’s (supposed) 1986 triumph, Hannah and Her Sisters. After a long conversation on the matter, we agreed to rent the film and re-watch it with extra critical eyes. As the end credits rolled, Casey admitted that it wasn’t necessarily as good as he had thought the film to be, and I admitted that it was even worse than I had remembered. As Casey steadfastly maintained that Allen was an American institution to be reckoned with (ignoring the fact that ALL of Allen’s films make their money overseas), I shook my head, instantly being told that I “just didn’t get it.” And he was right. At the time, I viewed fans of Woody Allen as being members of a select group of people who would proclaim Allen’s work to be stellar, a fact that would allow the rest of America to look at them thinking, “They watched the same movie I did and somehow man-
The reason I had never been attracted to or entertained by the selected works of Allen that I had seen wasn’t because of some talent deficiency on Allen’s part, it was because I genuinely didn’t like the offscreen life of the man who was writing, directing and starring in the projects. As a product of the ‘90’s, I viewed Allen as the nebbish, annoying character I constantly saw on-screen who was, additionally, having sex with and married to his own daughter. How could I like the work of a man like that? Quite simply, these are the two biggest misconceptions about Allen that the general public has:
1) Allen’s work is somewhat biographical 2) Allen is carrying on an incestuous relationship with his daughter. And, for the record, both points are distinctly false. -11-
Allen’s work is not somewhat biographical, it is completely and totally biographical. For his part, Allen insists that is not the case. In Time Magazine, Allen stated definitively, “Movies are fiction. The plots of my movies don’t have any relationship to my life.” I categorize his remarks to Time by labeling them all ‘blatant lies’. However, I can label his remarks as such, having had the benefit of reading several books on Allen’s life, including Allen’s own book, Woody Allen on Woody Allen: In Conversation with Stig Bjorkman, where Allen repeatedly contra-
Besides Allen’s real life fascination with death and masturbation (“sex with someone I love”), two topics that are quite prominent in his films, most would consider the title of Annie Hall) to be the deciding vote on this matter. Rumored to be the story of Allen and Keaton’s own off-screen relationship, Keaton’s real name was Diane Hall. Her nickname? Annie.
dicts his ‘movies are fiction’ mantra, with statements like:
ing to his marriage, it should be noted that Ms. Previn is not a) Allen’s own daughter, b) Allen’s step-daughter, or c) biologically related to Allen in any way. Ms. Previn was adopted by Farrow and Farrow alone; Allen refused to be a part of her adoption process.
“I don’t know the black experience well enough to really write about it with any authenticity. In fact, most of my characters are so limited locally. They’re mostly New Yorkers, kind of upper-class, educated, neurotic. It’s almost the only thing that I ever write about, because it’s almost the only thing I know.” And “Yes, [Mia Farrow and Diane Keaton have] often been in mind when I’ve created certain characters.”
Allen’s relationship with Soon-Yi Previn isn’t incestuous or illegal either. While I am not stating that I would give my bless-
However, most people don’t know this. They know what they’ve read in the tabloids, heard Farrow’s comments about Allen being a pedophile and have drawn their own conclusions and based their opinions of his work on this.
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A good example of this came with a Stumped meeting to decide who would be featured on the cover. Standard logic suggested that, with a feature length story on Woody Allen, he would grace the cover. However, this suggestion was met with an alarming resistance. “I wouldn’t pick a magazine up if it had Woody on the cover,” Stumped’s assistant editor Jake Lever said. And based on the feelings of several other Stumped employees and friends, we decided to conduct a survey to see how many people roaming around downtown Chicago would, in fact, pick up a free magazine with Allen’s face on the cover. The statistics were shocking. Of 35 people polled, only 3 people said they’d pick up the magazine (32 people said they’d pick up the magazine with Harrison Ford on the cover). One woman was so vehemently opposed to the idea of having Allen on the cover that she said she wouldn’t pick up the magazine ever again if it had once had Allen on the cover. The woman shook her head at the thought of Allen and muttered, “dirty old man.” Just like that, the idea was nixed. Enter Mel Gibson.
York, Allen grew up in a working-class part of the borough, Flatbush, and attended Catholic school-a childhood not unlike young Alvy Singer’s childhood in Annie Hall. In high school, Allen began to submit one-liners and jokes to local New York newspaper reporters for inclusion in their columns. It was at this point in his life that Allen created the pen name of Woody Allen, so that his classmates wouldn’t recognize his comedic, literary efforts. The name stuck. Writing comedy for Guy Lombardo and Sammy Kaye among others, Allen was represented by the William Morris Agency while he was still in high school. After graduating, Allen went to New York University where, after failing a class in film production, he decided to drop out in order to become a full-time comedy writer.
“I WOULDN’T PICK A MAGAZINE UP IF IT HAD WOODY ON THE COVER,”-
After writing material for other stand up comics, Allen’s managers convinced him that he could be even funnier and more well known writing for himself. So Allen joined the ranks of stand up comedians. By age 26, he was constantly appearing on talk shows and in the most successful comedy clubs in America.
While I’m not necessarily asserting God-like status to AlIt was during Allen’s fertile stand up STUMPED’S ASSISTANT len or his films, this is one career that he both created and reEDITOR JAKE LEVER American filmmaker who fined his professional persona. genuinely deserves our respect and admiration for the works Like most comics, Allen found that of comedy he has created–his he was able to write tighter sets when dramas are another matter. Allen has earned our respect alhe was dealing with material that he had taken from his own ready with films like Sleeper, Bananas, Deconstructing Harry life, putting a slight spin on the jokes, making it seem as if he and Annie Hall, he’s just not getting any recognition from the was a merely a pawn in his own life; he stood still as life took public because of his reputation. place around him. Even then though, people claimed his material was too close to the truth for comfort, with his first wife Strangely enough, the older generations respect Allen a great actually suing him for defamation of character for what he said deal more than the younger ones do, as do his industry comin one of his sets. patriots; actors simply cannot wait to work with Allen, waiving their standard fees whenever possible to be part of a film On a grander scheme though, the important parts of Allen’s of his. Granted this has a lot to do with the media shaping comic act, and humor, were established. the image of Allen that the younger people have, but it also has to do with the fact that during the ‘50’s and ‘60’s, Allen This idea of a central character who has things happen around had a rather meteoric rise to fame based on his accomplished him, not to him, is not original with Allen. Referred to by film comedic writing skills that garnered him quite a large followscholars like Nancy Pogel as the “little-man character”, this idea ing of people. was first created by the silent movie stars of the teens and twenties, stars like Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd. Born Allen Koenigsberg December 1, 1935 in Brooklyn, New
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Consistent with the theory that Allen’s earlier works (prior to Interiors) were written with this little-man idea firmly in mind is the way Allen used to write in female leads who were likable, but would also cause the main character to get into trouble, something the female stars of silent films invariably did. Allen’s little-man persona is truly the root of his comedy success. Whether his characters are named Miles, Mickey, Alvy, or the most fitting moniker of all, Fielding Mellish, despite Allen’s determination to make his character socially beneath the rest of the characters in the script, he still managed to create a character who always has a response to every situation, quick one-liners at the appropriate moments, who inevitably gets the girl and ponders about the most interesting of topics, namely, love and death. It was in Allen’s film of the same name, Love and Death, that his character Boris says: I was walking through the woods, thinking about Christ. If he was a carpenter, I wondered what he charged for bookshelves. As Allen grew older, the thematic elements of his films changed. In his 1979 film Interiors, a film so intrinsically boring I had trouble finishing reading the caption on the back of the video box, Allen’s career took a different path; that of the dramatic movie. It was at this point in time that Allen lost a lot of his regular followers, fans who had been watching his movies and stand up act for 15 years. Even he admits: “Not only were people annoyed at me for having the pretension to try
something like this, but giving them this kind of a drama as well...” Allen became less interested in comedy and began to investigate more thoroughly the issues of fiction vs. reality (The Purple Rose of Cairo, Deconstructing Harry) and interpersonal relationships between men and women (Hannah and her Sisters, Another Woman), something that the American MTV generation embraces as tightly as the metric system. After Interiors, comedies did occasionally punctuate Allen’s filmography (1994’s Mighty Aphrodite and 1997’s Deconstructing Harry were truly entertaining and vintage Woody) but Allen seems to have paid his dues on the comedic circuit and moved onward.
“NOT ONLY WERE PEOPLE ANNOYED AT ME FOR HAVING THE PRETENSION TO TRY SOMETHING LIKE THIS, BUT GIVING THEM THIS KIND OF A DRAMA AS WELL...”
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Despite his current reticence toward the genre, like it or not, this is where Allen’s appeal lies. Like Jerry Seinfeld, Allen calls attention to life’s little oddities and contradictions and points them out is a well worded fashion. This is often what makes his comedies truly funny. The lack of this was what made his dramas so unpopular, like the awful Celebrity, for example. Three months ago, I hated Woody Allen with a passion I normally reserved for Barbra Streisand. Three months later, after giving the man a second chance, I find myself on the other end of the line, an ardent Allen fan, most entertained by his shrewd comic appeal.
THE DIRECTOR’S CUT
(an interview with Woody Allen)
by dave itzkoff. The nervous guy from those Woody Allen movies: Woody Allen. Boy, if life were only like this: on Tuesday morning, this reporter (who always regrets he never had the “Star Wars” themed bar mitzvah party depicted in Deconstructing Harry found himself ushered into a New York hotel office suite to speak with Woody Allen about his film, “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger”. And while Mr. Allen, 74, characteristically complained about the air conditioning in the chilly suite, he did not accuse his interlocutor of knowing nothing about his work, and spoke at length about the themes in his latest movie, his filmmaking process and his thoughts on getting older, not to mention his next feature, “Midnight in Paris”, whose ensemble cast happens to include the first lady of France. A version of this interview appeared in The New York Times. These are longer excerpts from that conversation.
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Q. Should I wish you a happy Jewish new year? No, no, no. [laughs] That’s for your people. I wish I could get with it. It would be a big help on those dark nights. Q. But there’s an undercurrent, isn’t there, in the new movie –not of religion, but of spirituality and supernatural phenomenon? Well, I link them together. To me, there’s no real difference between a fortune teller or a fortune cookie and any of the organized religions. They’re all equally valid or invalid, really. And equally helpful. Q. The ideas of psychic powers and past lives, or at least people who believe in them, are central to “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.” What got you interested in writing about them? I was interested in the concept of faith in something. This sounds so bleak when I say it, but we need some delusions to keep us going. And the people who successfully delude themselves seem happier than the people who can’t. I’ve known people who have put their faith in religion and in fortune tellers. So it occurred to me that that was a good character for a movie: a woman who everything had failed for her, and all of a sudden, it turned out that a woman telling her fortune was helping her. The problem is, eventually, she’s in for a rude awakening.
who would be sitting home, embittered, unable to live up to his promise – desperate to try and succeed in some way. And I felt Josh could play all those characteristics. He could play a lug, but he could bring a sympathetic quality to him. He gained weight for the part, deliberately. And then he could sit home and dissipate and drink beer and try and write but not make it, and become distracted by an attractive woman in a window. Q. The woman-in-the-window scenario, I suppose it could happen in other cities as well, but that’s such a classic New York fantasy, isn’t it? A. Yes, I have that, but I don’t see a woman. I live in a house on the Upper East Side, and I can see out my back window. But I always see guys who work in an office and I’ll see them at their computers. I often think, my God, if there was a beautiful woman there, it’s such a romantic thing. You’d make up so many stories about her, and then if she was married, you’d be wondering about her and husband, and when you went down in the neighborhood to shop for your groceries, would you see her? There’s so much material there. But it is New York.
"I HAVE A GRIM, SCIENTIFIC ASSESSMENT OF IT. I JUST FEEL, WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET.”
Q. What seems more plausible to you, that we’ve existed in past lives, or that there is a God?
Q. There’s a motif that reoccurs in your films, including this one, of the talented person who is concerned that his abilities are fading. Why does that idea still intrigue you?
Q. Among the leading men you’ve worked with, Josh Brolin would seem to go at the more rugged end of the spectrum. What got you interested in working with him for this film?
A. It’s been one of the few fears in life that I’ve never had myself, but it gets brought up to me all the time and has been for decades. There are people who say, Do you ever think you’ll wake up one morning and just not be funny? No. I never thought that, it never occurred to me. Apparently there are people that do suffer from writers’ block, and I know there have been jazz musicians who were quite wonderful at one time and then never achieved that again. Something went out of them in some way. But I don’t identify with that at all.
Interestingly, he was the one person that I thought of while I was in the middle of writing it, the one actor I thought of. I’d worked with him once briefly before, and I saw him in “W.” and thought he was just a fabulous actor. I wanted some guy
Q. Going back to 1982, I don’t think there’s been a year where you haven’t released at least one new film. Does your filmmaking ever feel like an obligation, like you’ve got to do it just to keep your streak alive?
Neither seems plausible to me. I have a grim, scientific assessment of it. I just feel, what you see is what you get.
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Oh, no, no, I never think of it in those terms. When a project is finished – last week I finished editing this film I shot in Paris last summer – then I’ll fondle for a week or two, or a month, put in a little music and play around with it. But there’s not much more to do on it really. So you sit around, and then what? What is the next thing you do? I start to write. I have a lot of ideas, some of them are good, some of them are less good, and I just make them.
to think about your own mortality and envision it, and it gives you a little shiver. That’s what happens to Anthony Hopkins at the beginning of the movie, and from then on in, he did not want to hear from his more realistic wife, “Oh, you can’t keep doing that — you’re not young anymore.” Yes, she’s right, but nobody wants to hear that.
Q. But there are other filmmakers who share your drive, and they can get lost for five years in a project, or long periods where we don’t see any output from them.
Q. Has getting older changed your work in any way? Do you see a certain wistfulness emerging in your later films?
I work on a small budget. I have always had the money before I wrote the script. So when I pull the script out of the typewriter, the next day I give it to my production people and we go into production with it. Whereas some other person writes a perfectly wonderful script, and then they’ve got to raise $30, 40 million to make the film. So they bring it to Harvey Weinstein and they bring it to Columbia. And they say, well, yes, if you can get Brad Pitt we’ll do this. I’ve never done that in my life. I’ve never ever waited for anybody. It’s who I want and who’s available at the time. If the ideal person for the part is Jack Nicholson and he’s not available but he will be available in eight months or four months or something, I don’t wait. Now, that’s because I’m less an artist.
No, it’s too hit or miss. There’s no rhyme or reason to anything that I do. It’s whatever seems right at the time. I’ve never once in my life seen any film of mine after I put it out. Ever. I haven’t seen “Take the Money and Run” since 1968. I haven’t seen “Annie Hall” or “Manhattan” or any film I’ve made afterward. If I’m on the treadmill and I’m scooting through the channels, and I come across one of them, I go right past it instantly, because I feel it could only depress me. I would only feel, “Oh God, this is so awful, if I could only do that again.”
Q. Why do you say that?
Q. You recently told the European press that shooting movies in New York had become too expensive. Do you think you’ve made your last film here?
I don’t have the patience. When I first started to make films, I made “Take the Money and Run” and “Bananas,” and every second you had to be working. Everything was the film, the film. And I said to myself, This is crazy. I have other priorities that are more important. I don’t sit there and do 14 takes till I get just the perfect one. Because I want to go home and watch the Knicks or the Yankees. I don’t care enough about my work to be that exacting. Q. How do you feel about the aging process?
Well, I’m against it. [laughs] I think it has nothing to recommend it. You don’t gain any wisdom as the years go by. You fall apart, is what happens. People try and put a nice varnish on it, and say, well, you mellow. You come to understand life and accept things. But you’d trade all of that for being 35 again. I’ve experienced that thing where you wake up in the middle of the night and you start
My first choice would always be New York. It would be my fondest wish — to work where you live is of course the most luxurious privilege, and I’m sure I will film here again. But the few dollars I have go further in certain places. The cities I’m talking about — London, Paris, Barcelona — these are very cosmopolitan, and they’re like New York. I can afford it a little bit easier. To me it’s a privilege to shoot in New York, and I don’t mind it being extra. I just have to have it, to be able to afford it. I would always make the picture in New York for $15 million that I could make elsewhere for $12 million, if I had $15 million. But if I don’t have the money, then I can’t do it. Q. It’s not a situation in which these European cities have rolled out the red carpet for you, whereas New York took you for granted?
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New York has always been cooperative and helpful and a pleasure to shoot in. But the European countries do give you an enormous amount of cooperation. I still occasionally have to make cuts in my film to work there, too. I’m always working with less money than I need. It’s axiomatic. Q. At some point you end up making the movie for free.
Actually, very, very often it costs the actors money to be in the film. Because we pay union minimum. And really no frills. In order to come to New York or Barcelona or wherever, it costs them money to do it. And I make so little myself, really, when you think that I write the script and sometimes would be in the film, and then spend all the time working on it, in the editing room and the music and the color correction and the mix. I get much less for it than many of my contemporaries get for just writing the script or directing the picture. Q. Were you prepared for the firestorm of media coverage you set off by casting Carla Bruni-Sarkozy in your next movie, “Midnight in Paris”?
Q. That would make a good blurb for the movie poster.
For some reason, the press wanted to say bad things about her. I don’t know if they had something against the Sarkozys, or it was a better way to sell papers. But the fabrications were so wild and so completely fake, and I wondered to myself, Is this what happens with Afghanistan and the economy and matters of real significance? This is a trivial matter. That’s a longwinded answer to your question: I was not prepared for the amount of press that was attached to the picture because of Madame Sarkozy. Q. When you’ve got down time between projects, as you do now, how do you spend it?
I do the usual stuff. I take my kids to school in the morning.
"FOR ENJOYMENT, FOR ME, IT’S A BEER AND THE FOOTBALL GAME.”
I was very surprised at the level of journalism that occurred in relation to her. She has a small part in the movie — a real part, but it’s a small part. And I shot with her the first day, and then all the papers said she was terrible, and I did 32 takes with her. Of course I didn’t even do 10 takes with her. This was just a magical number that some guy created in a room. Then they printed that her husband came to the set and was angry with her. He came to the set once, and he was delighted. He felt she was a natural actress and couldn’t have been happier.
I go for walks with my wife, play with my jazz band. Then there’s the obligation of the treadmill, and the weights, to keep in shape, so I don’t get more decrepit than I am. I generally don’t see the big Hollywood movies. I saw “Winter’s Bone” the other day and liked the movie very much, loved all the performers. And when I was in Paris, I got a chance to read a certain amount, Tolstoy and Norman Mailer. Things that had slipped through the cracks over the years. Q. I half-expected to see you at that 12-hour performance of Dostoyevsky’s “Demons” that Lincoln Center Festival produced over the summer.
No, no, I’m a lowbrow. I read that material, more out of obligation than enjoyment. For enjoyment, for me, it’s a beer and the football game.
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Stardust memories
WOODY ALLEN ON 7 OF HIS FILMS.-
BY JOSH ROTTENBERG After 50-plus years in show business, Woody Allen’s heard it all. His films have been celebrated as cultural events and panned or, worse, ignored (September, Anything Else, that list goes on as well). His persona as the neurotic Everyman made him an unlikely folk hero, while his offscreen life — most notably the revelation in 1992 of his affair with his current wife Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of his longtime girlfriend
and cinematic muse Mia Farrow — brought scorn from some quarters. Allen says he tunes out the background din of acclaim, disdain, and everything in between: ‘’Even when I’m embraced, I’m not embraced warmly. It doesn’t matter to me.’’ Here he revisits some of the highlights of his legendary career. Seen through his famous thick-framed and far-from-rose-colored glasses, it seems the hits and misses are sometimes one and the same.
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TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN (1969).I felt I was ready to direct, but the people in my corner said, ‘’People will resent it. They’ll think, Who is this guy?’’ So I tried to get Jerry Lewis...but we couldn’t work it out with the studio. Then this new company, Palomar Pictures, formed, and they were willing to take a chance on me. The picture was very well received critically, but two or three years after it came out, they had still not broken even. I always had a tough time getting an audience. They’d book me into Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and they’d have half a house. By the third night, the head waiters would be pulling the potted plants in so they could make the space much smaller for the audience.
SLEEPER (1973).-
Marshall Brickman and I wanted to write a movie that wasn’t just gag-gag-gag. I was good at writing gags, but to write a story with a real plot and real characters — that was much harder. I had a small budget, and I was working in the future, so every car had to be built, every costume had to be designed. Fortunately, my costume designer was Joel Schumacher. He had, like, a $10,000 budget to do all the costumes, but he was brilliant and inventive. I knew Diane very well. I had done a play with her, Play It Again, Sam, we had lived together, and we were very close. I just felt she had a limitless comic talent. I’ve always felt that the two great movie comediennes of all time were Judy Holliday and Diane Keaton.
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ANNIE HALL (1977).-
The movie was originally supposed to be what my character was thinking, in a not really coherent fashion. But when Marshall Brickman saw the first cut, he said, ‘’I wrote it with you, and even I can’t follow it.’’ So we restructured it and reshot the ending many times. I was able to find the love story, and audiences were charmed by it beyond my expectations. They gave the Oscars out Monday evenings in those days. I always played clarinet with my jazz band on Monday evenings. I don’t like to fly. I don’t like to get into a tuxedo. So I’m not going to suddenly cancel my band and fly to California. People made a big deal out of that, but I don’t write movies to win awards.
MANHATTAN (1979) .I was so disappointed when I saw my final cut, I thought, If this is as good as I can do at this point, I shouldn’t be making films. I went to United Artists and said, ‘’Look, don’t put this out. I’ll make another film, no charge.’’ They thought I was nuts. And it was a very, very big hit. Audiences don’t have the same criteria I do. They say, Okay, you had some grandiose idea and maybe you failed, but we like this film. So once again, I shut up and just felt I got away with it. I got off with my life.
HUSBANDS AND WIVES (1992) The movie had no relation to my life in any way. But when it came out, my private life was all over the headlines. I could always work under stress, though. Whenever things go bad, the two things I’ve always been able to do are lose myself in work and lose myself in sleep. Work has always been a lifesaver. I can immerse myself in the problems of the second-act finale and avoid having to face the problems that are really unpleasant and that I can’t deal with.
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MATCH POINT (2005).-
VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA (2008).-
I had the idea for a while to do a murder story where the murderer kills the victim’s next-door neighbor so it looks like the other murder was just in passing, to deflect the police. Then when I made the guy a tennis player, the metaphor came of getting the bounce one way or the other, and the thing evolved from there. People impute to it calculation and going in a different direction and ‘’this is what’s happening in his private life so he does this or that.’’ None of that ever enters into it remotely. I just sit in a room or walk the streets in New York and think, Gee, what should I do next? It’s always just by sheer chance. I could make 10 movies in a row that would be as serious as Interiors or as light as Small Time Crooks [2000]. There’s no way of me knowing. I’m just happy to get any ideas.
She’s a wonderful natural actress (Scarlet Johansson). The trick is to play into her strengths. In this picture, it’s something that I felt that she could play beautifully at this stage of her career. She’s very young. When she did Match Point, she was only 19. She astonished me. And I did Scoop with her because I felt that she was a funny girl and she didn’t have to play just a pretty sexpot. She could put glasses on and play a silly little college girl. And in this picture, she’s one of my typical kinds of women: a very neurotic American young woman who is finding herself amid a sea of neurosis in a summer in Barcelona. And it just rolls off her very naturally.
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