By Ray Bennett
As Woody Allen turns 90 today, I’m reminded of his remarkably candid comments at a New York junket for ‘Annie Hall’ in the Spring of 1977. He hated having to publicise his films, he said, ‘I don’t think it’s helpful, for one thing. I don’t think anyone comes to see a picture because of reviews. Movie companies think it helps but I don’t. I don’t go on network television and up until this movie I’ve never permitted film clips to be shown on television. I have a real dim view of television. I didn’t find it a good medium for me to work in. Television is soul-deadening. Not TV itself but the content today in general is moronic.’
Allen clearly was pleased with ‘Annie Hall’ and he had every reason to be. It was a critical and commercial hit and went on to win Academy Awards and BAFTA Film Awards for best picture, best director, best original screenplay by Allen and Marshall Brickman and best actress for Diane Keaton. He said that while the story of a comedian in love with a free-spirited young woman might seem autobiographical given that he and Keaton had been lovers for five years, he insisted that it was not.
‘None of the details are true,’ he said. ‘We made it up as we went along. There were gags we left out because they were not true to the characters and there is some relationship stuff that just doesn’t seem to be funny. I just had to hope that it would work in the framework of the film because it is not manifestly funny but I didn’t want it to get too pathetic.’
Allen insisted, as he always did, that he wanted to be taken seriously as a filmmaker. ‘I prefer the work of serious filmmakers rather than comedy artists,’ he said. ‘I find them more interesting, more meaningful. It’s harder to do comedy but it’s not better. “Sleeper” and “Bananas” were cartoons – strictly for laughs. “Annie Hall” is not that. It’s not a satirical film at all, it’s more human.’
For one scene in “Annie Hall” in which he punctured the pomposity of some filmgoers, he brought on Canadian philosopher Marshal McLuhan although he said he had tried to get Federico Fellini and Lina Wertmuller. McLuhan was in town and available but ‘in my opinion he’s no actor; that was about the 16th take’. He said he chose singer Paul Simon to be the one who wins Annie in the film because ‘I wanted to lose the girl to someone shorter than I am.’
He shot the picture on grey, overcast days or at sunset so the film is very moody. ‘You can achieve states of anxiety almost anywhere but in New York it’s right out in the open,’ he said. ‘I would never more to Los Angeles because I don’t like sunshine; the kind of relentless blue-white sunshine they have there. All my friends have moved out there and perhaps I have an over-idealised view of New York but it’s very useful for “Annie Hall”.’The books he read were much the same. ‘When I read, I like heavy stuff – Flaubert, the Russian writers … Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov,’ he said. ‘To me, reading should be a real workout. In movies, I think “City Lights” was one of the best films ever made … “Gold Rush”, “Modern Times”, “Duck Soup” were all good. I find Bob Hope hysterically funny in some of his earlier films but he is politically unsound and he doesn’t done anything in years. Myself, I am a moderate depressive who is basically apolitical save for basic middle-class liberalism.’
Allen scoffed when someone suggested he was a comic genius. ‘To be called that is hilarious to me,’ he said. ‘It’s a show business word like marvellous. They mean nothing. My films do not have an enormous audience. My own feeling is that my films have limited appeal. I do films to please myself and a half-dozen friends. It’s just a great deal of luck that a decent number of people want to hear what I have to say.’
The filmmaker said he was always surprised by the amount of people who went to see his movies. ‘I’ve never gotten anything close to satisfaction from my films,’ he said. ‘All of them were personal failures. There is something to enjoy in them, I believe, but not for me. I don’t want to see them again. Nothing I’ve ever done stands up to scrutiny or analysis on a deep level but, then, even with the more serious filmmakers you can only analyse to a limited level. I’d much rather have been Marlon Brando, Louis Armstrong or Willie Mays. I’d happily trade anything I’ve done or could do to have been one of them.’
Woody Allen on ‘Annie Hall’ and why he disliked his other films
By Ray Bennett
As Woody Allen turns 90 today, I’m reminded of his remarkably candid comments at a New York junket for ‘Annie Hall’ in the Spring of 1977. He hated having to publicise his films, he said, ‘I don’t think it’s helpful, for one thing. I don’t think anyone comes to see a picture because of reviews. Movie companies think it helps but I don’t. I don’t go on network television and up until this movie I’ve never permitted film clips to be shown on television. I have a real dim view of television. I didn’t find it a good medium for me to work in. Television is soul-deadening. Not TV itself but the content today in general is moronic.’
Allen clearly was pleased with ‘Annie Hall’ and he had every reason to be. It was a critical and commercial hit and went on to win Academy Awards and BAFTA Film Awards for best picture, best director, best original screenplay by Allen and Marshall Brickman and best actress for Diane Keaton. He said that while the story of a comedian in love with a free-spirited young woman might seem autobiographical given that he and Keaton had been lovers for five years, he insisted that it was not.
‘None of the details are true,’ he said. ‘We made it up as we went along. There were gags we left out because they were not true to the characters and there is some relationship stuff that just doesn’t seem to be funny. I just had to hope that it would work in the framework of the film because it is not manifestly funny but I didn’t want it to get too pathetic.’
Allen insisted, as he always did, that he wanted to be taken seriously as a filmmaker. ‘I prefer the work of serious filmmakers rather than comedy artists,’ he said. ‘I find them more interesting, more meaningful. It’s harder to do comedy but it’s not better. “Sleeper” and “Bananas” were cartoons – strictly for laughs. “Annie Hall” is not that. It’s not a satirical film at all, it’s more human.’
For one scene in “Annie Hall” in which he punctured the pomposity of some filmgoers, he brought on Canadian philosopher Marshal McLuhan although he said he had tried to get Federico Fellini and Lina Wertmuller. McLuhan was in town and available but ‘in my opinion he’s no actor; that was about the 16th take’. He said he chose singer Paul Simon to be the one who wins Annie in the film because ‘I wanted to lose the girl to someone shorter than I am.’
He shot the picture on grey, overcast days or at sunset so the film is very moody. ‘You can achieve states of anxiety almost anywhere but in New York it’s right out in the open,’ he said. ‘I would never more to Los Angeles because I don’t like sunshine; the kind of relentless blue-white sunshine they have there. All my friends have moved out there and perhaps I have an over-idealised view of New York but it’s very useful for “Annie Hall”.’The books he read were much the same. ‘When I read, I like heavy stuff – Flaubert, the Russian writers … Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov,’ he said. ‘To me, reading should be a real workout. In movies, I think “City Lights” was one of the best films ever made … “Gold Rush”, “Modern Times”, “Duck Soup” were all good. I find Bob Hope hysterically funny in some of his earlier films but he is politically unsound and he doesn’t done anything in years. Myself, I am a moderate depressive who is basically apolitical save for basic middle-class liberalism.’
Allen scoffed when someone suggested he was a comic genius. ‘To be called that is hilarious to me,’ he said. ‘It’s a show business word like marvellous. They mean nothing. My films do not have an enormous audience. My own feeling is that my films have limited appeal. I do films to please myself and a half-dozen friends. It’s just a great deal of luck that a decent number of people want to hear what I have to say.’
The filmmaker said he was always surprised by the amount of people who went to see his movies. ‘I’ve never gotten anything close to satisfaction from my films,’ he said. ‘All of them were personal failures. There is something to enjoy in them, I believe, but not for me. I don’t want to see them again. Nothing I’ve ever done stands up to scrutiny or analysis on a deep level but, then, even with the more serious filmmakers you can only analyse to a limited level. I’d much rather have been Marlon Brando, Louis Armstrong or Willie Mays. I’d happily trade anything I’ve done or could do to have been one of them.’