Woody Allen: Film by Film Thread

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by RayS, Aug 29, 2015.

  1. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower Thread Starter

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    COMPLETELY lose it? You're about a year too early for my taste. :)
     
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  2. Peace N. Love

    Peace N. Love Forum Resident

    Well, that was how I felt at that time. Looking back from the 2016 perspective, were I forced to render a verdict, I'd say that most of his comic filming skills appeared to be dulled from this point on (with a few exceptions); but (IMO) his skills as a maker of serious films improved. But I don't want to jump ahead.
     
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  3. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower Thread Starter

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    Some interesting info from the film's Wikipedia entry:

    Allen himself seems to be in relative agreement with some critics, remarking that it is perhaps his worst movie. Allen has said he felt he let down the rest of the cast by casting himself as the lead. He explained that part of the problem was the period setting and the set building expense which made it too expensive to go back and reshoot anything.[3] Allen famously re-shot the entirety of his 1987 drama Septemberafter he felt he got the casting wrong.

    With its production budget of $33 million, it is Allen's most expensive film. In relation to most of his most successful productions, the film fared poorly in American theaters with ticket sales of over seven million dollars. Its worldwide gross was $18.9 million.


    I would have guessed that "Shadows & Fog" , with it's "largest indoor set ever built" (and built in New York City, no less) would have been his most expensive film to make.

    We know that Woody is Mr. "Full Creative Control", but is it possible that Dreamworks required that his first two films with the company be comedies, in color, in which he starred (figuring this to be the safest bet?)
     
  4. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower Thread Starter

    Location:
    Out of My Element
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  5. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower Thread Starter

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    Woody at the 2002 Oscars, coming to accept the Academy's apology for not nominating "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion"

     
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  6. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower Thread Starter

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    The compilation of New York clips that Woody introduced:



    As a born-and-raised New Jerseyite, I must point out that "On the Waterfront" was actually set in New Jersey (Hoboken).
     
  7. mrjinks

    mrjinks Optimistically Challenged

    Location:
    Boise, ID.
    Blows my mind that this was his most expensive production. It looks nice, but it doesn't look THAT nice. I'd agree with the S&F set, or maybe even Radio Days, which I seem to remember hearing was one of his most expensive movies (although it's pretty "old" by 2001 standards). But Scorpion? :shake:

    I had the same thought on the DreamWorks contract. Seems sort of "suspicious" that he'd suddenly opt for three goofy comedies and then a rom-com, all in a row...
    Actually, I think you could've embedded a Vimeo link for that, although I don't know that I've ever personally tried a Vimeo link here.

    I think this silly little short (available on the Concert for New York City dvd, mixed in with The Who & Bon Jovi and so on) is really great. Nice to see Tony Roberts again. :righton: I've never been to NYC, and so I have no so-called attachment to the area, but I would venture a guess that this short, in the wake of 9/11, must have been very warmly received by folks out there who might not even have been WA fans. Sort of like: look, there's that NY staple Allen, the timid little schmuck, crawling out of the disaster, and doing what he's always done - even a weakling like that is unstoppable in the wake of the attack, just like NYC.

    Indeed, the wit on display in that little short film, and in the stunning Oscar cameo* up above, kind of showed that Woody still had "it". One could possibly make a case that there are far more laughs in those eight minutes than there were in the COMBINED running times of Scorpion and our next film.

    *I have NEVER been more surprised by anything at the Oscars than Woody showing up that year. Even when Whoopie was doing the intro, it never entered my mind that she'd be introducing Woody. I let flow a "HOLY ****!" at that moment, and then marveled at how funny the guy was - just like when I'd seen him a few months earlier. I wish he'd have had the nerve to follow up on those comments a couple years ago and just try one more night of standup. I have no doubt it would've been brilliant, but at age 80, I think that ship has sadly sailed...
     
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  8. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower Thread Starter

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    When the "Concert for New York" was broadcast, I was excited to see the usual rock and roll dinosaurs, Woody Allen never crossed my mind. Despite his obvious political "orientation" (a bigot - but for the Left), it seems Woody has never really supported anything, or spoken out for anything, or raised funds, etc. But I guess New York is the one thing that makes him feel strongly enough to do something - hence the short film and the Oscars appearance (where I agree, he was exceptionally funny). The surprise face in the film for me was Hazelle Goodman.

    By 2002 I had given up watching the Oscars (and every other awards show). The only reason I happened to see Woody's appearance was because Paul McCartney was performing that night ("Vanilla Sky").
     
  9. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower Thread Starter

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    "Hollywood Ending" - 2002



    To quote Bob Dylan:

    "Down on the bottom
    Down to the last drop in the cup
    Down on the bottom
    No place to go but up"
     
  10. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower Thread Starter

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    Looking around the Internet and reading some contemporary reviews (most of which I find exceptionally generous), I like this bit from Elvis Mitchell in his NY Times review:

    When the bits centering on Val's on-and-off jealous hostility have him pecking away at Ellie's new-found West Coast calm, Mr. Allen gets his laughs. But as soon as these moments drift into honest emotion, Ms. Leoni and Mr. Allen seem to be in two different pictures.

    The scene where Val and Ellie have dinner is by far the best part of the film for me. Woody is on a roll, both as a writer and as an actor. And then there's the entire rest of the film to deal with, including the second "romantic ending" in a row which is absolutely, totally and completely unbelievable.

    Roger Ebert gave a lukewarm review which seems like a generous favor in return for years of good movies. But even he must point out that Val not only loses his sight, he loses his ability to hear in stereo, as he can never tell what direction voices are coming from (this is particularly on horrible, ugly display, during the one-on-one scene with Treat Williams, which for me is the bottom of the bottom - this is the emperor with no clothes and there's no one around to set him straight).
     
  11. mrjinks

    mrjinks Optimistically Challenged

    Location:
    Boise, ID.
    I haven't seen this in years, but will spin it sometime this weekend to see if there are more redeeming features than I recall...

    Once again, I kinda like the poster. Perhaps it's > film, again.
    [​IMG]
     
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  12. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower Thread Starter

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    It's somewhat ironic that when Woody was at his lowest creative point (IMO) in 2001-2002, I was transitioning from an average fan to something a bit more, well, fanatical. I went about purchasing DVDs of almost his entire back catalog, and the advent of the "smart" DVR coupled with a bazillion movie channels on DirecTV meant I always seemed to have some Woody on tap. Shortly before the film's release, someone on ebay was selling promotional t-shirts for "Hollywood Ending" (the poster above silk-screened on a white t-shirt) - I'm guessing they were leftover swag from some poorly-attended promotional party of one sort or another. Anyway, I took the plunge, and before I even had a clue how bad this film was, I was happily promoting it. :)
     
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  13. smilin ed

    smilin ed Senior Member

    Location:
    Durham
    First one since Manhattan I didn't see at the cinema.
     
  14. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower Thread Starter

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    An interesting quote from an interview, which addresses the role of "the artist", a topic Woody examines in many movies, particularly "Bullets of Broadway".

    From The Paris Refiew (their web site dates it 2016, but it's clearly from the early 90s - "15 films" after "Annie Hall")

    I hate when art becomes a religion. I feel the opposite. When you start putting a higher value on works of art than people, you’re forfeiting your humanity. There’s a tendency to feel the artist has special privileges, and that anything’s okay if it’s in the service of art. I tried to get into that in Interiors. I always feel the artist is much too revered—it’s not fair and it’s cruel. It’s a nice but fortuitous gift—like a nice voice or being left-handed. That you can create is a kind of nice accident. It happens to have high value in society, but it’s not as noble an attribute as courage. I find funny and silly the pompous kind of self-important talk about the artist who takes risks. Artistic risks are like show-business risks—laughable. Like casting against type, wow, what danger! Risks are where your life is on the line. The people who took risks against the Nazis or some of the Russian poets who stood up against the state—those people are courageous and brave, and that’s really an achievement. To be an artist is also an achievement, but you have to keep it in perspective. I’m not trying to undersell art. I think it’s valuable, but I think it’s overly revered. It is a valuable thing, but no more valuable than being a good schoolteacher, or being a good doctor. The problem is that being creative has glamour. People in the business end of film always say, I want to be a producer, but a creative producer. Or a woman I went to school with who said, Oh yes, I married this guy. He’s a plumber but he’s very creative. It’s very important for people to have that credential. Like if he wasn’t creative, he was less.
     
  15. The Absent-Minded Flaneur

    The Absent-Minded Flaneur Forum Resident

    Location:
    The EU
    Interesting quote.

    I'm not sure how clearly he is expressing his own position there. He sets up a series of oppositions that look false to me: works of art versus people; the creative instinct versus courage; resistance fighters versus artists; artists versus good schoolteachers.

    The either/or approach seems too simplistic, like a bad party game (who do we throw out of the balloon first: Annie Hall or Anne Frank?). And the relationships between the two alternates are more complex than he lets on. Great art has always been produced at a high cost to humanity (think hundreds of obvious examples from Ancient Egypt or the Renaissance); a good schoolteacher may be just as devoted to the cello or amateur dramatics as to his/her students; would it be a gain if Harry Block had been a nice guy, thereby making Deconstructing Harry impossible?

    I haven't seen Celebrity or Hollywood Ending, but I vaguely assumed them to be critical of the idea of fame, and all that accompanies it, rather than of art itself. Has Woody talked himself into an unnecessary corner in the interview?
     
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  16. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower Thread Starter

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    It seems to me that whenever it comes to Woody discussing his own work it is mired so deeply in false self-deprecation that we're left with little clue as to how he really feels (which may be the point of the whole exercise for him). His films aren't important, they're all failures, he seldom succeeds as a director, he has very limited skills as an actor ... and the comments in this interview seem to be an extension of that, covering artistic endeavors in general.

    The only copy of Shakespeare's plays vs. a human life? A quality play or the life of a dim-witted ham actress? Aren't these "party game" questions as well? We all know the ethically responsible answers already.

    And while some great art might be produced at a high cost to humanity, I suspect that Woody would argue that some of it has been produced quite easily and painlessly (such as Paul McCartney waking up with "Yesterday" in his head, or any number of movies that Woody didn't labor over with anguish, but simply completed a day's work on so he could make it to the Knicks game on time).

    I think "Celebrity", like "Stardust Memories", asks the sincere question "Why are so many people so interested in me?" , and by extension, "Why can't you all leave me alone?" When "Celebrity" was made, Woody found himself in the unique position of suffering the costs of fame (having his personal life constantly dissected) while not reaping the benefit (of having people actually attend his movies).

    "Hollywood Ending", I hate to say, isn't really "about" much of anything, IMO. Woody's character (Val) seems to have had artistic aspirations at some point in his life, but he has long since cashed them in. He doesn't care that the film he is making is garbage (although the French love it - "Thank God for the French!"), he is just trying to collect his paycheck and save his career. There are no questions of artistic aspiration in the film, and the satire isn't particularly biting (location will do for part of the movie, but we must "build" Central Park").
     
  17. The Absent-Minded Flaneur

    The Absent-Minded Flaneur Forum Resident

    Location:
    The EU
    I think that nails it, Ray.

    But - hey - less of the hard sell to those of us rash enough to admit we haven't seen Hollywood Ending!
     
  18. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower Thread Starter

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    Thanks.

    Well, the man himself starts the trailer for "Hollywood Ending" with ...

    "In the 70s and 80s he was one of America's hottest directors. But now ... call Dr. Kevorkian".

    Is "he" Val Waxman, or is "he" Woody Allen?

    In fairness, "Hollywood Ending" gets a 47% score on Rotten Tomatoes, which puts it right behind "Shadows and Fog" (50%), which I certainly suggest every Woody fan should see, and ahead of "Anything Else" (40%), which I will suggest sometime next week is a superior film to "HE". So perhaps my negativity towards the film should be taken with a grain of salt (or a Prozac and polo mallet). Conversely, I suspect there are a few films coming up where I will be singing solo in my praise for them.
     
  19. mrjinks

    mrjinks Optimistically Challenged

    Location:
    Boise, ID.
    You're not alone in your negativity towards this film, Mr. S.

    The premise for this was really good, IMO, and this SHOULD have been a very funny film. It should have given Woody an opportunity to skewer Hollywood on a number of levels and yet, it's SOOOOOO bad. Awful, really. I remember hearing about this film prior to seeing it and thinking it could be a comic goldmine (there's at least one more of those should-have-been films still coming) and then Woody just ruined it. There are some amusing bits in the first half-hour or so. The "having a drink" with Tea scene has some funny moments ("Sex is better than talk. Ask anybody in this bar. Talk is what you suffer through so you can get to sex.") That's a vintage Allen quote. Now those of you who haven't seen the film don't need to - I saved you some money! Another line that cracked me up was when Woody was defending his new girlfriend (Debra Messing) to his ex (Tea). He mentions she has a Ph.D. and Tea responds "In what? The history of gym?" :biglaugh:

    But then Woody introduces the "blindness" bit and the film just dies. It's almost painful to watch for the next 60 or so minutes as Allen intentionally doesn't face any of the people he engages in conversation with. As noted above, why does blindness make him not hear directionally? Just stupid, stupid, stupid. Adam Sandler-level stupid.

    Another shocking thing for me about this movie is that, in interviews, Allen will frequently name-check this as one of his better films, or one that he came closest to realizing his artistic vision on. :yikes: Seriously? In the old days, when pressed, Woody would name Stardust Memories and Purple Rose and Zelig as films he admired. I can understand the appeal of those. But some of the ones he's spoken highly of in interviews the last couple years have me shaking my head.

    And you know what? This film is 112 minutes long!! It could easily have 20 minutes cut from it, and it might be watchable at that length. I remember MANY years ago Woody saying that his films needed to be short - like 90 minutes max. As he worked his way into more dramatic and complex stories, that rule got broken, but even the dense, complex story of Hannah runs five minutes shorter than this overblown trifle of a story. I believe Woody's only broken the 2hr barrier once, with Match Point (124 mins), which we'll discuss down the line. But, take a look at some of his other films with the longest running times:
    Celebrity - 113 minutes
    Hollywood Ending - 112 minutes
    To Rome With Love - 112 minutes
    Anything Else - 109 minutes​
    Anyone notice any pattern there???

    One of the few things that gave me a chuckle is a screenshot from this scene - anyone who's been following my posts in this thread will see why I was amused:
    [​IMG]
     
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  20. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower Thread Starter

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    I agree on pretty much all points. This film is not only long by Woody standards, it "feels long". Perhaps he could have cut out one of the 4 (or was it 17?) times that Val is approached during his blindness and asked to make a choice between "this one and that one", or something similar. Woody's "blind" walk is about as funny as Woody's "I'm in a trance" walk. Does he actually speak positively of this film? His artistic vision for the film, then, was to make something a 5 year old might laugh at.

    The couple of tongue-in-cheek self-references built into Val ("Manhattan Moods" being one of them, and his adoration in France) seem desperate rather than cool. About as desperate as making his way through the female cast of "Saved By the Bell" for on-screen flirtations.
     
  21. mrjinks

    mrjinks Optimistically Challenged

    Location:
    Boise, ID.
    I forgot to mention the "this one or that one" repetition. Not funny the first time, tremendously aggravating when it gets repeated over and over again.

    I forgot which semi-recent interview I'd read in which he praised Hollywood Ending, but I know I read one while following this thread in the last month or so. Though I wasn't able to find that particular quote again, I did pick up my copy of "Conversations with Woody Allen" by Eric Lax. It's a 2007 book that I found quite fascinating upon publication. Good, fairly detailed interviews that cover his films, and film-making style, to that point.

    I actually found a number of interesting things to quote that we've touched on here recently.

    On Scorpion:
    I let down an exceptionally gifted cast. I had Helen Hunt, who is a superb actress and comedienne. I had Dan Ackroyd, who I always thought was just hilarious. I had David Ogden Stiers, whom I've used many times and always comes through. Elizabeth Berkley was wonderful. And it was successful abroad, not so successful here. But I, from my personal point of view, feel that maybe - and there are many candidates for this - but it may be the worst film I've made. It kills me to have a cast so gifted and not be able to come through for them.​
    I'd certainly agree regarding Ackroyd, particularly. He and Phil Hartman were the two most talented SNL stars, IMO, during the first 15 years or so that show was on the air. But Ackroyd's part in that film could have been played by the guy who drives the local school bus. Pointless.

    On the DreamWorks pictures:
    I had the ideas for Small Time Crooks, Curse of the Jade Scorpion and Hollywood Ending, all three on the desk. And I said, "Hey, I'd like to knock off these three comedies and get them off my desk." And I did them one after the other. There were people who said "Gee, he's doing trivial movies. He's doing these lightweight comedies." But I don't think that way. I just think, I want to do this one because it's on my desk. That's the idea I wanted to do at the time.
    On Hollywood Ending:
    ...the biggest personal shock to me of all the movies that I've done is that Hollywood Ending was not thought of as a first-rate, extraordinary comedy. I was stunned that it met with any resistance at all. I thought it was a very, very funny idea, and I thought that I executed it absolutely fine, and that I was funny and that Tea was great. I thought it was a simple, funny idea that worked, and could have been done by Charlie Chaplin, or Buster Keaton, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau. I didn't think I blew it anywhere along the line - in performance, in shooting it, in the jokes, situations.
    When I showed it to the first couple of people, film writers, they said, "This is just great. This is one of the funniest movies you've done." But that's not what the subsequent reactions were. And I was so shocked. Again, it didn't matter to me from any financial point of view, it was an inexpensive picture and worldwide it did its business and maybe made a little money. It was the biggest surprise for me of all the films I've done, because I generally don't love my own finished product but this one I did. I don't think many people would, but I would put it toward the top of my comedies.

    [elsewhere in the book, he repeats this view over and over again]

    ...I was so confident that I took that picture to Cannes, the first time I ever did that. I've sent pictures before, but I went on opening night and felt, Oh, everybody's going to love this and the French will particularly love it because the ending teases the French. And it was successful but nothing big - in France.

    ...that's a very funny movie. It was one of my most successful ones in terms of an idea that was executed properly... I mean everyone in that picture was so good ... I just thought it was just such a funny idea and the whole thing came off and I played it and it was well done. I think if people had gone to see it they would have enjoyed it. But they didn't go to see it.
     
    Last edited: Feb 14, 2016
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  22. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower Thread Starter

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    Thank you for taking the time to do all the typing!

    It's interesting that "Jade Scorpion" would be more successful abroad. Perhaps I give European audiences too much credit, but I feel like films that are more thought-provoking, more "talky" and less "action packed" are more likely to appeal to a European audience than an American audience. While "Curse" might have the last two bases covered (more talky and less action-packed), it certainly misses the bus on the thought-provoking part!

    How he can see "Curse" as an artistic failure and "Hollywood" as an artistic success absolutely blows my mind. And to some degree diminishes my admiration for him as a filmmaker. "Manhattan" needed to be held back from release because it was a failure while "Hollywood Ending" is a "first-rate, extraordinary comedy"???????

    I'm not sure how much faith to put into the Dreamworks comment. Would he admit that he made what Dreamworks wanted him to make if that were the actual case? The joke, of course, was on them, as even with overseas receipts it looks like they took a bath on their non-Antz association with Woody.

    I've re-read some of his comments about "Hollywood Ending" now three times, and I am sitting in front of my computer waving my hands around and stuttering incoherently in response. I mean there is room for subjectivity, but how on Earth can he think he made such a funny movie? The scene with Treat Williams in particular is beyond unfunny, it is cringe worthy. It's an insult to the audience's intelligence.
     
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  23. mrjinks

    mrjinks Optimistically Challenged

    Location:
    Boise, ID.
    Don't take the gas pipe, Ray... ;)

    The book I mentioned above is a pretty good read. I see copies are about $4 on up at amazon (although it appears they did away with the nice dust jacket on my printing*). There are only eight chapters covering various parts of his process, with interview comments with the author spanning decades:
    1. The Idea
    2. Writing It
    3. Casting, Actors, and Acting
    4. Shooting, Sets, Locations
    5. Directing
    6. Editing
    7. Scoring
    8. The Career
    If you opt for one of the cheap used copies, perhaps you could get the seller to remove this comment about our current film (pg. 226):
    ...nobody came to see it. I don't know what will happen in the long run. I mean, nobody came to see Broadway Danny Rose, either, but now many people have seen it and it's many people's favorite movie of mine.​

    Clearly this correlates to the quintessential nature of comedy = Tragedy + Time. Hollywood Ending was a tragically bad film, but in time it will be seen to be as good as Broadway Danny Rose. :)
    *
    [​IMG]
     
  24. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower Thread Starter

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    I won't take the gas pipe, but I might go out the window. (I had forgotten that a character in "Melinda and Melinda" also attempts to "go out the window", so the count is at 4 - Dr. Levy, Betty Ann Fitzgerald, Boris and Conservative Investment Analyst Who Posed in Playboy).

    Thanks for the tip on the book - used copies are certainly cheap enough on Amazon. I generally don't allow myself "pleasure" reading during the semester, because it gets in the way of my, well, "unpleasurable", for lack of a better word, reading (research materials). But it's at the top of my list for June.

    There's probably an entire generation of Woody fans that haven't been born yet who will come to appreciate "Hollywood Ending" for the work of genius that it is.

    Personally I will stubbornly maintain my position on the film:

     
  25. Peace N. Love

    Peace N. Love Forum Resident

    And that question drives me nuts, because my reaction is always, "Did you not spend years or your life cultivating your fame and your fan base? I'm pretty sure you weren't an anonymous private citizen who suddenly woke up one day with a movie deal and sold-out stand-up gigs."

    Okay, so maybe people don't fully anticipate how fame will impact them, but when achieving fame requires such a sustained, conscious effort (well, it used to), I don't generally have a ton of sympathy. And, thus, as an audience member, it's not a narrative that resonates with me.
     

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