I expressed myself badly. I don't dislike the posters - on the contrary, they're often fascinating and I'm grateful to you for tracking them down for us. Several of them are very graceful and, as you say, charming.
If you watch all his films in reverse order, you'll think that half of "Crimes and Misdemeanors" is a re-make of "Match Point".
Just for comparison's sake, the movie poster that could very well have enticed 18-year-old Woody to see his first Bergman film. I'll take a wild guess that Bergman didn't have final say on HIS posters, at least not in America!
The slightly tamer Swedish version of that poster: Summer with Monika was a great inspiration to many men of a certain age in the 50s. The poet Roger McGough, later to form a pop group with Paul McCartney's brother, even wrote a poem about it, the first lines of which are: They say the sun shone now and again but it was probably cloudy with far too much rain. They say the greatest train robbery in history took place, probably students, who else wants to steal a train. They say cabinet ministers and osteopaths were particularly vulgar about this time, they say babies were born, married couples made love, often with each other and people died, sometimes violently. They say it was an average, ordinary, moderate, run-of-the-mill, common-or-garden summer, but it wasn’t. For I locked a yellow door and I threw away the key and I spent summer with Monica and Monica spent summer with me.
Smart move on McGough's part. A poet could chew his pencil to bits thinking of a convincing rhyme for radar.
I had a slight edge on you, since I only read it this week (from a link relating to the Hannah Montana & Her Sisters story). I also seem to recall a different interview where he mentioned something similar (or maybe it was in the Evanier book somewhere). I think he's also on record as saying he either creates or approves the trailers (I can't remember which). This surprises me, as one from an upcoming film is so incredibly awful, I can't believe he signed off on it... As to your query from yesterday... Best: 70s: Annie, by a fair margin. Manhattan is certainly "top tier" for me, but for a couple reasons mentioned earlier, it can't beat out Ms. Hall for favorite. If Play It Again were eligible, it would also rank very highly. 80s: Like you, Crimes is my favorite film period, so another fairly easy choice, but this decade has the most of those "top tier" Woody films for me. Purple Rose is perfect, Hannah nearly so. I also would throw Stardust in that group, with Danny Rose possibly making it, too. 90s: Here's the toughest choice for me. When I started to respond to this thread yesterday, I picked Deconstructing, but the more I think about it, the more inclined I am to choose Husbands & Wives. As much as I love the former, with its complex structure and acidic wit, there are just a couple minor quibbles I have with it (casting and it's resemblance - to me! - to Stardust). Husbands & Wives was just about perfect, so I'll give it the edge. Those are the only two bonafide classics to me that decade, although I quite like Bullets, Murder, and Sweet & Lowdown, too. Worst: 70s: Although I find some of Sex's sketches funny, that has to be the weak link for me. 80s: Tough pick, between whiny Mia's star turn in September or the rather pointless Sex Comedy. I think I'd have to choose the latter. At least September has a somewhat interesting story line. 90s: Need you have asked? As much as I hate the Greek Chorus in Aphrodite and don't care for Woody Branagh in Celebrity, or am uncharmed by the musical, nothing even comes close to the horribly unfunny, and non-dramatic Shadows & Fog, a film that has nothing going for it but cinematography, IMO. Now on to something important - Posters! 70s best: Manhattan's image is one of the classics of all cinema, not just Woody's. Easy win. 70s worst: a tie, as both Bananas and Sleeper hit the "sub-mental" level for me. 80s best: gotta go with my Crimes eyechart, just edging out Purple Rose, which is so spare but evokes the Depression-era romance and escapism well, I think. Both Stardust shots are nice, and Sex Comedy's poster has the simple charm that the film failed to achieve. 80s worst: let's do another tie. September is awful, but so is Another Woman, a movie which I seem to like much more than most folk. 90s best: I love me my b&w shots, I must say. But even I'm somewhat shocked that I find myself tempted to watch Shadows & Fog when I look at that poster. Given how terrible I think that film is, that's a considerable victory. I also like the simple Murder Mystery image a lot. 90s worst: Bullets, although in the 90s I think that "artistry" I admired fell away in the poster art department. I'll still post them as new films come up but, with only a handful of exceptions, they became much more standard and less intriguing to me as the years passed.
The biggest problem is there are so MANY of them - it's quite a commitment if you wanna rewatch them. But if you decide to, I do think chronologically makes sense. I thought you made a great point in the first post. Watching in reverse chrono order is a refreshing twist. I'm also intrigued that you're a "newer" fan. What film(s) caught your attention and drew you into his work? I'm curious - although perhaps those thoughts/experiences can wait to be shared until we get to whatever films those were... I quoted your second post because THAT'S the one you should have decided not to post!
Wow - did I hear Gene Hackman in that, too? Saw it in the theatres back then - my son was about the right age for it, but don't remember much of it at all today. I do remember finding the visuals - the ants themselves - highly displeasing to look at. Couldn't they have made them cuter? Note: looks like this is currently on Netflix... Btw: what do this and Fading Gigolo and Picking Up The Pieces have in common? Woody and ... Sharon Stone! Coincidence?
Yup, that's Gene Hackman, and we've got some other Woody "veterans" in there - Sylvester Stallone, Sharon Stone, Christopher Walken. This is a movie I never would have seen in a million years if Woody wasn't in it. That being said, I remember it being sufficiently entertaining. The part of Z was so clearly written for Woody that anyone else playing it would have just been "doing Woody" anyway. This paycheck must have paid a lot of bills while those "Celebrity" royalties trickled in.
Also coincidental (?) that Woody did this rare "outside starring role" for Dreamworks, and then - PRESTO! - a year later Dreamworks suddenly started backing his films, beginning with Small Time Crooks...
As one of my favorite Grateful Dead songs says, "Even the purest of romantics compromise". Or Dreamworks saw that cool 5 mill that "Celebrity" raked in at the box office, and the 4 mill "Sweet and Lowdown" put into Sony's bank account, and just had to have him on their team!
Watch the first minute of this "making of" documentary - which of these things is not like the others?
I'm not sure how much traffic we're going to get on this film, so I'm going to hop in early this time. The general lack of popularity of most of Woody Allen's films has always been at least somewhat mystifying for me, but the fact that this film could feature Oscar-nominated performances for best actor (Sean Penn) and best supporting actress (Samantha Morton) and still gross just over $4 million is staggering. This is by no means an inaccessible film for casual moviegoers. There's a lot about this film to like, starting with the performances I've already mentioned. Sean Penn completely inhabits Emmet Ray. Samantha Morton does a terrific job with a challenging role. There are subtleties to both primary characters that would likely be missing from lesser films. We'd surely get a lot more of the "but underneath Emmet had a heart of gold" vibe, and we'd be led to believe that despite being mute Hattie's mental acuity is equal to or greater than all the other characters. Instead, we see that Emmet, underneath, is likely the very same jerk we see on the surface, just one swimming in insecurities. And Hattie may in fact not be so bright (although she has a much stronger moral compass than Emmet). I like that the script itself is something of an unreliable narrator. As something of a mockumentary (or maybe you could call this film a series of re-creations of "what might have happened"), the "reporting" is susceptible to the apocryphal stories that surround any semi-legend from 70 years before. Did Emmet really fall into a stack of money? This concept is maximized in the "Rashomon" sequence - the same story being told from multiple perspectives (and in this case, the perspectives are far-removed from the first-hand reality, "The story I heard was ...) The decision to leave a gap in film's script (akin to Jesus's "missing years") is either a bold one or a lazy one, depending on which camp one is in. But it makes sense that 70 years after the fact, there'd be chunks of Emmet's life that we simply would not know. On the negative side, I never find the film rip-roaringly FUNNY. It's mostly amusing, which is no crime. There's also no great story arc - or maybe we are subconsciously following the "wrong" arc (as the Emmet-Hattie story is ultimately the focus, not the story of a mysterious guitar legend). On the whole, I think this is an entertaining film that deserved a better fate. This was Woody's last film with Sony Pictures Classics, and either they didn't get behind it because he was leaving, or he left because they didn't get behind this film, IMO.
I recall liking this one, particularly the line Penn's character has for a young lady "wanna go the dump and shoot rats?" makes me laugh now, just thinking about it.
Great thread! I haven't contributed to it yet, although I'm a big fan of Woody's work. Currently I'm re-watching his movies (a few newer ones I'm seeing actually for the first time) in a strictly random order (i.e. just what I'm in the mood for is next...). So, a bit late, but here are my picks for the best and worst: 1970s Best: Annie Hall - Kind of obvious choice and while I really love all of his 70s movies (especially Bananas, Sleeper, Love & Death and - of course - Manhattan), this one just can't be beat. Worst: Take the Money and Run - Well, not really "worst", because I still think it is a very funny and clever movie. But for some reason, when seeing it again a few months ago after many years, it wasn't as good as I remembered it - don't really know why. 1980s Best: Broadway Danny Rose - I would say that Hannah and Crimes are better, but I guess Danny Rose is my favorite Woody Allen movie ever. It's such a joy to watch, no matter how many times one has seen it. Although I prefer to watch most WA movies in english, funnily enough I find this one even better with the german dubbing. Worst: September - Actually I was really impressed with it when I saw it again recently - far better than I remembered it (kind of the opposite to my reaction when re-watching Take the Money and Run). But still I would say this is my least favorite of the 80s. Maybe its complete seriousness has something to do with it, though I rate Another Woman quite highly. 1990s Best: Manhattan Murder Mystery - One of his funniest and also quite suspenseful in places - great combination. Fantastic performances from about everyone involved. Worst: Celebrity - I haven't re-watched this yet and only seen it once many years ago, so maybe my opinion will change. But I remember this as pretty average and cannot imagine another one from the 90s rating below this (I really like both Alice and Shadows and Fog )
Thank you for playing our "game". Please feel free to contribute more regularly - have you seen "Sweet and Lowdown", for instance?
Yes, I have seen it, but it's been quite a while (about 10 years I guess). But I remember it as really good with great acting from Sean Penn. Maybe this will be the next for me to revisit.
By this stage everyone seems to be struggling a bit to keep up with Woody's relentless output. Personally I've got my feet up, wine glass in hand, and I won't be back before 2005. But I'm intrigued to know how Woody himself experienced the period we've reached. All artists with such long careers are bound to come to a point when either they fail to keep pace with changing audience demands or they start repeating themselves with progressively diminishing returns. In these circumstances the greatest artists often consciously set about reinventing themselves. Dylan, for example, seems to have spent about a decade painfully reinventing himself before getting his muse back in Time Out Of Mind and Love and Theft. Tom Waits did it faster with Rain Dogs. Leonard Cohen went synthpop. In the movies Antonioni's English-language films gave him a new lease of life when he started flagging around the time of Red Desert. Spike Lee switched to documentaries. Scorsese reinvented himself as a scholar. And then there are those who seem driven by an inner compulsion to change the world every morning: Picasso, the Beatles, Godard, Shakespeare, Welles. The sad cases just go into artistic decline: Wordsworth, Chaplin, Strauss etc. It's my impression that Woody simply refuses to acknowledge the issue. His priority is to get funding and once the funding is secure he writes whatever the hell he likes. Neither failure nor success has much impact on him. He has made a few really good films in the 21st century but he hasn't done it by reinventing himself or battling with his muse or facing the long dark night of the soul. The old curmudgeon just plods along producing gold and dross, in fits and starts, without any rhyme or reason. At least that's how it seems to me. But it can't really be that simple. Can it?
Bailing out when things, get rough, you're such a fair-weather flaneur. Kidding aside, a terrific question. Your question brought a clip to mind - a really good interview from British TV, when Woody was promoting "Celebrity". From 7:10 to about 9:00, Woody discusses his lack of popularity in the United States, and his inability to get a handle on that reality. I think in some ways the lack of response from the American audience to the majority of his work from the last 35 years (with a few notable exceptions) made him resolved to the point of not caring how his films fared, as long as he got to make another the next year, under his usual "full artistic control" terms. But I have to think when things got really nip and tuck, and financing became difficult (and even appeared to completely dry up in 2004), that there had to be SOME reflective process. Woody's no dummy - he could see for himself that "A King in New York" and "A Countess From Hong Kong" were pale, pale shadows of not only Chaplin's best films, but even of films by other contemporary filmmakers at their times of release. There must have been a little bit of "Have I lost it? Has that happened to me?" Yes, he might have been "too close" to "Manhattan" to realize how good it was, but surely he wasn't too close to "Curse of the Jade Scorpion" to know every step of the way that he had made a stinker. And while the move to Europe was cast in the positive light of opening up new creative avenues, it was either take European financing (and work in Europe as part of the deal), or stop making movies entirely (or move to HBO maybe? Certainly not broadcast TV). That had to put some sort of dent in the veneer. But since, every time there's been a run of bad business, there's been a "Match Point", a "Vicki Cristina" or a "Midnight in Paris" to assure him of the ability to rock on as he pleases. I would be pleasantly shocked if there is something left in our collective future that will be truly be a major addition to his canon. I would love to see a film addressing mortality issues, but from the perspective of a man over 80, not someone with a tumor scare. But instead on his 90th birthday we'll get a film about a magician.
Thanks for that great clip. Good to be reminded yet again of how quick, charming and witty he is. I love the deadpan cough when he is asked why he isn't more popular in his own country, and then he says, "it's not that it bothers me but it mystifies me". I interpret this to mean "it used to bother me a lot but I've learned to live with it". It has to frustrate him that he doesn't connect with a wider American audience, and he has to have grappled with the "what am I doing wrong" question. As you say, the intermittent successes have probably helped to keep the question at arm's length. Plus there is that incredible work ethic - which Max Weber turns out to have pinned on the wrong religion, at least as far as Woody is concerned. Sometimes I think he just enjoys making films so much that it doesn't particularly matter to him if some of them are stinkers. It's only the movies, after all. But then he produces something as hard-hitting as Match Point or Blue Jasmine and I have no idea where that suddenly came from. I guess Woody mystifies us as much as we mystify him.
