I spent a good chunk of my life in the very heart of Woody country - working and socializing on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I happened to be visiting New York this summer when "Irrational Man" opened, and it was playing in one theater on FOUR screens (like it was "Star Wars"!) Woody's commercial popularity in Manhattan is a never-ending source for amazement. I've spent years guessing as to why his movies are so poorly received in America (particularly middle America, I think), and my crackpot theories include - "too intellectual" (even if it's a silly comedy, his reputation for intellectualism proceeds him), "too New York" (Woody's rant in "Annie Hall" about how the rest of the country perceives New York might not be that far off the mark), "too Jewish" (Am I not giving middle America enough credit for being progressive?) And of course there's the old standby that his movies almost never have "action" (It's been a long time since anything blew up in a Woody Allen movie), and will never appeal to teen-aged audiences, who are the driving demographic of box office success in America.
Interesting theories. As it happens, I've recently completed an important research project, which shows that 22 people have posted in the last ten pages of this thread. 17 of them live in the US, 2 in the UK, 1 each in Canada, Germany and the Netherlands. Only 1 of the Americans claims to be currently resident in New York City; a few are from adjacent states (and therefore tainted by association); but others post from as far afield as Boise and Detroit (or so they would have us believe!). So there you have it. Definite proof that people who comment on Woody Allen films live in different places. PS I've made some heroic assumptions about posters who don't name their country or make far-fetched claims of living in another world etc.
I loved Sweet and Lowdown. Foundnit quite funny and completely charming. Being a big fan of the music also did not hurt my appreciation. The soundtrack features Bucky Pizzarelli as the rhythm guitarist throughout (not playing the solos, which are Howard Alden). Bucky is the guitar player who more than anyone else alive blows my mind every time I hear him play. Listening to him is an education and I am astounded by the musical mind revealed in his choices of notes and chord voicings. I have seen him play well over a dozen time in central and north jersey, ranging from free to $15 cover charges or minimums. I would urge you all to get out and see him if you have a chance, but that chance may not come again, as he has cancelled all appearances since suffering a stroke in the fall. There are encouraging reports, so perhaps he will get out there again, and if he does it is an opportunity not to be missed. P.S. his music has some real edge to it unlike much swing guitar, and has little in common with that of his more famous son John.
You've got some serious sampling bias there. I would take a guess that 95% or more of the posts on all of SH.tv are by males. Since the forums are in English, there is a large bias towards people from English-speaking countries. Etc. etc. My guess at the "average" Woody Allen fan demographic in 2016 is: 1 - More likely to male than female (males, I think, are generally much more likely to be "loyal" to a given filmmaker, director, etc.) 2 - Higher level of education than the average person 3 - Above-average income among moviegoers 4 - More likely to lean to the political left than the average person 5 - OLD (like me) And as for living in another world, I didn't claim it, Bob Dylan did,. I just stole it.
I agree that the music is a highlight of the film. Here's hoping that all turns out well for Mr. Pizzarelli.
Since Mr. J. pointed out that "Antz" is streaming on Netflix, I watched a portion of it the other night before falling asleep (no offense meant to the film). I was surprised (as I probably was in 1998) by the sprinkling of profanity, apparently included specifically to get the film a "PG" rating, and to avoid the pigeon-hole of being a kids movie.
I've lived in Middle America almost all my life, with the exception of about 15 years in Florida. I'd wager that the Woodman doesn't do well in Middle America because: (1) He's too New Yawk (it's usually pronounced in this derisive manner). Middle America hates New York. To this day, people think the Big Apple is nothing but criminals, rude people and foreigners (Middle America hates foreigners too). I loved my visit there, I thought the people were friendly and helpful, but then, I've always felt like a fish out of water where I live. I went to NJ for a training class and several other people in the class refused to go into the city based on fear of getting mugged and/or killed. I couldn't believe they would pass up an opportunity to visit one of the most exciting places on earth (Lower Manhattan). (2) Male movie fans here (young, as well as my age - as RayS put it - OLD) generally go to movies based on comic books and/or feature some kind of superhero. Sci-Fi does well too. The females love the rom-coms as long as the players are young and attractive. I think Match Point did okay here - probably played two or three weeks and drew the women in. (3) People in this part of the country don't go to the movies to think. They go to be entertained and/or amazed. They don't think it's worth paying money to see a Woody movie on the big screen since there are no explosions and CGI. Dramas only do well if there's some super power involved. (4) I think films like his earlier, wacky movies would do well here (we kind of like irreverent comedy) but as we know, Woody is way past that by now. His movies are too low key. (5) Woody is not your typical macho Mid-west kind of guy. Do you see Woody going deer hunting? I think not. People here can't accept that. (6) And, as much as I hate to admit it, his movies are too intellectual. Not that we're particularly dumb in this part of the country (I believe there are dumb people all over) but as in point 3, people don't want to THINK about films. I remember asking my friend at work what he thought about Interstellar, and he complained that it was too high brow (and this guy is pretty smart).
You make some very good points. Woody Allen movies make you think, and I'd wager thinking is not always a real popular form of entertainment. I used to work for a guy, a self made millionaire who I doubt made it out of the 8th grade. One of his favorite sayings (and he had a ton of them) was, "Most people don't like to think. In fact, they go to sleep until the thought wears off." I just asked my loving and tolerant wife why Woody doesn't play to the masses and she concurred. "His comedy isn't guffaw comedy. No practical jokes or shock laughs. Just commentary on his interpretation of the human condition." I have to admit, I've NEVER seen a Woody Allen movie in a theater. I mean, there's really no reason to. There's nothing big or larger than life about his films, nothing that gets lost in the translation to the small screen. On one hand that's probably bad on my part, not supporting him by shelling out bigger bucks to see his movies in a theater. But he's still cranking them out, with or without my input, he's made it. I'm a native Chicagoan and I absolutely loved New York City when I was there three years ago. But I can see where folks not in urban environments might not care for Woody's brand of artistry. For about 5 years I lived in a little farm town 50 miles west of Chicago and people there, as nice as they were, probably weren't beating a path to the video store to grab EYWTKASBWATA. I can see where he may be thought of as an intellectual, but I really enjoy him and I'm but a high school graduate who can barely stand on his feet if the conversation gets too deep. Although I have said here in the past that I like his movies largely for their entertainment value, I do start to get the point after a couple of viewings (some are quicker and some are thicker). Anyway, I did finish Deconstructing Harry today, and although I enjoyed it I'm going to watch it again before it goes back to the library. It took me three quarters of the movie to kind of figure out what was going on. See, I told ya!
Thank for you for the insights from Middle America. My parents lived for the first 75 or so years of their lives in the New Jersey suburbs less than 20 miles from New York City. I can literally count on one hand the number of times they visited New York, and when they did they had fear for their safety that was completely out of proportion to where they went (the Christmas show at Radio City, for instance!) They assumed everyone in New York got mugged or killed all the time, every day. The fact that I went there daily for 15 years to work and came home in one piece must have been viewed as a miracle. So if your points above are accurate, does that mean that Manhattan residents LIKE to think??? And to point 1, above: “Don't you see the rest of the country looks upon New York like we're left-wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers? I think of us that way sometimes and I live here.”
“Sun is bad for you. Everything our parents said was good is bad. Sun, milk, red meat ... college.” I have two reasons for seeing Woody's movies in the theater - 1) I'm anxious to see them, they've become minor "events" I look forward to like having tickets for a concert, and 2) being in the theater allows me to be "lost" in the film in a way that being home (even alone) never seems to allow me. And if you've got a GOOD audience, the audience reaction can actually help the film a little bit (I saw "Scoop" in a packed Manhattan theater full of people laughing their heads off, it enhanced the experience of seeing a less than stellar film). I'm glad that you enjoyed "Harry", and if ever there was a Woody film that benefits from a double shot of "first" viewings, it's "Harry". Enjoy!
Some great posts here. Reading them, I started thinking about the Coen Brothers' A Serious Man. Like Woody's films, A Serious Man is largely free of incident or action heroes; it's very Jewish; there are plenty of wisecracks about God and sex and death; the heart of the movie is a Dostoevskian moral dilemma which is simultaneously tragic and comic; and it even features a lead actor who has also appeared in a Woody Allen movie (name that movie . . .). But it's set in Minnesota, on the Coen Brothers' home territory, and despite the superficial similarities, it doesn't feel anything like a Woody Allen movie. The pacing is entirely different; so are the decors, the balance between interior and exterior, the income levels and cultural references; the battle with Fate is less frantic, more bleak and resigned; and there is a mandatory hunting scene (sort of). It's a movie that probably couldn't exist if Woody hadn't existed first, but he couldn't have made this movie in a million years. That said, A Serious Man didn't set the prairie on fire either. It grossed about $9 million in the US. Even without the stain of New York, this stuff doesn't seem to appeal to Middle America. Foreigners liked it better . . .
“Don't you see the rest of the country looks upon New York like we're left-wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers? I think of us that way sometimes and I live here.”
I briefly considered a Coen Brothers film-by-film thread before this one, mostly because I could learn a lot more that way as I'm far less fluent in their canon (I've almost seen them all, but apart from "The Big Lebowski", they aren't nearly as burned into my brain as the Woody films are). Being the Woody Allen fan I am, I of course went to see "A Serious Man" opening night. "The Coen Brothers take on the Book of Job" - box-office poison that maybe 100 people like me were excited over. I have a particular fondness for the Book of Job for reasons I'm probably not allowed to explain on this forum. This film's box office failure certainly supports the notion that American audiences don't like to think. They're also usually not too excited about films that suggest that life may just be a serious of random, generally negative events that add up to nothing, and that the less you intellectually and emotionally engage the bigger questions of existence the happier you may be. Sounds vaguely familiar.
Spent the better part of a semester poring over every frame of Blood Simple at Annenberg (Penn) in the 80s
Catching up after a hectic few days... Once again, despite the Alice/Shadows gulf, we remain in near lock-step on our opinions, Ray. I think Sweet & Lowdown is an excellent film. This thread has had me thinking about what I might consider his "top ten" or - in my words - "top tier" films. This one would probably just miss the mark, but it's pretty challenging for a new film to rank up there with Annie & Manhattan & Purple Rose & Crimes and so on, so that's no knock on the quality of this flick. I really like the structure of the film, with the "gaps" and the various "talking heads" chiming in with their stories about Emmett. Sort of Danny Rose in a way: "well the story I heard was that...." The film looks gorgeous, as always, and the soundtrack is superb, plus Penn's fretwork certainly is convincing to this non-musician. Just like Harry, and perhaps Cheech, here we again get a fairly despicable person gifted in art. Were it not for some similarly unlikeable characters from his earlier films (Sandy Bates, in particular) one might be tempted to question whether Woody was using his art to rake himself over the coals for his questionable personal choices, or for the perception of those choices by the masses... I really like your point about what other screenwriters would likely do with the Emmett and Hattie characters. I'd never given that a thought, but I think you're right on the money there. Poor Samantha Morton. Imagine her excitement at being a little-known actress cast for A Woody Allen Film, in a major role. Then she gets the script ... and has no lines! Given Woody's notorious penchant for giving his actors little instruction (and no rehearsal), I wonder how much was written into the script for her, in terms of directions, or whether she came up with it all on her own. One last comment on the "rip-roaringly funny" comment. I must say that I rarely find much of his films fit that description, and haven't sought big belly laughs from his films for decades. The true "laugh out loud" moments are pretty rare for me, in most of his films (aside from Deconstructing). I've mentioned before my favorite quality in his films is the "bittersweet" tones they evoke, in scenes like Cecelia going back to the Jewel theatre, or Isaac realizing (too late) that Tracy was more mature than he was, or Woody himself commenting that "with the passing of each New Year's Eve, those voices [from our past] do seem to grow dimmer and dimmer". Just a few of MANY examples I could cite, and I'd add the ending of this movie to that list.
I quoted your post TWICE, because you brought up a few good points that are worth responding to, and whenever I type a lot in one response, on any computer, my typing entry slows to a crawl for some reason. I tackled the film above, but also wanted to mention the release of it separately. It really was kind of a mystery why Sony Classics left this film to die. Of all the films from 1984-onward, my memory is the fuzziest about when I saw this film. There's a part of me that thinks I didn't see it until after Small Time Crooks, simply because I didn't have the opportunity. That may not be true, but I doubt I had an option to see it before the Oscars. Summer of '99 saw me move to Boise, so I was now in city #3 (following Mpls. & Seattle) for following Woody films. In both of the bigger cities, there were smaller theatres that were ALWAYS the first to premiere Woody's new films - they never played the multiplexes. That pretty much held true in my "new" town, too - a tiny little four-screen cinema almost always premieres his films here, but you can also order a glass of wine or take a draft beer in with you, which was not an option in the larger, more "cultured" cities I'd lived in! The point I'm doing a rather poor job of making here, is that even in a "middle-American" place like this, where one wouldn't expect to find much of a fanbase for his films, there is one! And yet, iirc, the owner of our theatre had a hard time getting a print to screen (she appears every Friday morning on the radio station I listen to to speak about the films playing for the week). Very odd that. You'd think Sony Pictures would've felt the film was worth a little bit better distribution. While it's true that his lousier films may only play here a week or two here, they're always well-attended on opening night, and his better-respected later movies (Vicky, Match Point, Midnight In Paris) played for weeks and weeks and weeks here. I seem to remember reading a "national" article about the box office success of Midnight, and what a shock that was for his films, and them referencing that it played a record number of weeks at a small theater in Idaho. That made me . I agree there probably isn't much of a point in seeing Woody's new films on the big screen (though, like Ray, I appreciate the lack of distractions in a theater setting), as there's rarely that big-screen "WOW" moment that some of the blockbusters offer. However, I can't stand most of those blockbusters. Went to see The Revenant a couple weeks ago and must've sat through about 3 different big-screen comic book previews first - YECH. I'm not averse to the Nolan-directed Batman series and I (mostly) enjoy decent sci-fi & fantasy, but if I never seen another preview for an Antman/Spiderman/Fantastic Four/Iron Man/Idiot Man film again, I'll die a happier man. In fact, on the rare occasions when one of Woody's movies is playing the multiplex here, if I'm going to a different film at approximately the same time, I'll buy a ticket for Woody's film instead of the film I'm actually seeing, so a few extra bucks get allocated to its box office. I think Woody's US film grosses have been increased at least $80 by my son and I in the last decade.
I had this on - sort of in the background - as I was doing things over the weekend. The good thing about this was that it kept my eyes from focusing on the visually unappealing ants. I asked earlier, "couldn't they have made them cuter?" and I'll stick with that gripe. I even remember a review from the time with that same issue. Anyway, it was pretty clear that role was custom-written for Woody - I wonder how much he tweaked the dialogue himself (?). I, too, noticed the "damns" in the film and wondered how many kids' films have the lead character use the word "erotic" at some point. That one jumped out at me!
After this, I'm officially caught up! Yes, The Great Spendini could indeed make an encore appearance. However, eternal pessimist that I am, even I think that Woody likely has another great film in him. I've written off Dylan, McCartney & Woody - my holy trinity of gods that still walk the earth - more than once, and yet each has come back from the dead (multiple times). My only fear with Woody is that he'll never have another good role for himself. I actually thought he was intentionally writing his final role for Scoop - which I'll elaborate on later (but of course I was wrong on that count). I think his increasing frailty may make it difficult for him to move well and/or deliver any quips with necessary speed. But I'm atypically hopeful that I'm wrong. Maybe he & Elaine May will light up the (small) screen later this year... I actually don't agree with this point. I really don't think it frustrates him that he doesn't connect with a wider audience. Flip the quote about the perception of New Yorkers and come up with a corresponding perception Woody might have of NON-New Yorkers. Something vaguely like "Right-winging, bitter-clinging, proud clingers of our guns, our God, and our religion, and our Constitution" (who love comic-book action films!). I think that's probably how Woody views much of America, and I think that's even validated by the fact that when one of his films DOES experience reasonable commercial success, he becomes much more skeptical about that film's merits. I can't cite a specific example, but I've read numerous interviews where he's talked about this. I *think* Crimes was a film he's gone on record as stating he thought was fairly good but, given the very positive critical and moderate commercial success it had, he now felt that people had misinterpreted it. [don't suppose you can help me out with a quote, Ray?] I was griping a few pages back about how some of Woody's later short stories have words that less than 1% of English speakers would understand, and I do feel his references in films are sometimes TOO literate or obscure. You're not the only one who feels "the conversation gets too deep" sometimes and I DID graduate college. But, on the other hand, I'd hate to see him "dumb down" his films at all. As to never seeing them in the theater, I'll let this guy speak: Exactly! Even Woody's lesser films come off better on opening night, when you're there with other people who've been to Woody's films on opening night in the past. It's like going to a Dylan show with a Dylan fan vs going with someone who likes "rock music" because they like Bon Jovi. It still can't redeem a lousy film, but it can mitigate the pain somewhat. Very soon, I will chime in with a (LONG*) personal story about seeing one of these so-called lesser films in circumstances which made me not care one whit that the film was subpar, because I had a fabulous time. *Note to all: you've been warned!
Hopefully we can disagree more in the near future. I never thought of the Danny Rose connection but you're right on - the difference being that we having living "witnesses" in BDR and "historians" (such as the scholarly Douglas McGrath) in S&LD. I recall some reviewers equating Samantha Morton to Harpo Marx, which shows how dumb some reviewers can be. Her performance required subtlety but not overselling. She never "gets tough" with anyone ("Horse Feathers" reference). Pointing out how the bittersweet moments are your favorites makes me think of Chaplin, how we went from films where the actors literally kicked each other in the pants to some of the most poignant moments in cinema history ("the kid" being taken away from the tramp, the tramp misunderstanding the actions of his dream girl in "The Gold Rush", the now-sighted girl and the tramp at the end of "City Lights"). Either aspect can reveal exemplary filmmaking skill, combining the two with great effect = genius. (IMHO)
A bit like Woody taking his niece to the movies in "Hannah", for many years I've been taking my nephew. We compromise on selection, but my one rule is "no movies with numbers in the title allowed" (well, two rules, if something if overwhelmingly "submental" I will veto, and he, in turn, has thus far vetoed anything in Hindi). Well, I guess I have a rule against seeing things sourced from comic books too. OK, so I have a few rules. Even if they don't get wide distribution in multiplexes, I feel like Woody's films (at least something like "Irrational Man") should play for weeks and weeks in art houses. In my experiences outside of New York City, they don't. I had a really strong feeling that I had a one week window to see "Magic in the Moonlight" in a theater, any theater, and I was correct.
Well, of course we are all excitedly waiting for "the story". My "story" is still about 10 years away. The quote you're hoping I would know, well ... I feel like I've heard the gist of what you're saying come out of Woody's mouth, but I can't for the life of me remember where. "Right-winging, bitter-clinging, proud clingers of our guns, our God, and our religion, and our Constitution" (who love comic-book action films!). The quote above may be the highlight of this entire 43 page thread! I know you were being a bit broad and tongue in cheek, but it is a REALLY good question and one wonders how Woody would answer it (if he felt comfortable with offering an honest answer - but generally people 80 and over stop caring about what people think of what they say). How does Woody perceive the vast part of the country that ignores his work?
I did find the following quote which is apparently from Newsweek in '98 or so, which was sort of on the lines that I was thinking: In today's American film market, if my films don't show a profit I know I'm doing something right.
We'll give folks a bit more time to chime in on "Sweet and Lowdown", but here's a bit of a teaser. A film about a group of criminals, recently released from prison, who scheme to rob a bank by setting up a front business nearby and tunneling in ... and then the business turns out to be surprisingly lucrative ...
