This year I’ve decided to watch all of Woody Allen’s films (the ones he directed at least), in no particular order. Every fourth film I’ll post some brief thoughts about what I’ve seen, and probably some opinions on Allen as a filmmaker on the whole. Enjoy.
Annie Hall
I decided to start with Allen’s “masterpiece”, which, oddly, I’ve never seen. To be upfront, I didn’t love it. Mainly because of Diane Keaton. I know, blasphemy. But, her character was absolutely appalling to me. Every time she spoke it was like nails on a chalk board. Every conversation she had felt like her regurgitating something she’d been taught in college by some hippie professor she’d had the hots for. But, maybe that was the point. Allen’s comedy is very self-deprecating, and I suppose his drama falls that way as well, so I guess this was nothing more than an attempt at melding the two. I could never see their relationship as anything other than a torturous exercise in futility, and that’s pretty much what I felt about the film.
Love and Death
Moving chronologically backwards brought me to Love and Death, Allen’s first film with Keaton. I still found her unbearable, but she thankfully isn’t the sle focus of this film. Nothing in the movie was particularly memorable to me, but I did enjoy Allen’s antics on the battlefield. The “Great Russian novel as told by a neurotic Jew” aspect was kind of interesting, and the movie had its moments. The two of them plotting Napolean’s assassination was a hoot.
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex *But Were Afraid to Ask
Taking seven chapters of Rueben’s book (of the same name), all of which are questions, Allen sets out to provide cinematic answers to things like “Do Aphrodesiacs Work?” Of course, nothing gets answered. Taken as a whole the film doesn’t really work for me. Some of the segments seem to drag on forever and some of them are over far too fast. There was no rhythm to the editing and every time a new section started it felt jarring. But, taken separately, there’s some VERY funny stuff in here. Gene Wilder’s segment about a man who’s in love with a sheep was pretty hysterical (if a bit long) and a bit that sees Allen playing against type as an Italian man trying to satisfy his wife (a tribute to filmmakers like Fellini and Antonioni). Okay, the last one isn’t conventionally funny, but seeing Woody Allen play someone suave and cool, well, it was enough to make me smile. The final part of the film is easily the best though. Allen and an entourage of actors (including Burt Reynold and Tony Randall) reenact what happens inside the brain (and plenty of other body parts) when a man and a woman have sex. I’m not sure if it was hysterical because it was actually hysterical, or if the rest of the movie was so up and down that I latched onto it for what amount of funny it did have to offer.
Bananas
Hands down my favorite film of the first four, and, of the ten or so I’ve seen, one of my favorite of his comedies. There are segments that go on for far too long, but since this is one of Allen’s earliest films, it’s a forgivable sin. Allen plays, of course, a hapless product tester who gets caught up in a South American revolution because he was trying to escape the heartache of his newly broken relationship. The humour is equal parts slapstick (there’s a very hilarious seen of Woody trying to cook himself dinner, sped up and put to music like a Benny Hill routine) and Allen’s trademark intelligent witticism (“I fell in love, she just stood there.”) I absolutely loved this movie, and it’s one I’ll probably revisit before the year-long marathon is up.
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These four films make up most of Allen’s earliest career as a director (Sleeper and Take the Money and Run round out the bunch). I thought it odd that the further I went back, the more I began to like what he was doing. Annie Hall represents the start of Allen’s love affair with New York City, and I worry that this biggest part of his catalogue will be a big turn off for me. Hopefully he can convince me otherwise. It weird that he took a lot of guff for some of his later films like Hollywood Ending, Scoop and Curse of the Jade Scorpion and Small Time Crooks too, I suppose, for being just too silly. Silliness seemed to be a staple of at least three of his earlier efforts, and it’s that very thing that at least made them endearing for me. I didn’t adore Love and Death (what Allen claims is his favorite film), but I definitely liked it. And, Bananas gave me one of my favorite Allen quotes of all time. Hopefully I can find something to love in his Manhattan stories, or I may have to stick a few of those sillier flicks in there to break up the monotony.
