Although honored as a filmmaker over more than four decades , Woody Allen would have had no trouble making a living as a stand-up performer. Here he is in an appearance on "The Dean Martin Show" from the Sixties. What is exceptional about Allen is how well he weaves together all kinds of issues from the milieau of the period into a seamless tableau of humor that is neither preachy nor condescending to MIddle American prejudices. He is operating in a field somewhere between Lenny Bruce and Bob Hope with a mind for linkages all his own. Allen's first feature films ("Take the Money and Run" 1969, "Bananas" 1971 ) are funny but a bit ragged around the edges. In the 1973 classic "Sleeper", his abilities as a director take a quantum leap. Here he plays around with popular culture again--this time as a former Greenwich Village Health Food Store owner, Miles Monroe, who suffers a hospital mishap during a ulcer operation. He is "frozen" in a suspended state by nervous hospital administrators and wakes up 200 years later. America has turned into a totalitarian police state with little knowledge of its 20th Century past. What might be a standard science-fiction allegory is turned into a series of funny sequences. Here a scientist asks him about the world he inhabited---a perfect vehicle to drop in some wild flights of intermingled fancy as well as take pot shots at a certain egotistical writer, a well known preacher and a couple nasty politicians or two.
The last clip is from 1975's feature "Love and Death". A spoof of Ingmar Bergman films and Russian Literature, the movie is the closest Allen has made to an epic. Shot in Yugoslavia, it's also a unusual film in that most of the writer-director's later work will set in and around New York City until declining financial returns from his films forced him to make films in Europe, where his stature is somewhat higher. "Love and Death" is also, to me, one of the funniest films ever made--as this trailer shows. Perhaps it helps that I was studying Russian novellas like "Notes From Underground" in High School and seeing some of Bergman's bleak, existential films about when this film first opened.
Thanks for these excellent clips Doug, I am a great admirer of Woody Allen. The first clip reminded me of the first time I saw him on British TV in the 1960s. He did a stand up routine like this one, I remember one joke about being beaten up by an elevator because he had kicked the refrigerator earlier and was the victim of a technological backlash for his mistreatment of appliances, brilliant. My dad was also a great fan.
ReplyDeleteAs you say Woody Allen does occupy a place between Lenny Bruce and Bob Hope in his stand up days with touches of Groucho Marx thrown into the mix. But it is his existential angst and Jewish sense of irony which sets him apart as the little guy trying survive the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and still get the girl in a world of sand kicking dudes (despite the absence of a beach in Greenwich Village).
I also remember reading a book he wrote (in the early 80s I think) in which he described his fantasy of hiring intellectual harlots.... who he paid by the hour to discuss the work of Noam Chomsky.
Allen is a jester in the court of alienation and a perpetual straggler limping at the back of the pack of an existential marathon of the beautiful and the gifted.
His characters triumph over their own lack of moral courage thankfully because Diane Keaton is the beautiful girl with an ontological streak that is always the prize of Allen's Freudian knights quest.
Woody Allen represents the opposite of manifest destiny, his heroism is purely accidental... but in the true tradition of fools... his insights reveal hidden truths and things that only he can say... without being executed for saying it.
Woody Allen unveils the pretentiousness and superficiality of consumer society whilst being firmly situated within it, he is an American Socrates but with a deep aversion to the taste of hemlock.
Thanks again for posting these great clips Doug.
Thank you for the reminder of Woody Allen's brilliance. He always keeps us laughing. His quotes are a hoot and and I admire his dry sense of humour. I think there is also something of the Monty Python in his sketches.
ReplyDeleteThose video clips are a real treat Doug.
Your analysis of Allen's persona highly perceptive, AA. I think it was Oscar Wilde who said, paraphrasing, If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you." I particularly like your reference to Allen as a modern Socrates who passes on the hemlock...a concept worthy of inclusion in a scene from an Allen movie!
ReplyDeleteCome to think of it, were Woody Allen to go back centuries ago to make an "Apology" before the democratic jurors of ancient Athens on similar charges to the barefoot sage of that city, no doubt our modern hero might well have been more successful in securing an acquittal than Plato's mentor. (-:
I've read the story you speak of--its "The Whore of Mensa", from the short-story collection, "Without Feathers" In it, big-city shamus Kaiser Lupowitz investigates an academically-minded call-girl racket where, in addition to having pretty girls chat about Chomsky with one, men can pay one hundred dollars an hour for a silky-voiced lady intellectual to discuss Melville's "Moby Dick". ("Symbolism is extra.")
Thanks for adding to my memories of Allen's work,and sharing your own.
You're right! I think Woody and The Pythons must have cross-pollinated in the 70's, Cassandra--each gaining something in inspiration, irreverence and barbed satire. I would argue that he and Diane Keaton were the perfect couple. His films are still good, but her presence and comedic/acting skills were sublime.
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed the clips. I thought for "Love and Death" that Allen's use of Prokofiev's music from "Alexander Nevsky", et al, was inspired. (it was suggested to him by his film editor.)
He always seemed to me to be one that was truly someone that was extremley intellegent. Peter Sellers does come to mind as well. In a different manner but both were brilliant.
ReplyDeleteNice vido clips there Doug...
He always seemed to me to be one that was truly someone that was extremely intelligent. Peter Sellers does come to mind as well. In a different manner but both were brilliant.
ReplyDeleteNice video clips there Doug...
Good comparison. Sellers was indeed brilliant, as a man who could invest himself in a character. Steve Martin would like to be Inspector Clouseau in this latest movie, for instance, but it doesn't wash with me.
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed the clips.
Funny stuff Doug. I enjoyed the clips.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jeff!
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