Aug

2

On Woody Allen

Filed Under movies 

The entire audience was geriatric. There wasn’t a person in the theater — in a decent crowd, by the way — who was under 50 and most won’t see 60 again. Not one hair follicle — those left — carried its natural color of youth. My son personally lowered the mean age in the place by 30 years.

I tell you, Woody Allen is the newspaper of film directors: His audience is dying off.

- Jeff Jarvis in Buzzmachine

The reason why Woody Allen’s recent movies get so much criticism nowadays, I think, is that his earlier movies - especially Stardust Memories and Manhattan, which I’ve seen, and Annie Hall, which others tell me is magnificent - are lasting contributions, to say the least, to American cinema.

I consider Stardust to be the finest movie I’ve ever seen, although Manhattan’s cinematography grips me like no other movie’s does. One is just awash in these lovely black and white pictures of New York, that are less a slideshow than a dream. But that is Manhattan.

Stardust trades the power of the images and a rather simple story for more iconic scenes, a convoluted love story, and deep questions about characters. The question of creation is at the center of Stardust, but it is Charlotte Rampling’s Dorie that we want to watch. She’s sexy when she’s insane, and director Sandy’s film about the train is cliched, and a distraction from her. But inspiration is a weird thing in Stardust: a bleakness in life both causes and eradicates it. What comes on film, for someone who makes his own movies, is whatever direction his mind is pulled a particular day by that bleakness.

Hence, the most out of place joke in Stardust - it almost seems to come out of nowhere, and is only consistent with other egomaniac jokes scattered throughout - is the key to it: “To you, I’m an Atheist. To God, I’m the Loyal Opposition.”

Woody Allen’s legacy will last. If his audience is dying out, then it’s those in the bloom of youth who are missing out. He’s been ripped for “misfires” that would establish a lesser director, I think, like The Curse of the Jade Scorpion. I wonder if the decline of Allen’s audience points to a general lapse in cinematic taste - don’t get me wrong, I loved Super Troopers, and while it would probably make me vomit, I would probably say Clerks II is good too. And some of you know what I think about Batman Begins.

Still.

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