The Disappearing of Woody Allen

Woody Allen and Statue, Orveido, Spain

Although he's disappeared from the A list, Woody Allen is still at work. He's written an autobiography (Apropos of Nothing) and he is still making movies. And, lest we forget those movies, I am here to remind you. Some you were indifferent to, some you liked, some you loved--and some you’ve probably totally forgotten. A list of his movies is staggering, in sheer number.

Play It Again, Sam (1972); Sleeper, (1973) Annie Hall (1975), Interiors (1978); Manhattan (1979); Zelig (1983); Broadway Danny Rose (1984); The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985); Hannah and Her Sisters (1986); Radio Days (1987); Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989); Husbands and Wives (1992); Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993); Bullets Over Broadway (1994); Mighty Aphrodite (1995; Deconstructing Harry (1997); The Curse of the Jade Scorpion; 2002: Hollywood Ending; 2003: Anything Else; 2004: Melinda and Melinda; 2005: Match Point; 2006: Scoop; 2007: Cassandra’s Dream; 2008: Vicky Cristina Barcelona; 2009: Whatever Works; 2010: You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger; 2011: Midnight in Paris; 2011; To Rome with Love, 2012;: Blue Jasmine; 2013: Magic in the Moonlight; 2014: Irrational Man; 2015: Café Society; 2017, and Wonder Wheel (2017).

Vincent Canby, the eminent film critic of the New York Times, in his review of Bananas in 1971, said “Thirty years ago, some very perceptive critics, including James Agee and Otis Ferguson, used to grow all sad and misty in print because W. C. Fields seldom made a movie that was as funny in its entirety as it was in its individual parts. Today, it doesn't make any difference. That was the sort of movie Fields made, and now we accept the rhythm of his comic genius, since it was an indispensable part of that genius. The same may well be true of Woody Allen who, when he is good, is inspired. However, when he's bad, he's not rotten; rather, he's just not so hot.”

We and the critics were smitten with Allen’s work for 30 years and more. In the New York Times in 1996, Janet Maslin wrote of Everyone Says I Love You, “Allen has often invited his characters to step through time or speak bluntly to the audience, and this film's singing is another such device. It brings an extra element of bravado to a story that is otherwise just funny, lighthearted fluff. Working on familiar territory, Allen dreams up an assortment of neurotic New Yorkers and sets them spinning at a screwball tempo. This suits their rich, carefree circumstances, which deliberately recall the economic dreamland of Depression-era movie luxe. A life this rosy really could prompt the occasional bewitching song.

“Fortunately, while reaching out for the quintessential Hollywood escapism of his boyhood... Allen never forgets the importance of inspired casting and dependably good gags. Despite its musical aspect, Everyone Says I Love You begins very quickly to feel like one more breezy Allen comedy with the occasional tuneful touch. Rather than an aberration, it even plays as an extension of some of his recent work. That Greek chorus in Mighty Aphrodite was dying to sing and dance, too "…But Everyone Says I Love You will be better remembered for its high notes, like the dance beside the Seine with Allen and [Goldie] Hawn, which seems to capture the full wistful, hopeful range of this film maker's idea of romance.”

Roger Ebert, on the same movie: “The plot is simultaneously featherweight and profound, like a lot of Allen's movies: Big questions are raised and then dispatched with a one-liner, only to keep eating away at the hero until an eventually happy ending.”

I choose these movies at random, but there were many more, some of which you’re bound to remember fondly. It isn’t a list of all his movies. I ask you to look it over and reflect, recalling your own favorites. There are many more, and he is still making them although they are no longer distributed in this country due to a scandal of some 30 years ago
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A vital contributor to world cinema, and still enormously popular in Europe, Allen has been absent on the U.S. movie circuit for several years, and he wrote Apropos of Nothing in order to clear up why. It’s an engaging read, and the details of the debacle that brought him down in the eyes of Hollywood are chilling. The book critics writing in major news outlets apparently don’t want to hear his side and their reviews were scathing. He was vilified for even trying to tell his story—however if you, like me, want to know what happened and what he is doing now, you’ll find the book very much like the man himself. Intelligent, witty, self-deprecating, and full of insight, even to his own detriment. It’s a good book, and it’s important to read it.

About the allegations, he and his wife of over 20 years are firm in stating that he regrets the way they conducted their romance, but after reading his book it’s pretty clear that in no way was he guilty of molesting his adopted 7-year-old daughter. Two investigations were launched at the time and no charges were brought. The investigations suggested the child appeared to have been coached; Allen’s book suggests that it probably goes deeper than that, offering details in a noncommittal way. There have been no accusations of such behavior since then.

Something happened in the zeitgeist however, and the charges came back up. Out of nowhere, actresses and actors who worked with him and once had only praise have issued statements that they regret ever having been associated with him. But nobody has come forth testimony to say he behaved improperly with anybody. 

A.O. Scott, film critic for the New York Times, has written a few times about how much Allen’s films had meant to him, growing up, and how he now rejects the man and presumably the work he has done. He wrote in January of 2018: “The achievement of his early movies, culminating in Annie Hall (his seventh feature as a director) was to turn a scrawny, bookish, self-conscious nebbish into a player. His subsequent achievement was to turn himself into a serious filmmaker without surrendering that initial cachet. The Allen character in his various incarnations might be insecure, childishly silly, socially hapless (or all of the above), but he was never single for long. The aspects of his temperament held up for mockery—the hyper-intellectualism, the snobbery, the irreducible Jewishness—doubled as weapons of seduction. His self-deprecation was a tactic, a feint, a rope-a-dope, and he was plagued less by the frustration of his desires than by their fulfillment. As soon as the heart got what it wanted, it wanted something else.” 

Scott has gone on to say the work does not hold up as we learn about Allen’s personal life. A column published a month later rejects all of Allen's work, saying as a bad man whose work only reflects his personal neuroses he should not be regarded as a valuable artist.   I hope he reads Apropos of Nothing soon enough to change his mind back. It all hangs on his ability to believe Woody is telling the truth, and all the conjecture about his neuroses is our fantasy—or our projection.