Thoughts on Woody Allen as he completes half a century as filmmaker. And why ‘Crimes and Misdemeanors’ is his defining film.
It’s hard to believe, today, that What’s Up, Tiger Lily?, Woody Allen’s first film as director, began with a series of James Bondian action scenes (flamethrowers! murderous discs with serrated edges!). Harder to believe still, given this director’s generally all-white casts, is that the film featured Japanese actors, speaking Japanese, and was set in Japan. But soon, we cut to a studio, where an interviewer attempts to make sense of the (apparent) madness. Allen explains that he took a Japanese spy thriller (“a great film, beautiful colour, and there’s raping and looting and killing in it”) and re-dubbed the soundtrack with completely unconnected dialogue that transforms the story into the search for the world’s best egg salad recipe, which has been stolen by a Shepherd Wong. Sample scene: As part of a briefing to an investigator, a man places a blueprint on a table and says, “This is Shepherd Wong’s home.” The investigator asks, “He lives in that piece of paper?” The man replies, “No you idiot, he’s got a regular house.”
What’s Up, Tiger Lily?, which turns 50 this year, is filled with these bits. When the croupier at a gambling table tells a player, “You can’t quit now, sir. You’re winning!,” the player replies, “Don’t tell me what I can do, or I’ll have my moustache eat your beard.” More quotable lines: “I want you to bring a million dollars in cash… And no pennies.” “You and your partners will be put into an empty drum, which will then be filled with fat Lithuanian midgets.” “But if all of you in the audience who believe in fairies clap your hands then my gun will be magically filled with bullets.” What’s Up, Tiger Lily? introduced movie audiences to a filmmaker who thought like a comedian on crack. The films that followed – Take the Money and Run, Bananas – were equally high on wacky one-liners. From Bananas: “I once stole a pornographic book that was printed in Braille. I used to rub the dirty parts.”
This was the kind of Woody Allen movie the people in Stardust Memories (1980) were referring to when they said, “We enjoy your films. Particularly the early, funny ones.” Because in the interim, the “Woody Allen movie” had turned into either wistfully neurotic (or neurotically wistful) takes on relationships, (Annie Hall, Manhattan), or ultra-serious Bergman homages (Interiors). Over the decades, the films turned darker. In Love and Death (1975), existentialism is simply fodder for a great line. (Boris: “Nothingness… non-existence… black emptiness…” Sonja: “What did you say?” Boris: “Oh, I was just planning my future.”) A decade later, in Hannah and her Sisters, Woody Allen plays a hypochondriac, the film’s funniest character, but between the trademark zingers (his father: “How the hell do I know why there were Nazis? I don’t know how the can opener works!”), he looks at joggers in Central Park and wonders, “Look at all these people, trying to stave off the inevitable decay of their bodies.”
Is there another filmmaker – an indisputable great – who has lasted this long, remained this relevant (culturally and artistically), and made this many landmark films that are essentially variations on pet themes? My favourite Allen theme is “getting away with it.” In Crimes and Misdemeanors, a super-successful ophthalmologist has his clingy mistress murdered. Match Point is essentially the same movie – only, set in London. It’s a business partner, not a mistress, in Cassandra’s Dream – but again, the man who commissions the murder… gets away with it. These films, to me, feel the most autobiographical, the most confessional, probably because Allen is himself a classic instance of “getting away with it,” not even touched by the enormously icky scandal that erupted when his partner Mia Farrow learnt about his relationship with her adopted daughter. He’s still exceptionally well-regarded. He still gets the best actors, the best craftsmen. His films are still adored by the Oscars. He still gets premieres at Cannes.
Of course, he still gets reminders that people haven’t forgotten. During the recent press conference to promote his new film (Café Society) at Cannes, a female journalist asked him, “There are some romantic motifs that you keep returning to that are also found in this film: the attraction between a younger woman and an older, powerful man, and the lure of another woman when you’re in a marriage. Why do you keep returning to these motifs? Have your thoughts and feelings about them changed during the years?” And when a male journalist asked Allen to expand on a line from the film (“Life is a comedy written by a sadistic comedy writer”), Allen said, “A husband is cheating on his wife, and he’s making all kinds of appointments to be secretive. You watch this and it’s funny. But it’s also very sad. If you penetrate it more deeply, it becomes very sad, because obviously the wife is being betrayed and the people have empty lives…” Was Allen talking about his art? Or his life?
Allen has been acquitted by the jury that tried the case, so this isn’t about whether he is guilty but rather about whether he felt pricks of conscience about something he was doing, something that was borderline wrong. Just do the math. Crimes and Misdemeanors was released in October 1989. The scandal erupted in January 1992. All of this makes this film the most fascinating, perhaps the most defining one of his career. It helps that even without the extra-textual infringement, Crimes and Misdemeanors is a chilling examination of a Dostoyesvkian dilemma: How does someone who’s not a psychopath live with the knowledge that one has committed a crime? The film opens with a felicitation ceremony, and the protagonist addresses the adoring gathering: “I remember my father telling me, ‘the eyes of God are on us always.’ The eyes of God. What a phrase to a young boy. I mean, what were God’s eyes like? Unimaginably penetrating, intense eyes, I assumed. And I wonder if it was just a coincidence that I made my specialty ophthalmology.” The people in the room laugh at the unexpected punch line, as do we. But once we stop laughing, we also wonder if there is a God when crime isn’t always accompanied by punishment. The talented, successful ophthalmologist’s fate – it isn’t very different from that of a talented, successful director still invited to walk the red carpet at Cannes.
An edited version of this piece can be found here. Copyright ©2016 The Hindu. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
Arivalagan
July 23, 2016
Really nice piece on Woody Allen. Here’s a director, for me, whose films really have an offbeat quality that leaves us with a space to wander into and wonder. Had to pause for some reflecting on your Cannes interview reference… That was something wasn’t. Thanks again Brangan sir for sharing your insight.
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Jaga_Jaga
July 23, 2016
Gosh BR, how can you leave out “A midsummer night’s Sex Movie” when discussing Woody Allen, and his pet theme of “shit happens” (in your lingo “getting away with it”)? This film is far from being his most critically acclaimed film, but the tropes in it are simply amazing, per me! Imagine a roulette of situations all leading to the bedroom type situations seen in the Pink Panther. Woody Allen at his best…
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Raj Balakrishnan
July 24, 2016
Excellent piece. Have you seen his 2015 Irrational man?it also deals with the theme of getting away with a crime? It is an interesting film and also has the older man in relationship with a younger woman angle.
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sanjana
July 24, 2016
Where is Madaari review? When?
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Altman
July 24, 2016
Excellent post, Brangan. I am reminded of a line from Bullets over Broadway(1994) where a playwright observes “Guilt is a petit-bourgeois crap, An artist creates his own moral universe.” It almost sounds like he is speaking to his audience. “I am not feeling guilty for my actions as I am beyond your common morality since I create my own moral universe in my movies where neurotic, white people have gargantuan issues. Life has no meaning. Spouses cheat. Artists and aspiring actors are doomed. Young women always fall for older wiser men. Innocent people suffer while sinners get away with their misdeeds. Where was your God during the holocaust?”
Woody Allen is an artist, a persistent, uncompromising one at that. He canceled the release of Blue Jasmine(2013) in India owning to the fact that our censors were gonna tamper his art with their anti-smoking, anti-drinking cautionary messages. None of his films have officially released in India since then.
In his illustrious career spanning over half a century, he has directed more than 50 films at the rate of one film per year, year after year like clockwork. I might have seen at least 35 of his films. Most of them were pleasant experiences, few timeless masterpieces, few were downright terrible but all his films have his trademark idiosyncratic screenplay with bizarre scenarios, hapless characters, picturesque locations and I don’t even have to mention the dialogues. Nobody can write like him, not with such wit, not at such pace. His dialogues are a neurotic concoction of philosophy, religion, art, psychology, music, existential angst and terrific one-liners.
‘Crimes and Misdemeanors’ is also important in the way it successfully blends both the cynical and comical persona of Woody Allen. A feat he attempted again with ‘Melinda and Melinda’ to no avail. The tragic plot of the ophthalmologist is intercut with the comic plot of a documentary filmmaker played by Allen himself. Look at his reaction when a guy he is filming says, “If it bends, it’s funny; If it breaks, it isn’t.” He can be hilarious without even uttering a word. On the serious plot, Judah a respected ophthalmologist commits a murder for his convenience and gets away with it. He is treating a rabbi who’s going blind, symbolizing that God has turned a blind eye towards men. In a nod to Bergman’s Wild Strawberries, Judah visits his childhood where adults are debating morality, atheism and the holocaust over dinner. So this man, an affluent family man, who considers himself a moral man, can he live with what he has done without remorse? Yes he can, says the director.
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sravishanker1401gmailcom
July 24, 2016
BR : Great piece on Woody considering that it is a daunting task to gild the lily
https://thezolazone.wordpress.com/2015/11/26/hollyweird-woody-allen/
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Reuben
July 24, 2016
A couple of my favorite Woody Allen’s quirky existential musings.
I don’t believe in afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear
Can we actually “know” the universe? My God, its hard enough finding your way around China Town
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KayKay
July 25, 2016
Has there been a more misanthropic filmmaker than Allen when it comes to relationships. For the Woodster, romantic entanglements of any form is a mine-strewn landscape, one in which stepping on one and having your legs blown off isn’t just a probability, but an absolute certainty. So much so, the times when an Allen film ends with the protagonist finding love and contentment rings inherently false (Magic in the Moonlight, Hannah and Her Sisters, Mighty Aphrodite, Whatever Works).
I loved Crimes and Misdemeanors but felt like absolute crap after watching it. Which was most likely Allen’s intention all along.
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Ravi K
July 26, 2016
Kay Kay wrote: “Has there been a more misanthropic filmmaker than Allen when it comes to relationships.”
Neil LaBute?
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