Allen, Woody 1935-

ALLEN, WOODY 1935-

Director, actor, writer

Early Success

After an apprenticeship in the early 1960s that included work as a gag writer, Woody Allen first gained attention with his stand-up comedy routines in clubs, in college campus shows, and on recorded albums. His reputation as a funnyman was secured after he wrote and appeared in the hit 1965 film What's New, Pussycat? The following year his play Don't Drink the Water hit Broadway, while his irreverent debut as a movie director, What's Up, Tiger Lily?, played in theaters. In writings for Playboy and Esquire during this period, Allen played on the comic pretense of being a sophisticated bachelor around town. He expanded his cult audience in 1969 with the Broadway success Play It Again, Sam and the hit film Take the Money and Run.

Persona

By the 1970s Allen's comic persona was well-established. With a highly nervous expression and a hesitant, almost stammering delivery, he excelled in portrayals of a mock-intellectual urban nebbish. His sad face, self-deprecation, romantic frustration, and pacifism drew comparisons with Charlie Chaplin, while Allen's mockery (of self and others), Jewish humor, and lecherous energy paralleled Groucho Marx. "Great humor," Allen remarked, "is intellectual without trying to be." He created audience identification by parodying his own cowardice, physical awkwardness, and pretensions to intelligence and became an embodiment of the 1970s "sensitive male." Early 1970s comedies like Bananas (1971) and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (1972) established his trademark preoccupations with God, sex, and death and also featured appearances by his onetime wife Louise Lasser.

Keaton

Allen's most frequent costar in his 1970s comedies was Diane Keaton, who also appeared in The Godfather films. Projecting both daffiness and warmth, Keaton became Allen's perfect comic foil. Play It Again, Sam (1972) featured Allen as a neurotic film critic who tries to woo Keaton with romantic advice from the ghost of Humphrey Bogart. In Sleeper (1973) Keaton is a frivolous society woman forced to go on the lam with Allen, who played a man deep-frozen after an operation and then thawed two hundred years in the future. Allen paro-died everything from War and Peace to Ingmar Bergman in his next film, Love and Death (1975). His Russian pacifist character carries an unrequited passion for his promiscuous and shallow cousin, played by Keaton.

Annie Hall

The classic Allen-Keaton vehicle was Annie Hall (1977), which marked a huge step in Allen's artistic growth as a filmmaker. Based loosely on Allen's own fizzled romance with Keaton, the film portrayed the bittersweet relationship between a neurotic New York comic and an insecure but life-loving Midwestern girl. The film's original title, Anhedonia, referred to the in-ability of Allen's character to enjoy himself, which led to the movie couple's breakup. Both fresh and funny, Annie Hall surprised many critics and moviegoers with its sweetness, honesty, and cinematic originality (using split screens, subtitles, cartoons, and characters speaking to the audience or to people in other scenes). The experiment paid off: the film was chosen the year's best by thirty-two reviewers as well as by the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics. It received Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actress (Keaton), Best Director, and Best Screenplay. Allen, who won the last two awards, did not bother to attend the ceremony, apparently disdaining Hollywood as much as his Alvy Singer character did.

Growth

Allen followed up Annie Hall with Interiors (1978), a deadly serious homage to Bergman, whom the director obviously revered. The film received mixed responses—most people seemed to miss the comedy—but Allen was again nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director. His next film, Manhattan (1979), marked a return to form. Newsweek hailed it as a master-piece, and most critics seemed to agree. Manhattan was less inventive than Annie Hall but was in some ways more interesting, a moodily comic and bittersweet examination of New York intellectual and romantic life. Allen again wooed Keaton, who this time portrayed a highly neurotic (and pretentious) woman. Manhattan earned Allen another Oscar nomination for screenwriting. In Annie Hall, Interiors, and Manhattan, Allen began to examine themes that would continue to surface in his later work, particularly the relationship between art and life and his characters' struggle between their true selves and their desired self-images.

Later Work

In addition to his Oscars, Allen won the O. Henry Award in 1977 for the best short story of the year ("The Kugelmass Episode"). This success was typical of his 1980s work, which took on almost a journeyman quality. In a series of films starring girlfriend Mia Farrow, Allen continued to mix comedies (Broadway Danny Rose, Ze/ig ) with painful dramas (Another Woman, September). The high point of his 1980s career came with Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), which lovingly portrayed a cross-section of neurotics, intellectuals, and romantic losers. The film received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. After his breakup with Farrow, a subsequent exchange of charges of child sexual abuse, and an affair with one of Farrow's adopted daughters, Allen reteamed briefly with Keaton for Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993) and went on to direct Bullets Over Broadway (1994), his most acclaimed work in years.

Sources:

Eric Lax, Woody Allen: A Biography (New York: Knopf, 1991);

Maurice Yacowar, Loser Take All: The Comic Art of Woody Allen (New York: Ungar, 1979).