Corned Beef Should Not Be Blue
By Adam D. Miller

Woody Allen has the sort of personality and sense of humor that you either identify with or don’t.  Chances are, if you or someone close to you is a) neurotic, b) from New York, c) Jewish, or d) an overall culture snob, you will at least understand the message and the inside jokes involved in many of Allen’s films.  Basically, he’s a love-him-or-hate-him kind of guy, which wouldn’t be a big deal if he were a restaurateur or hairdresser.  The fact that he has the rare distinction of being considered one of America’s great film directors almost makes him comparable to a Bob Dylan of the film world; someone whose importance to his type of art is obvious, but not always digestible.

There’s no avoiding him either.  A big part of why some people seem to get annoyed with Woody Allen is because, since 1969, there have only been five years without a theatrical release of one of his films.  Even now, on the heels of Melinda & Melinda’s North American release, his next project, Match Point, is set to debut at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.  There have even been a few occasions where Allen has released two films in a single year (1987 saw both September and Radio Days, and 1992 saw both Shadows and Fog and Husbands and Wives).  This may be the equivalent of cinematic manna for fans of Woody’s, but those who have an even slight reservation about his movies will simply get irritated on a annual basis.

The mistake many people make when examining Woody Allen’s films is false presumptions about the writer/director and his craft.  We automatically assume that because Allen is so good at his style of humour that this is all he wants to ever do.  Quite frankly, his films would probably have grown stale a lot sooner if he didn’t mix it up a little bit.

Melinda & Melinda is the latest film to be released by Woody Allen, and as such, received extremely mixed reviews.  Some hailed it as a return to form for Allen, one of his best in years.  Others wrote it off as “unfunny” or “empty.”  But who can we really trust as filmgoers?  There seems to be a definite bias among people and how they respond to a Woody Allen film.  Obviously, serious arguments against films like Annie Hall or Manhattan are fairly redundant, as the two films have already solidified their place in cinematic history, widely regarded to be among the best American films of all-time.  Nor is there much reason to discuss more recent outings like Hollywood Ending or Anything Else, which even Allen’s greatest fans are largely unphased by. 

But the more you look at it, the more one realizes that Woody Allen has almost always endured this kind of mixed criticism, largely coming from a misunderstanding about what he is attempting to do.  With that said, few are going to enthusiastically argue for or against most of his clearly brilliant or mediocre films, but there have been several films in the Allen library that some have viewed as filmic genius while others have written them off as dreadfully mundane.  The focus of this piece will be on five films released throughout Allen’s career; Interiors (1978), September (1987), Shadows and Fog (1992), Deconstructing Harry (1998), and Melinda & Melinda (2005).  They will not be discussed in chronological order because aside from the fact that they span over twenty-five years, the order in which they were released is of little relevance to my argument. 

 

Melinda & Melinda (2005)



"I think this Woody Allen’s best film in maybe fifteen years."
-- Richard Roeper, EBERT & ROEPER

"Will Ferrell is funny. Woody Allen is hilarious, or at least he was in his heyday. Will Ferrell channeling Woody Allen? Not so funny. "
-- Larry Ratliff, SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS

The release of Melinda & Melinda has proven to be the latest example of the mixed reviews that a Woody Allen film attracts.  Like the upcoming Match Point, the film had its early screenings (some as early as September 2004) at various European film festivals.  Early reception was good, and the film was hailed by those who saw it as a return to form for Allen.  Some, like Richard Roeper seemed to agree with this statement when the film made it to North America, calling it Allen’s best in years.  Others criticized its cast, or the film’s dialogue as not being funny enough.  Others simply call Melinda & Melinda lousy, offering little insight as to why.  Some sound like Woody Allen fans that were let down.  Others sound like their issues are not with the film, but with Allen, something to get used to when studying reviews for most of his films.

I’ll admit it.  Going into the film I was also put off by some of the casting choices.  Juliet Taylor has been in the casting director chair for Allen since Love and Death, but recently her choices seem… commercial.  In Anything Else, Allen’s previous release, she cast Christina Ricci alongside the abhorrent Jason Biggs.  This time we have Amanda Peet (who can also currently be seen in A Lot Like Love with “That 70s” heartthrob Ashton Kutcher) and Will Ferrell… in the Woody Allen role? 

Well, at first I didn’t understand this at all.  And, I’m still convinced someone better could have been cast as Hobie, the neurotic funnyman character that was clearly written with Allen himself in mind.  But we have to step into reality for a moment and realize that Woody Allen spent most of his career acting like he was younger.  In Annie Hall, he was a 42 year old man in a believable relationship with a 31-year old Diane Keaton.  That was believable.  At 70, it wouldn’t be as believable had Allen played alongside Peet, Chloe Sevigny, and the dazzling Radha Mitchell, who, with her two roles as Melinda absolutely steals the show.  As hungry as we are for major roles from Allen, he doesn’t seem the type who would want to make a senior citizen picture, and quite honestly, Melinda and Melinda would have been an entirely different movie with a whole lot less of an appeal if all the other actors were in their 60s.

But wait… not so funny?  Of course, given the fact that Melinda and Melinda is not a comedy, Larry Ratliff of the San Antonio-Express News (and many of his contemporaries) must be missing the point.  Gary Thompson at least put it more accurately when he wrote in the Philadelphia Daily News that “the movie’s problem is a failure of contrast arising from comic material that’s not funny and tragic material not very moving.”  That too seems like a lazy generalization.  For me, the tone of Melinda and Melinda reminded me of Hannah And Her Sisters (even if Melinda itself wasn’t as strong).  As it was in that film, we as an audience have an understanding of these people because we’ve seen them in real life.  The relationships they are in are so absurd that we may laugh here and there, but even the comedy section of the film, as envisioned by Wallace Shawn’s character, is not all that comedic.  At the same time, humor can be found in even the darkest of places.  Something that Woody came to realize in Shadows & Fog and Deconstructing Harry, which we will discuss later.

 

Interiors (1978) and September (1987)

The issue of comedy and the assumption of its presence in Woody Allen’s films has always been something criticized about his work.  With the release of Interiors (1978), both Woody Allen’s first drama and the first of his films in which he does not appear (unless you count What’s Up, Tiger Lily?), Allen was taking a big step when it came to how critics would respond to his work.

Edged between two of Allen’s most distinctive comedies, Annie Hall (1977) and Manhattan (1979), Interiors allowed Woody Allen to put his Ingmar Bergman influence to work.  Many critics at the time were unable to accept former stand-up comedian Allen as a dramatic screenwriter and director, and it showed in the box office.  The film bombed, both financially and critically. 

The film contained absolutely no humour.  This was more digestible later, when Allen would revisit the Bergman tone in films like September.  But those going into the film expecting the witty humour of Annie Hall probably came out gloomy.  The only scene that actually includes laughter makes it unclear as to what people are laughing about.

Others looked deeper into the soul of Interiors, hailing it as a cinematic masterpiece, and one wonders how many people changed their minds over the years since its release.  More than 25 years later, people are more receptive of Allen’s dramas, though the criticism, as we have shown, is still there.  In a recent retrospective review of Interiors, Andrew Hicks began, “right after Woody Allen made the best movie of his career, Annie Hall, he made the worst movie of his career.”  Some Internet Movie Database readers seem to agree, with threads in the Interiors section including “Dreadful” and “This is THE most depressing movie I have ever seen.”

To echo another IMDB user who posted in the Interiors section, “why do Woody Allen films have to be funny?”  Some of the reviews for Melinda and Melinda beckon the same question.  Jumping ahead nearly a decade, September was another Bergmanesque drama, this time entirely set in a house in Vermont.  Critical response might have irked Allen this time around in particular, since the film was made, not once, but twice. As the essay included in the DVD says, “Soon after shooting wrapped, Allen discovered several structural difficulties that seemed to slow the action down.  But since the film was composed of mostly long takes with very few cut-aways, minor adjustments were not easy.  The director remembers thinking: ‘Why not re-shoot the whole thing and do it right?’  That’s exactly what he did.”

Of course, the entire cast was not available for a reshoot.  The film, which was to include Maureen O’Sullivan, Charles Durning, and Sam Shepard included Elaine Stritch, Denholm Elliot, and Sam Waterston instead.  Once again, Woody Allen is absent (as he is in most of his dramas), and we are left with few moments of laughter and mostly melancholy.

While the critics weren’t as iffy about September as they were with Interiors, those who hated it seemed to for the same reasons as they hated Interiors.   The always generous Roger Ebert gave it a warm review.  Indeed, his defense of the film may well prove a defense for all of Allen’s dramas.  “Allen has made so many comedies that it is easy to insist that he make nothing else. Actually, he is as acute an author of serious dialogue as anyone now making movies, and in September most of the real action goes on in the word choices.”

The challenge when watching films like Interiors or September is finding Woody Allen’s signature.  Once you get over the expectations of comedy or neurotic Judaism, there are definitely traits of Allen’s filmmaking techniques in both films.

 
Shadows & Fog (1992)

Five years after September, Allen appeared as the leading role of Kleinman in Shadows & Fog, the bizarre story of an all-night search for a Jack the Ripper type character.

The key criticism of Shadows & Fog is that its visual appearance is much more appealing than its story.  Like several of Allen’s earlier films like Manhattan and Stardust Memories, Shadows & Fog was shot in black and white.  But unlike the earlier films, which go for more a classic Hollywood type of black and white, Shadows & Fog is clearly aiming towards a black comedy/film noir effect.  Even the title speaks more of the film’s appearance than its story.

But the story is pretty entertaining, once you figure out what it is.  Kleinman (Allen) is woken up in the middle of the night, told he must join a group of vigilantes to find the Killer, who always seems to strike at night.  Meanwhile, across town at the circus, Irmy the sword swallower (Mia Farrow) has grown depressed to find her husband the clown (John Malkovich) not wanting to have a baby.  She soon discovers him cheating with another woman, and then takes off for the city, where the Killer could strike at any moment.  Eventually Kleinman and Irmy meet and the film bounces all over the place.  The story might not make much sense, but seeing as that it is considered an homage to the bizarre short stories of Franz Kafka, perhaps it’s not really supposed to.

The other criticism is that the celebrity saturation is unnecessary.  Indeed, Shadows & Fog probably has more celebrities than it needs.  The trio of prostitutes who take Irmy in when finding her wandering the street (played by Kathy Bates, Jodie Foster, and Lili Tomlin) probably could have just as easily been played by unknowns.  And was Madonna really that necessary with her one line as the woman who the clown cheats with at the circus? 

Still, the film’s main characters are great.  Allen’s always been able to put his female companions to great use, and Mia Farrow shines in her role in Shadows & Fog as the sword-swallower in search of a better life.  Yes, Shadows & Fog probably does have one of the more absurd stories Allen has ever come up with (and that includes Sleeper, Love & Death, and Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Sex…), but in the end, it’s an entertaining watch.

 

Deconstructing Harry (1997)

It doesn’t seem to be coincidental that Deconstructing Harry would be the first film made by Woody Allen after his marriage to Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of his former partner, Mia Farrow.  For a real-life (although limited) peek into their relationship, see the same year’s Wild Man Blues, a documentary about Woody’s other passion: music.  The tabloids had a field day with the Woody/Soon-Yi relationship.  Thirty-five years younger than Allen, she appeared as a young guest at thanksgiving dinner in 1986’s Hannah And Her Sisters.

Deconstructing Harry is about Harry Block, a writer who thinly veils his real life friends and family into his stories.  The elusive Allen weaves autobiographical elements into a character that is surprisingly vulgar and sinister.  Those who were annoyed by the celebrity cast of Shadows & Fog probably has even more to be annoyed with in Deconstructing Harry.  The cast is enormous, since it contains re-enactments of Allen’s stories, with different actors playing the Harry Block role besides Allen himself.  In all, the cast is probably the largest Allen ever worked with, including but not limited to Billy Crystal, Demi Moore, Kirstie Alley, Bob Balaban, Robin Williams, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Elisabeth Shue, and even a young Tobey Maguire.

The cast may be huge, but none of the actors flaunt their celebrity.  Frankly, since the cast is so big, few have that much screentime at all.  Billy Crystal’s role as The Devil is brief, as is his real-life role in Harry’s life as the friend who steals Harry’s love.  Robin Williams has a hilarious moment as an actor who literally starts losing his focus, blurring onscreen and bewildering his family.

The celebrity-driven cast could have been more irritating if it had been another Woody-less affair, which it had been close to being.  Apparently Allen wanted Elliot Gould or Albert Brooks to play the role of Harry Block, but when neither was available he decided he’d play the role himself.

Like Melinda & Melinda, Deconstructing Harry is not about the cast or the segments, but the whole.  Some of the vignettes are better than others, but as a whole the film is one that shouldn’t be glazed over in the Allen oeuvre.  And like his classics Annie Hall and Manhattan, the self-loathing is definitely here.

…

The bottom line is that Woody Allen isn’t as simple as some people would like to convince themselves.  His New York/Jewish/neurotic intellectual thing may apply to many of his films, but certainly not all of them.  Allen’s passing remark in Manhattan, “corned beef should not be blue,” can apply to his whole career. Allen has been criticized for what he should and should not be doing.  “Woody Allen should not be Ingmar Bergman,” “Woody Allen should not be vulgar,” “Woody Allen should not cast Will Ferrell.”  Well, Woody Allen has done all of these things, and will probably continue making films as long as he is healthy and well enough to do so.  There will always be the classics, but next time you’re in the video store, try one of these five and come up with your own opinions about them.

WOODY ALLEN THEFT GUIDE
By Nathan Williams

America’s best filmmaker of the 1980s, Woody Allen—like all comics—was never above a little theft. We here at Being There aren’t well-versed enough in the history of vaudeville and the Borscht Belt to trace his stolen jokes, but we do have our cinematic detective kits out, and there are bespectacled, nervous fingerprints all over some of the great film and theatre works of the 20^th century.