From October 2010 to October 2011 I revisited each film from writer, director, and actor Woody Allen in preparation for 2011 – the 40th anniversary of the release of what is considered by many to be Allen’s first film, Bananas. Of course he did release a few films prior, but it was Bananas that was the first to begin the yearly string of releases that came to be known as the quintessential Woody Allen film.
Allen has for years been one of my top five favorite directors, and looking back at his long career (one film per year for 40 years) it’s really quite astounding. Sure, it’s true that most of the time Allen doesn’t branch out nearly as much as other filmmakers. But there is a particular and familiar universe that he has created and lives in 99% of the time, and it’s a style all his own, a world where he invites you into every year – to meet new characters, and the stories they have to tell.
My reviewing skills are admittedly not very strong, and the famous quote from Truman Capote – “it isn’t writing at all – it’s typing” – is never more prevalent than with these short reviews, but none the less this was very fun for me to revisit all these movies again over the past months – and exciting to share at least a few of my basic thoughts to the world (ha!) on one of my top five favorite filmmakers. The timing couldn’t be more fitting as well not only because of the 40th anniversary of Bananas, but because that year saw the release, surprisingly enough, of Allen’s biggest financial success in the United States – Midnight in Paris. These are in order of release, beginning with 1971’s Bananas and ending with 2011’s Midnight in Paris.
Woody Allen
A Ghostlife Retrospective
Love & Death
Thus far in Allen’s filmography he’s taken us to a Caribbean dictatorship, San Francisco, the year 2173, and into the brain of a man during sex. In Love and Death, Allen’s last stop in his early more “experimental” phase before more or less ending up in his hometown New York, is Russia in the 1800’s. The plot involves the solider Boris (Allen), who along with his distant cousin & wife Sonja (Diane Keaton) – when not engaging in endless philosophical debates – plot to assassinate Napoleon. Basically it’s just a new setting in which to house Allen’s modern and comedically out of time jokes and physical slapstick, but the juxtaposition continues to work brilliantly and this is a very funny movie. And of course if you don’t find it funny, the soundtrack of the film will help the time pass, it consisting mostly of ‘Troika’, the 4th movement from Segei Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kijé, which is insanely fantastic. This one is absurd, pure lunacy, and it’s grand in scale in both production and humor, and luckily Allen’s last purely silly films is a high note. Can he possibly top it with Annie Hall? Time will tell!
B+
1975