Woody Allen
Woody Allen is one of the foremost American film-directors of the 20th century. No other artist has ever received as many nominations as he did, though as he would undoubtedly remark, he is more appreciated by the French than by the American audience!
Born Allen Stewart Konigsberg on December 1, 1935, he grew up in Brooklyn, New York and spent most of his life in Manhattan, which inspired his greatest works. Most of his films are set in New York City.
Woody Allen adopted his stage name in 1951 and started his career writing one-liners in newspapers before performing his own gags and writing scripts for television shows or short stories for the New Yorker. He wrote two plays in the late 1960s that were performed on Broadway: Don’t Drink the Water (1966) and Play It Again Sam (1969). (The Jewish Museum in New York keeps archives of his early shows as a comedian.)
He writes, directs and edits his films, which is quite unusual for an American film-director. He chooses his music from his own record and CD collection. And it was not until recently that he gave up playing in his films. His first movie was the successful pseudo-documentary Take the Money and Run (1968). His persona of a brainy neurotic New Yorker created in the 1970s became the hallmark of his career. He starred with his then girlfriend Diane Keaton in Annie Hall (1977), which won four Academy Awards.
Since the 1980s he has produced an average of one movie a year, swaying from dark dramas (Crimes and Misdemeanors in 1989, Match Point in 2005) to more light-hearted comedies (Husbands and Wives in 1992, Bullets Over Broadway in 1994), or playing with his audience in clever pseudo-documentaries (Zelig in 1983).
The film-directors he admires most and who have influenced his art most deeply are Frederico Fellini, Jean Renoir and Ingmar Bergman.
Woody Allen never sees his films once he has finished them, he says he would feel too frustrated at the final result!
Some of his movies have reminded the audience of his interest in jazz – Allen is himself a long-time jazz musician playing the clarinet. His documentary Wild Man Blues (1998) and his pseudo-documentary Sweet and Lowdown (1999) testify to his musical culture. When he is residing in New York, he plays with his jazz ensemble on Mondays at Bemelman’s bar, (Carlisle Hotel), in Manhattan.
Though his narratives are always in the first person and though he appears in his films dressed as he is in ordinary life, Woody Allen insists that his films are not autobiographical.
“In real life I am not the character I play in my films. I’m reasonably competent, I work very hard, I’m disciplined, I lead a very middle-class life. I work in the mornings, I have lunch, I practise my clarinet, I go to the movies, I eat out in restaurants or watch ball games on television or at the ball games. In the movies the characters that I play are highly exaggerated, they are intensely neurotic …”
The Guardian, September 27, 2001.
Selected filmography:
Take the Money and Run, 1969
Annie Hall, 1978
Manhattan, 1979
The Purple Rose of Cairo, 1985
Hannah and her Sisters, 1987
Husbands and Wives, 1992
Everybody says I Love You, 1996
Celebrity, 1998
Hollywood Ending, 2002
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