Lary Bloom
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Friday, December 02, 2005
Woody At 70
Vanity Fair's December issue offers a profile of Woody Allen at 70, by Peter Biskind. It is in many ways a depressing piece. Allen, at his distinguished age, claims to be no closer to understanding life on earth than he was forty years ago, when his films ranted on (in inventive and clever fashion) about urban angst and impending death.His recent revelations give me no comfort. Woody Allen, in my view, has been a sage for our time, and now to see him in this state (though clearly mitigated by his apparently swell relationship with his wife/former step-daughter who has now, at long last, reached half his age), it is disconcerting. We tend to think of our artistic heroes, probably inappropriately, as people who have keen insights and who learn to acccommodate life's difficulties in a manner in which we can take heart and instruction. But Woody Allen still gropes. Understandly, it depresses him that he never sees some of his children.
Everything he wrote for the screen was funny or poignant or both, and we began to demand too much of a good thing. I remember standing in line in Paris for the opening of Small Time Crooks, which when translated into French doesn't fit on the marquee. Parisians are nuts about Woody, in the same way they were about Jerry Lewis. The movie that day had French subtitles, which of course I didn't need. The effect was that I laughed, and, two seconds later the audience laughed, though, in this movie, lamely. When Woody's character admitted in a "60 Minutes" interview that he never imagined to have such financial success in life, he confided, "All I ever wanted to do was learn how to spell Connecticut." I roared. But it was the only sound in the theater for some time. I roared for what was, which, when you think about it, was plenty.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 4:21 PM
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