Woody Allen: A Documentary

This very promising-sounding documentary about Woody Allen premiers tonight and tomorrow on PBS’s American Masters. Mr. Allen and others often spout off about how he alone among the upper echelon of American film-makers has not been influential; there are supposedly no obvious acorns off Mr. Allen’s tree. That’s not true at all. Certainly, no one has copied his stodgy, boring dramas. They themselves are copies of Bergman, Fellini and others, so what’s to emulate? On the other hand, if I may point out the 800 lb. gorilla in the room, Allen’s early films, Take the Money and Run through Love and Death are enormously influential; they’re what most of us cherish and hope for (in vain, mostly) from subsequent Allen comedies. These crazy comedies paved the way for the string of Mel Brooks  spoofs that began with Blazing Saddles, for similar movies by Gene Wilder, a couple by Neil Simon (Murder by Death and The Cheap Detective), the Zucker Brothers franchises (Airplane! et al) and the Scary Movie series. I’m sorry that comedy doesn’t get the respect it deserves, but there have you have it. And I would also counter that Allen’s later, more human comedies also have their exponents and acolytes. Anyone ever hear of WhitStillman, Noah Baumbach, Judd Apatow? And if I ever get to make the films I hope to make, he’ll have influenced ME!

At any rate, I’m very much looking forward to tuning in! More detail is here.

Addendum: Saw the film subsequent to the scribblings above and thought it a pretty sycophantic hagiography, one-sided, glossing over the famous concerns and controversaries, and pretty much taking Woody, Soon-Li and Woody’s manager, his sister Letty, at their word. I understand the dilemma: access often comes at the cost of compromise. It’s like when a portraitist takes a commission: do you include the pimples and wrinkles, or not? But frankly I think that’s where the good documentary maker has to put his integrity as such above else, even if it means being dishonest with interview subjects. More important to be honest with the audience. Most of Robert Weide’s docs are really more like tributes. That’s not to discount them, many of them are quite wonderful for what they are. That said, I really did love Unstuck in Time,  Weide’s 2012 love poem to Kurt Vonnegut.