- Sep 22, 2013
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Woody Allen is the most under-appreciated film-maker in cinema history.
Sure, no one like 'Freudian harp-play' on screen which is why sentiment-dense 'mind-silly' American films such as Elaine May's Ishtar and Michael Lehmann's Hudson Hawk get such a poor following.
Woody Allen delves into an overly-sensitive mental world (be it any time setting in history) made curiously hypnotic by the 'brain-meanderings' of 'nervously giggling' humans. His films explore the glass-like dreamworld occupied by, for example, cosmopolitan Aryans, inspected by the experience of pensive Jewish-Americans or those with a specific bent towards 'metaphysics humor.'
Manhattan, Annie Hall, Zelig, Hannah and Her Sisters, Celebrity, and Blue Jasmine invite film audiences to ponder the meaning of existence (not life) through the lens of imaginative self-improvement, self-idealization, or denial.
In Celebrity, Allen offers us a Fellini-esque magnification of the overlooked 'daily excesses' of paradoxical excellence (e.g., wild genius movie stars with no scruples) that undermine our basic assumptions about the 'evolution of civilization.'
We laugh, cry, and critique when we watch a Woody Allen film, and no one quite has the 'juggling-knack' for handling the black-and-white medium of film-making.
Allen's soft and streamy Freudy-psyche black-and-white opus Manhattan seems at once a love letter to the American city and a spotlight on 'traffic psychiatry.'
Woody Allen may be the real Orson Welles of the modern generation of film-makers (i.e., post-Arthur Penn).
In fact, it would be worthwhile to consider comparing Woody Allen to other film-makers who intelligently explore a similar brand of 'brainy-angst storytelling' (e.g., Alan J. Pakula, Neil Jordan, David Fincher, Sam Mendes, etc.).
No Woody Allen film should ever be given a rating of lower than 2/5 stars, which, IMO, also makes him the most consistent film-maker perhaps ever.
Sure, no one like 'Freudian harp-play' on screen which is why sentiment-dense 'mind-silly' American films such as Elaine May's Ishtar and Michael Lehmann's Hudson Hawk get such a poor following.
Woody Allen delves into an overly-sensitive mental world (be it any time setting in history) made curiously hypnotic by the 'brain-meanderings' of 'nervously giggling' humans. His films explore the glass-like dreamworld occupied by, for example, cosmopolitan Aryans, inspected by the experience of pensive Jewish-Americans or those with a specific bent towards 'metaphysics humor.'
Manhattan, Annie Hall, Zelig, Hannah and Her Sisters, Celebrity, and Blue Jasmine invite film audiences to ponder the meaning of existence (not life) through the lens of imaginative self-improvement, self-idealization, or denial.
In Celebrity, Allen offers us a Fellini-esque magnification of the overlooked 'daily excesses' of paradoxical excellence (e.g., wild genius movie stars with no scruples) that undermine our basic assumptions about the 'evolution of civilization.'
We laugh, cry, and critique when we watch a Woody Allen film, and no one quite has the 'juggling-knack' for handling the black-and-white medium of film-making.
Allen's soft and streamy Freudy-psyche black-and-white opus Manhattan seems at once a love letter to the American city and a spotlight on 'traffic psychiatry.'
Woody Allen may be the real Orson Welles of the modern generation of film-makers (i.e., post-Arthur Penn).
In fact, it would be worthwhile to consider comparing Woody Allen to other film-makers who intelligently explore a similar brand of 'brainy-angst storytelling' (e.g., Alan J. Pakula, Neil Jordan, David Fincher, Sam Mendes, etc.).
No Woody Allen film should ever be given a rating of lower than 2/5 stars, which, IMO, also makes him the most consistent film-maker perhaps ever.
