Film Roundup ~ Love and Death

1975. Director Woody Allen. Starring Woody Allen & Diane Keaton.
I remember at one of my infrequent gatherings at my humble, some would say less than swelteringly hot, flat, someone complaining once that the Woody Allen book in the bathroom was a bit creepy. It would be better if I could remember who/when it was, as it would sound a lot less like just a contrived recollection to work in as an opening to this entry, but it did happen – and is revealing as to a prevailing attitude and ignorance about the Woodster.

From the first reactions of some people, you'd think his litany of films should be filed under 'adult' and treated as a bit of an exception – a niche, semi-pornographic anomaly that would be of no interest at all to the majority. You get the impression that he wouldn't mind that and would probably actually take it as a perverse compliment – as he would the fact that someone would find a photo of him on the cover of a book a bit too repellent to go about their bathroom business.

It's odd that his kind of stock-in-trade romantic comedy (he arguably invented the entire genre of 'relationship films'), which he can turn out to a decent standard in his sleep, are exactly the style of movie that plenty of people are happy to watch ream upon ream of witless facsimiles of, without wondering what the market leader is like – like eating every type of Dairylea, processed Kraft or Babybel but never being tempted to go for a real piece of cheese.

This in fact isn't one of the 'template' genre ones – it's very difficult to say what this film is actually going for – and because of that reveals one of the qualities he has , which may be more praiseworthy than all the usual epithets lobbed at him ('wry', 'observational', ' nihilistic' etc) and that is: He does not give a fuck.
What was he thinking putting out a 90 minute, virtually plotless, period piece that is basically a loose through-line for him to get as money one-liners and smart-arse quips in as possible and have he and Diane Keaton dress up in some fantastic Russian costumes? Was there ever any focus-group, 'what do the public want?'-style think tank that produced a pitch remotely like this:
"Parody of classic literature. In czarist Russia, a neurotic soldier and his distant cousin formulate a plot to assassinate Napoleon. With Marx Bros/Chaplin-esque slapstick vibe"

Sonja: Judgment of any system, or a priori relationship or phenomenon exists in an irrational, or metaphysical, or at least epistemological contradiction to an abstract empirical concept such as being, or to be, or to occur in the thing itself, or of the thing itself.Boris: Yes, I've said that many times.

To just fancy doing something like this, do it, put it out and not pander in any way to audience maximisation or any such nonsense is a fairly brave thing to do. It's absolutely unimaginable to think of any comedic celebrity nowadays coming up with anything within a million miles of such an unusual and non-commercial idea.
Five years before this, he was still writing jokes for other people and doing stand-up sketch shows on TV. What is the likelihood that , say, by 2015 Michael McIntyre will write, direct and star in a totally individual feature-length film simultaneously celebrating and satirising the key figures and literature from the collapse of the Soviet Union?

Current would-be peers of similar stature do indeed tip-toe into the film milieu – but the way in which for arguments sake, Russell Brand & Ricky Gervais have done it is so much more cynical and planned to the most small detail.

Both are very clever and funny, and you'd imagine both do have fairly interesting opinions and thoughts, but if you compare the safeness and predictability of the roles they've taken in 'Hollywood' to the type of film I'd guess they'd like to be associated with in an ideal world, the conclusion would have to be that they're either not ambitious & brave enough - or more worried about doing something alternative that flopped than following their own instinct.

Part of his lack of concern for critical reception I think must come from the decision to just keep on ploughing his own path and have almost decided that barring exceptional circumstances, he's going to put out a film every year regardless of reaction to the previous release. This taps into a much bigger truth that is not often mentioned in critical assessments, maybe because it's very simplistic: artists are more interesting the more they put out, erreors, mis-steps and all.

Invariably, when a band takes four years working on an album it's a huge let-down. It must be difficult when you're the person actually charged with creating something, and the temptation to over-do it and the desire for everything to be 'perfect' is understandable, but when you step back and look from an uninvolved perspective, the folly is frustrating.
REM put out their first 8 albums in nine years, and two stone-cold five star classics in successive years (91&92). If they'd spent three years making sure every single note on Automatic For the People was "perfect" (e.g. taken out the off-script laugh on 'Dr. Zeus' in Sidewinder... etc) it wouldn't have had the same feel at all.
In the 70s alone Woody Allen released ten films, and clearly there were bits and pieces that he could have re-done, agonised over nuances and fretted over. But the pattern of constantly moving on seems to produce a far better overall cannon , and you end up with the progression from Play It Again Sam (my favourite out of all his films) to Annie Hall – the first being effectively a dry-run to be learnt from and improved upon for the Oscar winner.

Boris: I have no fear of the gallows.Father: No?Boris: No. Why should I? They're going to shoot me.

Segments of Love & Death make absolutely no sense and a smattering of the gags bomb completely, but because its done so honestly it just emphasises the smartness of the ones that do worked – helped his a co-star, described by the NY Times at the time as "Miss Keaton, a wickedly funny comedienne" building on what must be the most consistent on-screen chemistry pairing ever ("There are dozens of little moments when their looks have to be exactly right, and they almost always are").

t looks sensational throughout, spurns some of the most quotable lines he's ever managed and manages to mix references to classical literature seamlessly with knockabout nonsense – as Roger Ebert put it, it's a great film "because it's been done with such care, love and lunacy"

"Sex without love is an empty experience. But as empty experiences go, it's one of the best."
To finish on a trite point – haters gon' hate, and they will find plenty to dislike about Woody Allen if they want, but they shouldn't. Get past, if needs be, being 'creeped out' by the cover of the book and read some of it:
http://woodyallenitalia.tripod.com/short-uk.html

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