There’s something very Real about Woody Allen’s movies. Its like he takes all the riff-raff out of the situations he portrays and says “hey, this is how life eventually is. you have a woman fancying two men at a time, or you have this artist guy who just wants women around him and doesn’t stop a bit to hide that from anyone. this is life in the face, man.”
Most scenes are very lovable, and many of his movies have a narrative going in the background (like in Vicky … ) or there’s the protagonist breaking the fourth wall and describing his feelings, or the situation (like in Whatever Works, Annie Hall, etc). This saves the director a lot of time in terms of making actors chalk out prototype expressions / acts that would tell the average movie watcher that “they are now in love”, or “she is having a great time with this guy”. Whatever is the needful is said by the narrator or the protagonist and this way there is more time to get the story moving on, and to probably notice other things that are more important to the formation of the plot or the movie than simple logical movements among the characters.
I used to think that a movie in which Allen doesn’t act by himself, won’t be that good. But somehow, i hardly felt any difference between the two. He magically imbibes among his actors the same haste, stumbled speech, queerness, and the fear of commonplace life, that he himself so skilfully portrays in almost each role of his.
As an actor, he is one person who has achieved everything that he ever wanted his audience to know – while essentially being the same person in each movie. All his movies look more or less like sequels to each other with all the other actors and the scenarios just changing but the Allen is the same thin small guy wearing the same type of clothes, talking in his trademark way, and worrying about his trademark stuff.
He is one talented filmmaker whose films unfortunately go unnoticed by the “high circles”.
I think I like it better that way.
