THE CINEMA OF WOODY ALLEN - Rock The Best Music

Having recently released his 47th feature film (not counting the movies shot for television, the series created for Amazon or those shot with other directors such as “New York Stories” or “Lily the Tigress”), the genius of Brooklyn is still at the foot of the canyon. He has won many awards, including several Oscars, Golden Globes, Baftas, Goyas and other international recognitions throughout his career, such as the 2002 Prince of Asturias Award.

His beginnings as a joke writer for other comedians, as a comedian and absolute protagonist in stand up comedy performances give him enough ease and spontaneity to tackle a film career, being “Take the money and run” (1969) the first work of which he is in charge in all aspects, direction, script and main actor.

Since then he has not stopped writing, film and television scripts, story books, even plays, directing and acting, with the only exceptions dedicated to his other great passion. On Monday nights he performed with his jazz band at Michael's Pub in NYC until it closed and they moved to Café Carlyle.

His first works are dedicated exclusively to comedy, with films as funny as “Take the money and run”, “Bananas”, “Everything you always wanted to know about sex and never dared to ask”, “ The sleepyhead” and “The last night of Boris Grushenko”. Until "Annie Hall" arrived and gave his creations a plus. The 4 Oscars he won, including film, direction and screenplay, made him continue to broaden his sights, giving way to more introspective films such as "Interiors", "Manhattan" or "Memories".

Since then he has been alternating comedy with drama, bordering on genius on many occasions, but always with a common denominator. The word, the text, the script, always written by himself, is the center of all his work. His works have given a lot of other awards (his original screenplays have been nominated for an Oscar 16 times and won 3 times), and appearing in a Woody Allen movie was almost always a sign that your career was going to take off or you were among his chosen ones, since his projects reach almost 50 Oscar nominations in various sections.

The number of actors and actresses who have gone through his works are staggering. The female part is headed by their partners. The first part of his work comes from his second wife, the actress Louisse Lasser who appeared in "Take the money and run" (1969), "Bananas" (1971) and "Everything you ever wanted to know about sex and he never dared to ask” (1972), in addition to lending his voice in the initiation “Lily, the tigress” (1966). But the 70s brought an absolute role for Diane Keaton, who put her face on up to 5 female leads of the time in "The Sleepyhead" (1973), "The Last Night of Boris Grushenko" (1975), "Annie Hall" ( 1977), "Interiors" (1978) and "Manhattan" (1979), to return in the 90s with "Manhattan Murder Mystery" (1993). The other great protagonist of his films is Mia Farrow, with whom he had a personal relationship for more than a decade, joining him in more than a dozen films, cases of "The sexual comedy of a summer night" (1982), " Zelig” (1983), “Broadway Danny Rose” (1984), “The Purple Rose of Cairo” (1985), “Hannah and Her Sisters” (1986), “September” (1987), “Radio Days” ( 1987), "Another woman" (1988), "Crimes and offenses" (1989), "Alice" (1990), "Shadows and fog" (1991), "Husbands and wives" (1992), and even in the chapter typical of the film “New York Stories” (1989) shared with Scorsese and Coppola. But in addition to them, some of the greatest have gone through their works such as Gena Rowlands, Geraldine Page, Meryl Streep, Barbara Hershey, Claire Bloom, Anjelica Huston, Judy Davis, Helena Bonham Carter, Uma Thurman or Helen Hunt, highlighting the interpretations who did the great Dianne Wiest, with whom he came to work up to 5 times, of which he won 2 Oscars as a supporting actress (Hannah and her sisters and Bullets on Broadway), Scarlett Johansson, with whom he worked 3 times at the beginning of the 21st century, and the great comic actress Julie Kavner with whom he came to collaborate up to 6 times. We add actresses who have won many awards for their work in Woody Allen's films, such as Penelope Cruz or Cate Blanchett, and we certify that working for him is a sign of success.

In fact, the appearance of young female talents is already a trademark of her cinema. We can mention Mariel Hemingway herself (18 years old in "Manhattan"), Juliette Lewis (19 years old in "Husbands and Wives"), Natalie Portman (15 years old in "Everybody Says I Love You"), Charlize Theron (22 years old in ·"Celebrity"), Samantha Morton (22 years in "Accords and Disagreements"), Christina Ricci (22 years in "Everything Else"), Scarlett Johansson (20 years in "Match point"), Evan Rachel Wood (21 years in "If Things Work") or the recent Elle Fanning (20 years old in "Rainy Day in New York) and these are just some of the actresses who have made a recognized career in the world of cinema and that Woody included in his works at a young age, before becoming the stars they are today.

If we turn our face towards the male gender, we must make it clear that he himself is the absolute protagonist, creating a character that we all believe is based on himself. He has been a fundamental part of almost all of them, even providing the voice-over (The Purple Rose of Cairo, Radio Days…) in some, even misplacing his character to another actor (John Cusack, Jason Biggs, Larry David…) in others. Perhaps Tony Roberts is one of the most recurring because he has counted on him up to 6 times. But if we scratch a little we see the number of stars that have passed through his hands, such as Michael Caine, Jeff Daniels, Max Von Sydow, Gene Hackman, Alan Alda, John Malkovich, Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Hugh Grant, Jonny Lee Miller, Hugh Jackman, Ewan McGregor, Anthony Hopkins, Javier Bardem, Alec Baldwin, Colin Firth or Joaquin Phoenix, always being surrounded by the best supporting actors in the industry.

There are some names that have been linked to his career. Perhaps the most significant, in addition to those already mentioned, went through production. Charles H. Joffe (present in all his works from the beginning until his death in 2008), Jack Rollins (who from "Dreams of a seducer" in 1972 until his death in 2015 appeared in all possible formats in the production), Robert Greenhut (whom he met on Martin Ritt's "The Cover" in 1975 and joined his team from then until 1996), Jean Doumanian (indispensable since leaving Saturday Night Live and joining Woody from 1994 to 2000), Letty Aronson (his sister who joined his projects from 1994 to the present) or Helen Robin (from 1988 to the present day) are some of the names that are linked to the career of the genius from Brooklyn. As producers, co-producers, associate producers, executive producers or any of the positions linked to production.

Some critics and specialists consider Woody Allen the Balzac of recent years, turning Manhattan into 19th century France. His talent, lucidity, irony and critical analysis of him become a cinema that is much deeper than what we see at first glance.

As we said, his specialty is comedy, although he has experimented with other genres as attractive to him as the musical in “Everyone says I love you” (1996), the cinema within the cinema in “Recuerdos” ( 1980) or "Celebrity" (1998), the false documentary in "Zelig" (1983) or "Acordes y disagreements" (1999) or the existential drama in the purest style of his beloved Ingmar Bergman with "Interiors" (1978), "September" (1987) or "Another woman" (1988).

His move towards a more serious cinema led him to work with cinematographers of a superior quality. Perhaps the most notorious cases are Gordon Willis (a regular in his films from 1977 to 1985), responsible for Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather" trilogy or Alan J. Pakula's "All the President's Men", Carlo Di Palma ( who took over from 1986 to 1997), author of Michelangelo Antonioni's “Blow up”, or Sven Nykvist (a regular in the work of his admired I. Bergman) with whom he worked up to 4 times (“Another woman”, “Crimes and fouls”, “Celebrity” and the chapter directed by him in “New York Stories”). Although he also joined forces with artists of the stature of Zao Fei (author of the wonderful photography of "The Red Lantern" by Zhang Yimou) in 3 works, including with the Spanish artist Javier Aguirresarobe in "Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona" (2008). and “Blue Jasmine” (2013), until ending up with the master Vittorio Storaro in his last 3 productions “Café society” (2016), “Wonder Wheel” (2017) and “Rainy day in New York” (2018).

We will try to focus on comedy or tragicomic works to review some of his most representative films, always highlighting, above all else, the text, the script, the subtlety of his proposal, the humor of his lines, the fun which should be to recite their texts. His years in stand up comedy are still reflected in each of his films. 50 years later Woody Allen is still as funny, biting and analytical as ever.

MOVIES

TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN (Take the Money and run, 1969)

Virgil Starkwell (Woody Allen) is so lame and clumsy that, after his failure at cello music, he turned to theft. But he was also a nullity in the crime and he ended up in jail.

Halfway between the comic farce and the mockumentary, Allen makes his debut as a great manager in all aspects for the big screen.

The parents appear in costume with glasses and noses reminiscent of Groucho Marx for a TV show about Virgil due to his embarrassment. He undergoes an experimental treatment in jail that gets him out, but he reoffends until he meets a girl he falls in love with (Janet Margolin).

Mix some visual gag, very much in the style of classic American comedians like Oliver & Hardy, like reversing the taps in the shower and sink or using the fridge as a wardrobe.

She works as a laundress and on their first date Virgil realizes that this is love:

The scenes of the bank robbery with the disputes over what it says in the robbery note is hilarious, going back to prison for defending his penmanship. Their constant escapes, escapes and turns to criminality reach their culmination when they carry out the plan to rob a bank and coincide with other robbers, taking them all.

Virgil is punished to suffer for several hours in the presence of an insurance agent in the punishment cell, and thus achieves his 1st award nomination for his texts (Screenwriters Guild). The other milestone of this film is the union with the producers Charles H. Joffe and Jack Rollins who, although they were already part of his professional life, will accompany him during most of his film career.

EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX, BUT YOU WERE AFRAID TO ASK, 1972

Composed of 7 stories united by the common theme of sex, it brings together a host of well-known actors to joke non-stop about it.

In "Do Aphrodisiacs Work?" Woody Allen is a medieval court jester who turns W. Shakespeare's Hamlet into a farce about desire and love spirits to get the queen (Lynn Redgrave) into bed.

In “What is sodomy?” Doctor Ross (Gene Wilder) treats an Armenian shepherd who has fallen in love with a sheep, but she no longer loves him. Madness comes when he takes her to the doctor's office and it is the doctor who loses his mind over the animal.

In “Why do some women have trouble reaching orgasm?” Fabrizio (Woody Allen) is a postmodern artist who can't get his wife turned on until she finds the solution: do it in public and risk getting caught.

In “Are transvestites gay?” Some boyfriends take her parents to dinner at her in-laws' house, but when she goes to the bathroom, her father (Lou Jacobi) dresses in the woman's clothes.

In “What are sexual perverts?” there is a contest on tv where people have to guess the guest's perversion or make it come true.

In “Are the Findings of Doctors and Clinics Engaged in Sexual Research and Experimentation Accurate?” Victor (Woody Allen) and Gina (Louise Lasser) go to the mansion of Dr. Bernardo (John Carradine) to help him in his investigations, but his hunchbacked slave Igor (Ref Sanchez) and a giant tit end up spreading panic.

In “What happens during ejaculation?” it shows us the various human organs preparing for possible intercourse. The brain (with Tony Randall and Burt Reynolds in the lead) commands the eyes, ears, stomach, etc... The workers work on the erection so that everything works and does not fail like last time, until the sperm (Woody Allen, Robert Walden …) shoot out.

A total joke full of winks that, without being the best of Allen, contains some of the most hilarious moments.

THE LAST NIGHT OF BORIS GRUSHENKO (Love and death, 1975)

Boris (Woody Allen) is a young Russian who relives his childhood and youth memories, and his special relationship with his cousin Sonja (Diane Keaton), with whom he is in love because they have intellectual conversations:

But Sonja is in love with Ivan (Henry Czarniak), Boris's brother, and Napoleon invades Russia. War!!!! So Boris enlists in the army, even though he doesn't want to go and the sergeant punishes him:

Boris conquers a countess who confesses to him:

After many troubles and diatribes, where Woody Allen shamelessly pays homage to Ingmar Bergman, both in some shots and some dialogues, Boris is visited by death. It should be noted that it is the 1st film in which he joins Juliet Taylor, who is usually in charge of casting his films.

ANNIE HALL (Annie Hall, 1977)

This is the film that changed the direction of the director. He left the quirky, brainless comedy to focus on relationships and his obsessions. And also New York appears for the first time. The film opens with a close-up monologue in which Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) tells a joke:

There he begins to recount his life, to remember his love relationships, his two wives and Annie. The minutes go by while Woody intersperses childhood memories.

One day Annie and Alvy go to the movies, and in line is a guy who is philosophizing about Fellini's cinema, until Alvy goes to the camera and dismantles the intellectuals. He intersperses his relationship with Annie with memories of their past. Their friend Rob (Tony Roberts) was the one who introduced them at a tennis match. She sings and he is funny, showing clear autobiographical overtones.

He still keeps up some seriously funny lines, like when Alvy comes over to Annie's house because there's a huge spider in her bathroom:

Their relationship breaks up and comes together. In one of them they go to Los Angeles to an awards ceremony and to see Rob who drives them:

Diane Keaton's wardrobe, the work of Ruth Morley, is another of the icons that have remained in history, with jackets, ties and hats that made the actress a symbol of modernity.

The film ends with another joke told by Alvy, this time with footage from the streets of New York:

Its success was overwhelming, winning 4 Oscars, and being chosen by the American Writers Guild as the best comedy script in history in 2015, ahead of emblems of the genre such as "In skirts and like crazy" or "Trapped in the time".

MANHATTAN (Manhattan, 1979)

Isaac Davis is a 42-year-old screenwriter from New York who has an affair with 17-year-old Jill (Mariel Hemingway), while his best friend Yale (Michael Murphy) has an affair with Mary (Diane Keaton).

The crossroads of relationships between all the protagonists, the walks through the city streets, museums and parks of the city that never sleeps make “Manhattan” something more than a romantic film with comic overtones. It is a love song for the city that saw him born, grew up and made him the icon he is today. Images appear that come back to our minds every time George Gershwin's music is played, corners that we look for if we travel to New York, even the darkness with which Gordon Willis photographs the night of the metropolis becomes brilliant before the lucidity of his proposal.

Diane Keaton's farewell to the leading characters in Woody Allen's films, the definitive settlement of NYC as another interpreter of his works, the director's constant obsessions in his dialogues (Nazism, religion, Bergman, Fellini , Mahler, love...) and the number of phrases and images that he gives us to keep in the history of the seventh art. "Manhattan" is something more than a Woody Allen film, it is something more than cinema, it is always something more and although Allen himself did not like the result, his audience continues to consider it one of his unique pieces.

MEMORIES (Stardust Memories, 1980)

Sandy Bates (Woody Allen) is a successful film director, especially for his comedies, who is in an existential crisis. They are going to pay tribute to him and dedicate a retrospective to his work at a university, to which he reluctantly goes due to pressure from his representative (there are scenes in which he has a tremendous air of François Truffaut). There he is overwhelmed by the enormous displays of appreciation from the audience, interspersing memories of his childhood (where his passion for magic, psychoanalysis... reappears).

In one of those déjà vu, he goes to see some relatives. Her sister has been brutally raped and attacked and her brother-in-law is exercising on a stationary bike:

Intersperse vital discussions with more existential ones:

His friend Tony (Tony Roberts) tells him he's dating a perfect girl:

A guy asks for an autograph for his ex-wife, asking her to put “for xxx, you cheating, lying bitch”.

Woody Allen shows off those two aspects that were so marked in his cinema of the time, the purely comic one and the more existential one, highly influenced by Ingmar Bergman.

BROADWAY DANNY ROSE (Broadway Danny Rose, 1984)

A group of actors dedicated to the world of entertainment (Woody Allen recruits authentic actors dedicated to the genre in the 60s and 70s such as Corbett Monica, Jackie Gayle or Morty Gunty) meet in a Broadway restaurant talking about the old days . They start with 2, but they join to be 5, 6, even 7 and end up talking about Danny Rose (Woody Allen), a representative and theater agent of failed and old glories.

Corbett Monica is in charge of telling the best story about Danny and that's when the movie starts. Danny takes under his mantle Lou Canova (Nick Apollo Forte), an old-fashioned singer who recorded an album in the 50s and whom nobody remembers. Danny puts his heart and soul into trying to get him back in the game, but Lou has a mob-involved lover, Nina (Mia Farrow), who drives him crazy. Nina decides to leave his wife, even to change agents to improve their future options, but Danny is the one who saves both their asses from very difficult situations.

Allen's ability is to tell the misadventures and misadventures of showbiz with a sense of humor and comedic halo worthy of the best. The dialogues are full of comedy and the situations he poses are totally crazy (like when they get shot and a helium truck is punctured which makes them speak in childish voices).

Eventually, Lou leaves Danny and his wife, forcing the agent to return to his seedy but faithful clients. Nina is not happy and she feels guilty so she leaves Lou and goes to find him to apologize. The love, the smile, the humanity and the goodness make the coarseness and the evil forget, returning an Allen as inspired as in his times of “Annie Hall” or “Manhattan”.

They even named a sandwich at a Broadway bar after him!

THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (The purple rose of Cairo, 1985)

Cecilia (Mia Farrow) is a waitress in the years of the American Great Depression, who lives inside the movies she watches non-stop in the theater. Ella's husband Monk (Danny Aiello) is a wild gamer out of work who mistreats her.

“The Purple Rose of Cairo” is the movie she watches those days to escape her husband's deceit, the loss of her job, and her sadness and loneliness, but Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels) jumps out of it. the screen and falls in love with it.

Tom wants to live real life while Raoul Hirsch (Alexander Cohen), the producer, and Gil Shepherd (Jeff Daniels), the actor who plays Tom find out what happened and go to try to fix it.

Tom and Gil end up getting to know each other and they are both in love with Cecilia who must decide between reality and fiction.

The scene where Emma (Dianne Wiest) takes Tom to the brothel is wonderful, as are the brawls between the characters in the film and the real people in the movie.

A romantic comedy where Mia Farrow and Jeff Daniels fall in love, depicting Allen's own love of film.

HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (Hannah and her sisters, 1986)

Hannah (Mia Farrow), Holly (Dianne Wiest) and Lee (Barbara Hershey) are 3 close-knit sisters whose lives intersect. Hannah is the emotional support of the family and is married to Elliot (Michael Caine). Holly wants to be a writer, but starts a catering company with her friend April (Carrie Fisher). And Lee is divorced, unemployed and a former alcoholic.

Lee lives with a much older minimalist painter (Max Von Sydow) who tries to teach her the art of life; Elliot is a successful businessman who falls idyllic in love with Lee and is in a relationship with her; Mickey (Woody Allen) is Hannah's ex-husband, hypochondriac, hyperactive, TV producer...; Everything gets mixed up between the protagonists, creating a purely New York mix of comedy and drama that, in the hands of Allen, becomes a masterpiece.

Mickey thought he had melanoma on his back, but it turned out to be a stain on his shirt. They even told him that he was sterile, asking if he could find a solution with some push-ups. He had a date with Holly that turned out to be disastrous, although he confessed to "having had a blast and being like the Nuremberg trials."

After much to and fro, Mickey and Holly are reunited, Lee marries another man, and Hannah and Elliot patch up their differences, returning for dinner at the parents' house on Thanksgiving night. A squaring of the circle that Oscar gave to M. Caine, D. Wiest and W. Allen himself for the original script.

RADIO DAYS (Radio days, 1987)

Some thieves pick up the phone while they are robbing a house and win a radio prize that the family of the house they robbed enjoys (has Allen seen “Historias de la radio” by José Luis Sáenz de Heredia?). This is how one of Woody Allen's most rounded films begins, full of comic situations, embellished throughout with the voice-over of Allen himself, whose script was nominated for an Oscar.

All of the filming is pure nostalgia and, as I say, there are crazy moments, almost all of which star Dianne Wiest as Bea. In her eagerness to find a husband, she goes out with men a lot. One of them flees in terror when he returns home because on the radio they hear the famous re-enactment of Orson Welles' "The War of the Worlds" and he believes that there is an alien invasion. Another sees his possible romance broken by the outbreak of the IIGM. There is even a 3rd who, once she has already fallen in love and tells him so, confesses that he is gay.

Still, we do find some scenes of sheer, wacky Allen humor, like when Uncle Abe (Josh Mostel) says to his wife, Aunt Ceil (Renée Lippin):

Or when little Joe (Seth Green) asks his dad for money to buy a superhero ring he heard on the radio:

In another scene Tess (Julie Kavner) talks to Bea (Dianne Wiest) about her demand to find a partner:

Or celebrating New Year's Eve at home while listening to celebrities say goodbye to 1943 on the radio, Ceil and Abe discuss it from the sofa:

A dreamy film, with a magical packaging punctuated by the constant music that played on the radio in the early 40s.

CRIMES AND FAULTS (Crimes and misdemeanors, 1989)

Judah Rosenthal (Martin Landau) receives a tribute, but that afternoon he had received a letter from his lover Dolores (Anjelica Huston) to set the record straight and speak to his wife Miriam (Claire Bloom).

The stories of Lester (Alan Alda), a successful television producer, his brother-in-law Cliff Stern (Woody Allen), a director of documentaries and art-house films, his brother Ben (Sam Waterson), a Jewish rabbi who he is going blind, and Judah, his ophthalmologist who confesses to him when he goes to his office.

Being a dramatic film, it contains some of the funniest gags in Woody Allen's filmography, such as when his sister Barbara confesses to him that a man she has met on a newspaper contact page has tied him to the bed to defecate on him above, or when he himself confesses to Barbara that “he hasn't been inside a woman since he visited the statue of liberty”.

It is one of the films that best mixes comedy with drama, where murder or infidelity go hand in hand with farce and joke. Guilt becomes one of the fundamental themes in Woody Allen's work, and it will be repeated in many of his films (Match point, Cassandra's dream, Irrational man...)

Judah, in one of his talks with his mobster brother Jack (Jerry Orbach), discusses the possibility of ending his lover's life to get the problem out of the way, and comes to a conclusion:

Or when Halley Reed (Mia Farrow) confesses to Cliff:

Or in a marriage dispute between Cliff and his wife Wendy (Joanna Gleason):

Its importance in Allen's work is fundamental and the construction of the script becomes a perfect example to take comedy and drama hand in hand.

HUSBANDS AND WIVES (Husbands and wives, 1992)

Sally (Judy David) and Jack (Sydney Pollack) arrive at Gabe's (Woody Allen) and Judy's (Mia Farrow) house to tell them they are separating. Mia doesn't get it and is very upset. It is Mia Farrow's last film with Woody Allen, since in the last days of filming, Allen's relationship with his current wife and Farrow's adoptive daughter was discovered.

Woody and Mia talk about their friends as if they were talking about their own relationship, their own problems and realities. Jack hooks up with an aerobics instructor at the gym he goes to and Sally hooks up with Michael, a co-worker. In turn, Gabe and Judy rethink their relationship and he feels attracted to Rain (Juliette Lewis), a student at the University, and Judy considers other options outside of marriage.

It all seems contrived as part of the marital crisis that the Allen-Farrow royal couple was going through in their current life. Everyone goes through the camera of a supposed documentary that is being filmed to portray life as a married couple.

However, there are still sparks of humor, such as when Rain tells Gabe about their various relationships:

A before and after in Allen's cinema, who would abandon the role of Mia Farrow to recover pure comedy for a few years.

MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY (1993)

Larry and Carol Lipton (Woody Allen and Diane Keaton) are a married couple who live in Manhattan and divide their tastes between the sport that opens the film at MSG and the opera that will be the next thing to see (he has already bought the plugs). When they return, they discuss the case of a murderer who killed 12 victims, dismembered them, and ate them:

They go up in the elevator with neighbors Paul and Lillian House (Jerry Adler and Lynn Cohen), and they comment that they know each other from the gym, although Larry prefers to atrophy, and they go to his house for coffee and a chat. The next day, when they return from seeing "Perdition", they find that she has died of a heart attack.

The next night they go to the opera, but leave before it's over because:

Carol and her friend Ted (Alan Alda) continue to speculate that the woman has been murdered and she gets some keys to the house from the neighbors, entering when Paul has left, and telling Larry:

Carol and Ted are still stubborn and one day she sees her on a bus. They end up finding her and follow her to a hotel, but they find her dead again:

The appearance of Marcia Fox (Anjelica Huston), one of the authors of Larry, who is tried to hook up with Ted, stars in some of the funniest scenes, such as when she tries to teach Larry how to play poker.

Another of the key comedies in Allen's production that, although it did not reach the Oscars, did go through the Golden Globes, the Baftas or the Césars.

BULLETS ON BROADWAY (Bullets over Broadway, 1994)

David Shayne (John Cusack) is a failed playwright who finally gets funding to release a play. A great Broadway star (Dianne Wiest) assumes the female lead and another great actor (Jim Broadbent) the male. The downside is that the money is provided by a gangster (Joe Viterelli) who demands that his mistress (Jennifer Tilly) be given a role, who turns out to be a disastrous actress.

Once again, Allen builds a hilarious and grotesque situation comedy that escalates to its peak when the little girl's thug they put as bodyguard (Chazz Palminteri) becomes the revelation of the film.

The mob henchman (Cheech) rewrites the play and makes it really good, because in addition to collecting debts for the mob he has a gift with letters. He gets so involved that he realizes that the problem with the play is Olive (Tilly) and he cuts her out. The surrogate exponentially improves the function, but everything is discovered.

One of Allen's most inspired films, lusciously paced, reminiscent of a bygone era, with brilliant colour, music and performances. From there, Dianne Wiest won her 2nd Oscar for best supporting actress, thanks to Allen's insistence because everyone wanted to replace Dianne, including Wiest herself.

Never has an artist been so persistent:

POWERFUL APHRODITE (Mighty Aphrodite, 1995)

Woody Allen turns a Greek tragedy into the 21st century, tucking in a baleful Greek chorus as a plot line.

Amanda (Helena Bonham Carte) and Lenny (Woody Allen) are married and discuss the idea of ​​adopting a child:

But in the end they adopt a child and discussing the baby's name, Lenny proposes one of his idols: Groucho, Django, Sugar Ray, Thelonious, Harpo... even Max. Max grows up and when moving house asks Lenny:

Lenny goes into crisis and looks for Max's biological mother who turns out to be a prostitute and porn actress who wants to be a serious actress and has changed her name several times: Leslie St. James, Linda Ash, Judy Orgasmo...

The chorus reels off the moral and dramatic air of the text, and Cassandra ridicules it:

Lenny gets as close to Linda as he gets away from Amanda. He convinces her to stop prostitution and find a man who really loves her, he even convinces her pimp to let him go away from her. And Linda is very grateful:

Another wonder of sneaky romanticism that doles out an Oscar to its female performer (Mira Sorvino) and leaves you with a smile and a sense of good vibes and constant well-being as the Greek chorus closes the film singing and dancing to Dick Hyman's classic “When you're smiling (the whole world smiles with you)”.

DISASSEMBLING HARRY (Deconstructing Harry, 1997)

Lucy (Judy Davis) arrives very angry at the house of Harry Block (Woody Allen) because he has written a book where he recounts in detail his affair, destroying his life. Each book of hers collects her own experiences, intermingling the images of real life with those told in his novels.

In one of them, Harvey Stern (Tobey Maguire) poses as another who is in the hospital in a coma, to use his apartment and spend a night with a prostitute, until death knocks on the door and it is revealed to him. he is wearing because he confuses it with the real thing, in a clear comic homage to Ingmar Bergman's “The Seventh Seal”.

Their stories come to life, like the case of Mel (Robin Williams), the unfocused man, or Helen (Demi Moore), the militant Jewish psychologist.

He accompanies his friend Richard (Bob Balaban) to the hospital because he is not feeling well and there he unleashes one of his funny sentences:

The university where he studied, and which expelled him, is going to pay homage to him, and since he is going alone, he decides to take Cookie (Hazelle Goodman), the prostitute he usually hires lately, his friend Richard and kidnaps his son to share with him.

Cookie and Harry make a connection and she asks him:

On the way to the university they pass by to see his sister, a radical Jew, with whom he ends up arguing about religion:

The entire film is full of hilarious phrases and dialogue, bringing Allen back to his best, even his text was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. One of those movies where, without realizing it, you spend 90 minutes laughing non-stop.

THE CURSE OF THE JADE SCORPION (The curse of the jade scorpion, 2001)

It's 1940 and CW Briggs (Woody Allen) is the top investigator for an insurance agency in NYC. Betty Ann Fitzgerald (Helen Hunt) is a new company executive who is restructuring it to optimize resources, which puts her at odds with the CW.

One night they celebrate the 50th birthday of George, (Wallace Shawn) one of the workers and attend a mentalist's show. Voltan Polgard (David Ogden Stiers) hypnotizes WC and Betty Ann into falling in love and they all laugh a lot knowing they hate each other. What they don't know is that the keywords for hypnosis, Constantinople and Madagascar respectively, have not been deactivated and they will use it to rob various houses of wealthy families, taking advantage of their security knowledge.

The wonderful music used for the film, by Duke Ellington, Hoagy Carmichael or Morgan Lewis, with the recurring melody of “In a persian market” by Albert W. Kelelbey performed by Wilbur de Paris for the robberies give it a touch of humor and lightness that make him move forward without stopping, always with a smile on his face.

The investigations of the robberies make him meet Laura Kensington (Charlize Theron) daughter of one of the stolen families, he even makes him suspicious of Betty Ann, which makes him snoop and gossip her office and his house, discovering his affair with Chris Magruder (Dan Aykroyd), head of the company, and saving her from suicide by breaking the relationship.

Everything takes a turn when an external investigation company discovers clues that accuse CW of the robberies and, although he puts his priest as a possible defense of his person (a pity that he is wanted in 3 different states for pedophilia), they end up locking him up.

WC escapes and goes to Betty Ann's house to hide because, despite their mutual hatred, she is the only one who defends him. They argue and she threatens to call the police:

The co-workers help him investigate further and discover the magician's hoax, releasing him from the spell, allowing WC to solve the case. He ends up saying goodbye to the Insurance Agency, but decides to reveal his love for Betty Ann just before she goes on a trip to Paris with Chris and…

The New York of the 40s, the poignant comic dialogues between Woody Allen and Helen Hunt, the constant humor of the situations raised, the irreverent sexuality of Charlize Theron, the dynamic soundtrack, the constants of Allen's cinema (the magic, love, music, words...)... everything makes us face one of his funniest and most self-conscious films, with touches from the director devoted to comedy from his beginnings, but knowing how to handle the threads of the action so that he doesn't get stuck.

A FINAL MADE IN HOLLYWOOD (Hollywood ending, 2002)

Val (Woody Allen) is a 2-Oscar-winning film director who the industry forgot about, but he gets a script that seems perfect for him and produced by the man who took his wife. He ends up accepting it because it is his opportunity to return to the big leagues, although at first he refused because of who it came from:

On the way to the meeting to finalize the contract, he takes a pill in the taxi to stimulate himself, and another before to calm down, although he had taken another that makes him dry when it rains. His agent Al (Mark Rydell) accompanies him and helps him accept.

The pressure gets to him and a couple of days before shooting he goes blind from something psychosomatic, but Al insists he go ahead with the collaboration of someone who is nearby on the set. Everything is in chaos, but no one seems to notice until the collaborating Chinese translator is fired and tells his ex-Ellie (Téa Leoni).

He goes to sessions with a psychologist to help him. It turns out that she has a punk son from her previous marriage who is the key to fixing it. His name was Tony (Mark Webber), but he changed his name to Dirt X:

When he mends his relationship with his son, he recovers his sight, but when he sees the copy of the film he sees the disaster:

The film is a flop and everything is despair, until critics arrive from France where they describe it as a masterpiece... and he recovers the love of his ex and they go to live together in Paris.

With hilarious and crazy moments, reminiscent of Woody Allen from his beginnings, he once again gives us another one of those films that behind the veil of inconsequentiality shows the greatness of his cinema.

MELINDA AND MELINDA (Melinda and Melinda, 2004)

Max (Larry Pine), Sy (Wallace Shawn), Louise (Stephanie Roth Haberle) and Al (Neil Pepe) are 4 friends who discuss comedy and tragedy in life over dinner. Al tells a true story that happened to some friends and Max, a playwright, comes up with a tragic story about her, while Sy, a comedic playwright, veers the facts into comedy and comes up with the funny option.

Melinda (Radha Mitchell) is the only point in common of both sides, arriving by surprise at the house of some friends (dramatic version) or neighbors (comic version), endlessly combining both stories to highlight the contradiction of life.

Lee (Johnny Lee Miller) and Laurel (Chloë Sevigny) lead the dramatic part of the film, while Susan (Amanda Peet) and Hobie (Will Ferrell) lead the comedic version. Woody Allen synchronizes both stories, disintegrating the lives of the couples that his arrival affected.

The hilarious presence of Will Ferrell's comedy collides squarely with the dangerous imprint of Johnny Lee Miller's plant, as Chloë and Amanda color the female leads that decorate the complexity of Radha Mitchell's personality.

One of those rarities in which comedy and drama go hand in hand and combine perfectly to give lucidity to madness.

MATCH POINT (Match point, 2005)

Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a former professional tennis player, joins a London socialite family tutoring his son Tom (Matthew Goode). Her girlfriend Nola Rice (Scarlett Johansson), an American who wants to be an actress, is overwhelmingly attractive and hooks up with her.

Chris dates Chloe (Emily Mortimer), the daughter of the Hewett clan, and she finds him a job at his father's companies, but he's stuck with Nola.

Chris becomes obsessed with Nola and, despite marrying Chloe, when she and Tom break up, they start an affair that reaches its extreme when he impregnates her and assures her that he will leave Chloe to go with her. Nola pushes him until Chris dumps her and her guilt takes over from her passion.

The police investigate and find a diary at Nola's house, but chance, as in tennis, causes the ball to land in the opponent's or their own court after hitting the net.

A film that brought several changes to Allen's cinema. On the one hand, he joined Scarlett Johansson, with whom he came to film 3 tapes almost in a row; on the other hand, he left New York to cross the pond and replace it with London; he also assumed the pure drama as the absolute protagonist of the film; and finally he returned to gather the opinion of the critics praising his work. One of his best films in the 21st century that served to show that he still had a lot to say.

SCOOP (Scoop, 2006)

The funeral of journalist Joe Strombel (Ian McShane) is held and on Charon's ship on the other side he talks with a woman who reveals to him who is the tarot murderer whom everyone is looking for.

Sid Waterman (Woody Allen), better known as the magician Splendini, pulls Sandra Pransky (Scarlett Johansson) up on stage to perform a trick, only to be told by Strombel's spirit to investigate the news that wealthy Peter Layman (Huhg Jackman) is the tarot assassin.

Sid and Sandra team up to investigate and go to a London socialite club pool where Peter comes, introducing himself as father and daughter. He invites them to a private party at the family mansion, where Sid performs card tricks on the guests and gossips around the rooms while she visits the mansion with Peter, establishing a relationship between them.

In the evening, Sid goes to play poker with Peter's rich friends, showing off his card skills:

The relationship between Peter and his investigators continues to grow closer, and Sid continues to throw darts non-stop:

Sandra and Peter start dating and she thinks he is going to propose to her:

When they go to the press, the police catch the real confessed murderer. The film ends again on Charon's ship, this time with Sid performing card tricks on those who accompany him on the ultimate voyage.

IF THE THING WORKS (Whatever works, 2009)

Boris Yellnikoff (Larry David), a pessimistic, hypochondriac and ironic grown man from New York introduces us to a Ferris wheel of comedy and romanticism in the purest Allen style. He begins with a monologue in front of the camera where he gives free rein to his negative and ash vision of life, until, arriving home, he welcomes a young southern woman who has come to the city fleeing her family and looking for her life. life of her The continuous entanglements unite his friendships with the mother (Patricia Clarkson) who comes looking for him, once separated from his father, creating misunderstandings and very comical situations.

Young Melody Celestine, played by Evan Rachel Wood, meets a boy who takes her to her first concert in the city that never sleeps, a rock band called Anal Sphincter; her mother Marietta becomes an artist who lives with two men at the same time; his father (Ed Begley, jr.) becomes an outspoken gay; and she, after being married to Boris for a while, joins a young actor (Henry Cavill) who lives on a boat.

The script is full of crazy lines and comedic situations. Here are a couple:

Boris and Melody premiere their happy marriage in NYC. He teaches chess to children and she walks dogs. One day he goes to look for it to return home soon and:

When his mother has already arrived in the city and they are eating on a terrace with their daughter Melody, Boris and a friend of his:

Marietta tries to set Melody up with a young actor and is trying to convince her daughter to go see him:

Boris and Melody are shopping at the market just before coming home, and Boris talks about his religious sense:

When Melody leaves him, Boris again tries to commit suicide by throwing himself out the window, but falls on a woman who is walking her dog, and it turns out that she is a seer (Helena), with whom he falls in love:

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS (Midnight in Paris, 2011)

Inez (Rachel McAdams) and Gil (Owen Wilson) are engaged and accompany her parents to Paris, where Gil would like to live, but in the 1920s, to meet all his idols. He has abandoned his job as a screenwriter in Hollywood to undertake his first novel and wants to imbue himself with the classicism and romanticism of the city.

They run into an American couple, Paul (Michael Sheen) and Carol (Nina Arianda), who are pedantic and self-important, but are Inez's old friends and hang out to go everywhere. Gil doesn't fit in with them and looks for any excuse to leave. One night he decides to go for a walk through the city until he gets lost, and an old car passes by that takes him back in time, to those long-awaited 20s. There he meets and treats Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda, Cole Porter, Ernest Hemingway, Luis Buñuel , Joséphine Baker, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, T.S. Eliot, Henri Matisse, Man Ray, and Gertrude Stein, who becomes his personal editor, whose guidance and insights make his novel a remarkable work.

The constant changes of time, demonstrating Allen's unlimited love for Paris, gradually determine the separation between the leading couple and Gil's attachment to the city of lights. He meets a young flea market vendor named Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) in the present and another young artist who has inspired many artists in the past named Adriana (Marion Cotillard) with whom he falls in love. The latter suffers the same hypnotism as Gil from the past, specifically from the Parisian Belle Epoque, until one night when they appear at Maxim's at the end of the 19th century and meet Toulousse-Lautrec, Degas or Gauguin and she decides to stay there.

He returns to the present and decides to leave Inez and stay in Paris to finish and publish his novel, leaving a great loving postcard to Woody Allen's past and present, with an ending as hopeful as it is illuminated.

The film garnered 4 Oscar nominations, winning Best Original Screenplay for Allen himself, giving us some of his funniest and most inspired scenes, including:

BLUE JASMINE (Blue Jasmine, 2013)

Jasmine (Cate Blanchett) is a neurotic divorcee from New York who goes to stay with her sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins) in San Francisco to get over the rough patch. She was married to Hal (Alec Baldwin) who was a financial chorizo, ending up committing suicide in jail.

She remembers when Ginger and her husband Augie (Andrew Dice Clay) visit them in Manhattan:

On the trip, Ginger watches as Hal cuckolds her sister. She highlights the contrast between a posh and elitist sister, and the other uneducated and down-to-earth.

In San Francisco, Ginger is dating Chili (Bobby Cannavale) after breaking up with Augie, and Jasmine forms a relationship with Dwight (Peter Sarsgaard), a diplomat who can maintain his livelihood, until everything is discovered. He only wanted her to start her political career and she wanted her to return to her unreal life.

Cate Blanchett received many awards for her performance, including the Oscar for Best Actress, and the script may be considered the last truly notable of Allen's career.

WOODY ALLEN'S FILM MUSIC

Everyone knows about Woody Allen's passion for jazz and classical music. Since he was a child he tried to become a musician and, first with the sax and finally with the clarinet, he became an outstanding student. That passion has led her to her cinema and, starting with her 3rd film as a director, she turned to her extensive discography to decorate the scenes she was filming, using jazz for most of her comedies and classical music for most of her films. dramas.

Musicians of the stature of Cole Porter, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Erroll Garner, Coleman Hawkins, Artie Shaw, Django Reinhardt, Duke Ellington, Lester Young, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, Tommy Dorsey or Jackie Gleason became part of Of his works. He would sample songs for each scene until he was satisfied with the combination, leaving an indelible stamp on his work.

Although perhaps, the emblem for which it will go down in history is possibly George Gershwin's work for “Manhattan” (1979). The New York Philharmonic Orchestra, under the command of Zubin Mehta, and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, knew how to give Gershwin's work the perfect shape. The intro with "Rhapsody in blue" and the skyscrapers, lights and city streets in the background are something unforgettable.

Moving on to the dramas, classical music takes center stage, resorting on many occasions to their favorite composers. Gustav Mahler, Franz Schubert, Giuseppe Verdi or Gaetano Donizetti, although it also includes pieces by Beethoven, Wagner, Mozart or Boccherini. But his favorite is Johan Sebastian Bach, who contributes more compositions to his films, although he also included several themes by the early 20th century German composer Kurt Weill, more associated with cabaret and operettas, but equally valid and appropriate for his films.

Woody Allen has managed to make music one more character in his films. Quentin Tarantino may have been the only film director who, away from musical cinema, has managed to give capital importance to the soundtrack of his works.

HIS WORK OUTSIDE THE CINEMA

Its premiere comes from the hand of “Don't drink the toilet” in 1966. It was directed by Stanley Prager and featured actors such as Lou Jacobi, Tony Roberts, Donna Mills or Anita Gillette, although the production by Charles H. Joffe and Jack Rollins is the most significant thing for the future in his career. In the 90s, Allen himself directed a television adaptation starring Michael J. Fox, although in 1969 Howard Morris had already done so with Jackie Gleason and Estelle Parsons as protagonists.

Perhaps the best known is “Play it again, Sam”, which premiered in 1969 on Broadway directed by Joseph Hardy and starring Woody Allen himself, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts and Jerry Lacy. Its success took it to the cinema, with Herbert Ross as director, although Woody Allen himself adapted the text and starred in it. In Spain several adaptations have been made for the stage, under the title “Aspirina para dos” or by the better known “Play it again, Sam”.

In 1981, “The floating light bulb” appeared, which, despite good reviews, was a public failure. It was directed by Ulu Grosbard and starred by Beatrice Arthur, Danny Aiello, Brian Backer and Jack Weston.

“Central Park West” premiered in NYC in 1995 and tells the story of a married couple when the wife finds out that the husband is having a relationship with another woman, who turns out to be much younger. It was directed by Michael Blakemore and starred Debra Monk, Linda Lavin, Paul Guifoyle, Gerry Becker and Tari T. Signor, and a Spanish adaptation was made directed by Veronica Forqué under the translation of "Adulteries", with María Barranco, Miriam Díaz- Aroca, Fernando Acaso, Fermí Herrero and Paloma Bloyd in the roles.

In 2004, “A second hand memory” was released, directed by Allen himself, with Dominic Chianese, Nicky Katt, Erica Leerhsen, Elizabeth Marvel and Michael McKean in the leading roles. It had some success on the Off-Broadway circuit, although it was uneventful.

There are several more in which he appears as an author, director or whose work has been adapted in other countries or to other genres, but I would like to highlight a book that compiles many of his stories that, full of wit, irony, sarcasm and meaning of humor, give a clear sample of the genius of Brooklyn. I'm talking about "Tales without feathers" that includes 3 of his most lucid texts: "How to put an end to culture once and for all" (1971), "Without feathers" (1975) and "Profiles" (1980).

In them we can see his clear admiration for the absurd humor of the Marx brothers or his constant references to Nazism, Judaism or psychoanalysis. Texts as absurd as "The seventh seal" (clear reference to his beloved Ingmar Bergman), "Correspondence", "Count Dracula" (great invitation to the vampire during a solar eclipse) or "¡Viva Vargas!" show the genius and ingenuity of his pen in the 1st part of the work. Others such as "Lovborg's female characters: an evaluation", "The Mensa whore" or the short play "God" (where classical Greek characters seek the right ending for the success of the play they are going to represent: Diabetes and Hepatitis that will have the collaboration of a Greek choir and Colitis and Trichinosis among others) illuminate the 2nd of the integral parts. And to close there are stories like "My apology" that make clear the comic vision of a guy who, every day in a traditional way, sits in front of his typewriter to work.

To conclude we can mention “Pure anarchy” which, in 2007, compiled up to 18 of the stories he published in the North American magazine The New Yorker.

We may be looking at the ultimate example of a modern renaissance, capable of being a genius in various arts and parts of popular culture. Film director, writer, musician, actor, stand-up writer... we may not be aware of what we will lose when we no longer experience another autumn with a Woody Allen premiere.