06 27 05

According to an interview in Der Spiegel, the most German-sounding German newspaper of them all, Woody Allen would be honored to be thought of as a “European filmmaker.” No surprise. we’ve seen that coming since “Stardust Memories,” his bowl of cooked spinach served up to everyone who expected another “Manhattan.” You can argue about which films were the best, but of the post-Manhattan period – the longest artistic coda in American culture - the ones that have the most emotional appeal are the ones that connect with the America of his childhood. “Radio Days,” “Purple Rose of Cairo” – indisputably American in tone and spirit, and both movies that profit from the absence of the director’s acting. I’m not sure what he means by “European” – it would seem to suggest some sort of artistic freedom unhampered by the marketplace, presumably propped up by state grants, unspoiled for smart chain-smoking people with white skin, black glasses, and an ineffable appreciation for the innumerable shades gray.

In any case, the interview reminds you that Allen's schtick - the smart neurotic who can dash off the name of Deep Thinkers with the ease of someone steeped in ethical particulars - is just that: schtick.

Q. Mr. Allen, your film tells the same story twice, first as a tragedy and then as a comedy. Both parts are really funny. Do you think then that humor is the only way of reflecting reality?

A. Allen: Actually I don't. I think that the tendency for most people is to fall back on a comic interpretation of things -- because things are so sad, so terrible. If you didn't laugh you'd kill yourself. But the truth of the matter is that existence in general is very very tragic, very very sad, very brutal and very unhappy. Every now and then, something happens that's funny. And that's refreshing. But then you move back into the real world, which is not funny. You only have to pick up the newspaper in the morning and read about the real world and you see that it's rotten, just bad.

Speak for yourself, ya mope. Let us all consider the very very sad and very brutal and very unhappy life of Woody Allen, a man who’s essentially coasted along without a jot of friction but still cannot find happiness in life. Fine; he can believe as he wishes, but one suspects that his observations about life may not be accurate in the general sense, but the result of a lifetime spent buying himself mirrors and painting them black. The idea that the “real world” is a difficult place usually strikes most people around the age of 15. Eventually you deal with it and move on, and the idea that the “real world” is not all Jif and Pixy Stix doesn’t strike you as a brilliant insight. But what exactly is the real world, anyway? The globe? If that’s the case, and Sudan is put in the same category as the Upper West Side, you have a ter so broad it means nothing. Some parts of the world are rotten. Some aren’t. But let us repeat what he has learned after 69 years:

But the truth of the matter is that existence in general is very very tragic, very very sad, very brutal and very unhappy. Every now and then, something happens that's funny. And that's refreshing.

Like a Coke, or one of those nice cool damp towels they bring you at the hotel.

Q. So is this one of the reasons why we don't see any hint of what happened on September 11 in your recent films? Would your fans be scared?

Is this what German entertainment writers think? Silly little American fans, ready to bolt in fear if Woody tackles 9/11? I know what his characters think about it. I can imagine the cast of "Interiors" leaving for thier seaside home to stare at the water and brood about all the pottery that was lost in the attack.

Allen: No, it's because I don't find political subjects or topical world events profound enough to get interested in them myself as an artist. As a filmmaker, I'm not interested in 9/11.

That’s fine; his prerogative, of course. It would be wrong to insist that every filmmaker say something about 9/11 as some sort of litmus test. But let's review.
Insufficiently profound:

Attack on America by illiberal religious fanatics; the mass murder of Jews at a hotel; the Holocaust; the tsunami

Sufficiently profound: The incessant attempts of nebbishy intellectuals to get into the pants of ripe young women

(Continuing with Allen: ) Because, if you look at the big picture, the long view of things, it's too small, history overwhelms it. The history of the world is like: he kills me, I kill him. Only with different cosmetics and different castings: so in 2001 some fanatics killed some Americans, and now some Americans are killing some Iraqis.
And in my childhood, some Nazis killed Jews. And now, some Jewish people and some Palestinians are killing each other. Political questions, if you go back thousands of years, are ephemeral, not important. History is the same thing over and over again.

Gah. So: if the Romans kill to conquer, and build cities, streets, sanitation systems, water-delivery systems, courts, and regulate trade to provide a stable economy not based on raiding the next town, this is the same as Barbarians sacking Rome and carting off the gold. Because in both cases you have killing. “Some Nazis killed Jews, and now some Jewish people and some Palestinians are killing each other.” Same thing. Without the ability to make moral distinctions based on motive, consequences, the ethical constructs of various parties, everything is equal, and you end up with people like Woody Allen: a tiny speck of compacted narcissism, revolving around the dead sun in an empty universe. What’s left? Well, thank heavens for little girls.

Not that there’s a heaven.

(Perm link.)