The Sunday Times (London)
February 6, 1994, Sunday
Picking up the nerd instinct
Stephen Amidon
The Illustrated Woody Allen Reader edited by Linda Sunshine, Cape Pounds 17.99 pp288.
Woody Allen changed my life. I was 17 when it happened, living in New Jersey and still trying to figure out how to score with girls. Nothing I tried was working pumping iron and playing team sports did no good, nor did drinking beer with other guys at parties or shouting, ''Yo, Vinnie!'' across crowded rooms. Everything changed the night I conned one of the more desirable girls in my class into going to the movies with me. Our local was showing Saturday Night Fever and Annie Hall. Needless to say which one I planned to attend. As luck would have it, though, it was sold out, so I reluctantly bought a couple of tickets for the Woody Allen . After all, he'd done Sleeper, and that was good for a few laughs.
The film we saw was different to what I had expected, funnier and more moving, although the real shock came as we left the theatre. My date turned to me and, with a dreamy look in her eyes, wondered why there couldn't be more guys like him around. Who, I asked, Tony Roberts? Of course not, she answered. Woody. He was so sexy, she explained. So smart and funny and vulnerable. And he loved women, loved them for what they were.Her words proved a liberating epiphany. Woody Allen? Sexy? I did some asking around among the other babes in my class and this was unanimously confirmed. Suddenly, I was free to be the neurotic, bookish, sardonic guy I'd been trying to hide for years. I could wear tweed jackets, watch films with subtitles and indulge my budding hypochondria. I could stop worrying about my inability to dance. Gone forever were the football practices and keg parties and the attempts to impress girls who dotted their i's with smiley faces. I even toyed with the idea of buying some clear-lens specs. And I wasn't alone in this discovery. Word soon spread like wildfire through the chess and drama clubs. Being a nebbish was all right, after all.
Looking back, I think the reason Woody proved such a godsend to me and my friends was that he presented an acceptable world-view for the post-1960s male. Nobody in my generation wanted to be a hippie (we had seen what that had done to our dead-headed older brothers), and yet the beefy macho ethic of our corporate dads was equally unpalatable.
But Allen was perfect. His movies presented a unified field theory of modern romantic angst, creating a cosmos in which you could puncture everything except the heart with wit. In Woody's World, life was basically a sewer sandwich, so you might as well get some laughs while you could. There was no God, or if He did exist, he was permanently out to lunch. And, best of all, the nerd always got the girl (even though he might not hold on to her for long). It was an edgy yet amiable place where Nazis and poverty and crime were crowded off-screen by smart, sexy people who managed to make whining erotic.
This nervy romanticism informs The Illustrated Woody Allen Reader, a compilation of snippets from Allen's screenplays, essays and stage monologues. The main reason for a book such as this (other than to serve as a prop for hors d'oeuvres on the coffee table) is to provide a thumbnail overview of the subject's output, and, in this, editor Linda Sunshine succeeds. Organised into 12 chapters, with titles such as ''Intellectuals Only Kill Their Own'' and ''These Modern Analysts!'', her book succinctly isolates Allen's wide-ranging obsessions. The man certainly has an easy way with the big themes. There's death, of course, always good for a few yuks: ''I don't want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve it through not dying.'' And religion: ''God is silent. Now, if only we can get Man to shut up.'' And philosophy: ''Sentence structure is innate but whining is acquired.'' What becomes clear as you read through these sections is just what the viewer of Allen's films has always suspected that these apparently weighty concerns have always been little more than Coney Island gallery ducks for his wit to shoot down.
Where the book proves more valuable is in its evocation of Allen's urban Jewish youth, his love of New York, his fear of nature and, ultimately, his obsession with women. Here, the Allen ethos is properly aired, proving itself to be a strangely conservative belief that stable relationships provide life's meaning. There's a chapter entitled ''The Good Sentimental'', taken from the scene in Stardust Memories where Allen's doppelganger, Sandy Bates, differentiates between mere sentimentality and his own, more refined, sensibility. This is what has always distinguished Allen not his satirical slant on contemporary intellectual life, but rather his ability to create love stories that you don't have to cringe at. The good kind of sentimental.
And yet, even though The Illustrated Woody Allen Reader provides a rough guide to the director's world, it remains little more than that. Die-hard fans might value it, although the jokes are never quite as funny the second time around. Those with only a passing knowledge of Allen's work, meanwhile, will probably find the book too piecemeal for their taste. Reading it, I couldn't help thinking of Allen's joke about the two old women at a restaurant, one of whom complains that the food isn't very good, whereupon the other answers, ''Yes, and such small portions.'' Well, the jokes may be good, but the portions here are all wrong.
Anyone intent on spending 18 on Woody Allen would be better advised to buy his collected essays or rent a few of his films. They're funnier, more complete, and when you're through, you'll never have to lift weights or try to dance again.
February 6, 1994, Sunday
Picking up the nerd instinct
Stephen Amidon
The Illustrated Woody Allen Reader edited by Linda Sunshine, Cape Pounds 17.99 pp288.
Woody Allen changed my life. I was 17 when it happened, living in New Jersey and still trying to figure out how to score with girls. Nothing I tried was working pumping iron and playing team sports did no good, nor did drinking beer with other guys at parties or shouting, ''Yo, Vinnie!'' across crowded rooms. Everything changed the night I conned one of the more desirable girls in my class into going to the movies with me. Our local was showing Saturday Night Fever and Annie Hall. Needless to say which one I planned to attend. As luck would have it, though, it was sold out, so I reluctantly bought a couple of tickets for the Woody Allen . After all, he'd done Sleeper, and that was good for a few laughs.
The film we saw was different to what I had expected, funnier and more moving, although the real shock came as we left the theatre. My date turned to me and, with a dreamy look in her eyes, wondered why there couldn't be more guys like him around. Who, I asked, Tony Roberts? Of course not, she answered. Woody. He was so sexy, she explained. So smart and funny and vulnerable. And he loved women, loved them for what they were.Her words proved a liberating epiphany. Woody Allen? Sexy? I did some asking around among the other babes in my class and this was unanimously confirmed. Suddenly, I was free to be the neurotic, bookish, sardonic guy I'd been trying to hide for years. I could wear tweed jackets, watch films with subtitles and indulge my budding hypochondria. I could stop worrying about my inability to dance. Gone forever were the football practices and keg parties and the attempts to impress girls who dotted their i's with smiley faces. I even toyed with the idea of buying some clear-lens specs. And I wasn't alone in this discovery. Word soon spread like wildfire through the chess and drama clubs. Being a nebbish was all right, after all.
Looking back, I think the reason Woody proved such a godsend to me and my friends was that he presented an acceptable world-view for the post-1960s male. Nobody in my generation wanted to be a hippie (we had seen what that had done to our dead-headed older brothers), and yet the beefy macho ethic of our corporate dads was equally unpalatable.
But Allen was perfect. His movies presented a unified field theory of modern romantic angst, creating a cosmos in which you could puncture everything except the heart with wit. In Woody's World, life was basically a sewer sandwich, so you might as well get some laughs while you could. There was no God, or if He did exist, he was permanently out to lunch. And, best of all, the nerd always got the girl (even though he might not hold on to her for long). It was an edgy yet amiable place where Nazis and poverty and crime were crowded off-screen by smart, sexy people who managed to make whining erotic.
This nervy romanticism informs The Illustrated Woody Allen Reader, a compilation of snippets from Allen's screenplays, essays and stage monologues. The main reason for a book such as this (other than to serve as a prop for hors d'oeuvres on the coffee table) is to provide a thumbnail overview of the subject's output, and, in this, editor Linda Sunshine succeeds. Organised into 12 chapters, with titles such as ''Intellectuals Only Kill Their Own'' and ''These Modern Analysts!'', her book succinctly isolates Allen's wide-ranging obsessions. The man certainly has an easy way with the big themes. There's death, of course, always good for a few yuks: ''I don't want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve it through not dying.'' And religion: ''God is silent. Now, if only we can get Man to shut up.'' And philosophy: ''Sentence structure is innate but whining is acquired.'' What becomes clear as you read through these sections is just what the viewer of Allen's films has always suspected that these apparently weighty concerns have always been little more than Coney Island gallery ducks for his wit to shoot down.
Where the book proves more valuable is in its evocation of Allen's urban Jewish youth, his love of New York, his fear of nature and, ultimately, his obsession with women. Here, the Allen ethos is properly aired, proving itself to be a strangely conservative belief that stable relationships provide life's meaning. There's a chapter entitled ''The Good Sentimental'', taken from the scene in Stardust Memories where Allen's doppelganger, Sandy Bates, differentiates between mere sentimentality and his own, more refined, sensibility. This is what has always distinguished Allen not his satirical slant on contemporary intellectual life, but rather his ability to create love stories that you don't have to cringe at. The good kind of sentimental.
And yet, even though The Illustrated Woody Allen Reader provides a rough guide to the director's world, it remains little more than that. Die-hard fans might value it, although the jokes are never quite as funny the second time around. Those with only a passing knowledge of Allen's work, meanwhile, will probably find the book too piecemeal for their taste. Reading it, I couldn't help thinking of Allen's joke about the two old women at a restaurant, one of whom complains that the food isn't very good, whereupon the other answers, ''Yes, and such small portions.'' Well, the jokes may be good, but the portions here are all wrong.
Anyone intent on spending 18 on Woody Allen would be better advised to buy his collected essays or rent a few of his films. They're funnier, more complete, and when you're through, you'll never have to lift weights or try to dance again.