W. Allen against the current paradigm

^ Zelig is an underappreciated masterpiece... and Broadway Danny Rose, Hannah and Her Sisters, Radio Days, Crimes & Misdemeanors, all at the top of his game and all post-Zelig.   

^ PiAS was a play as well.   The actual Bogart quote is "Play it, Sam", but the popularized version is 'Play it again, Sam' which is not in Casablanca

Little fact: the interior of his apartment in S.F. is not the same building as the exterior which is at 15 Fresno St. on the hill in North Beach.

I don't have the same fun watching his recent movies, but I have so much fun watching at least 3 times his earlier stuff. I don't care much about all the polemics around his personal life. It doesn't change my perception of the man. He is a good director who loves his work so much that he can't stop making movies, to the point of making the same movies in a different city because his wife wants to travel...

I have no problem separating the art from the artist. Eg: I'm atheist but that doesn't take anything from the fact that I enjoy Neal Morse's works.

Edited by Hrychu - May 26 2025 at 16:27

Over time, fashions, customs, and tastes change, both on a personal level and on a social and collective level. Several paradigms have changed; it's cyclical, and every so often one is replaced by another, and a momentary value judgment, without the proper perspective of the passage of time, cannot be valid.

As a child and teenager, Woody Allen was an icon of good cinema, an exponent that intellectual comedy was possible, a prestigious director beyond personal tastes, but over time, the significance of accusations in his personal life, plus the "Me Too" phenomenon, contributed to his either being canceled or falling into oblivion.

Now then...do his most acclaimed works, such as Bananas, Love and Death, Annie Hall, Manhattan, Interiors (the first of his Bergmanian dramas), Stardust Memories, Zelig, Hannah and Her Sisters, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Crimes and Misdemeanors, or Husbands and Wives, lose value?

The phenomenon is even more complex because even among his followers, he has suddenly become tarnished, not because they condemn him for his personal problems, but as if the social imaginary and demands have intruded on us, who also live in this society and consume its media, whether we like it or not.

So, do you still like your own favorite Allen films, do you keep revisiting them, or has your taste changed? Which are your favorites? Can you separate the artist from the person?

I've already mentioned my favorite classics, and among the more recent ones I also like Deconstruction Harry, Midnight in Paris, Magic in the Moonlight, Irrational Man, and Rainy Day in New York.