It was with enormous, eager anticipation that we welcomed the autobiography of Woody Allen, one of the most important American filmmakers of the last third of the twentieth century (and writer-director of a half-dozen excellent films since then), achievements we have discussed here and here. With the bar set sky high, it is not surprising that our expectations were not met, mostly due to the fact that we closed the covers of this fine memoir with the laziest of criticisms: “you didn’t write the book I wanted you to write.” These are not the sacred scrolls that voracious cinephiles have been longing for.
Allen’s hero, Ingmar Bergman, wrote not one but two memoirs, which were searing, introspective, gratuitously self-lacerating affairs, where he mused critically and remorselessly about himself and his movies. (Allen reviewed one of the volumes and later contributed this appreciation of the great Swedish auteur.) Bergman went too far; Woody doesn’t go far enough, donning a facade of gentle self-deprecation, and rarely engaging in extended, probing discussions of individual films. And it’s not that Woody isn’t capable of talking seriously and insightfully about the movies, including his own, as these invaluable volumes by Stig-Bjorkman and Eric Lax make clear.
The self-deprecation comes across as shtick—we are told three times by page fifty that our protagonist is no intellectual, yet within these covers the Wood-man also talks of close readings of Kant, Kierkagaard, Schopenhauer, Hegel, and Heidegger; he invokes Kafka (not as a name drop, but as a book recommendation to a paramour), is inspired by Chekov, and can say things like “As Nietzsche teaches us.” We suspect with some confidence that he’s read Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and shelves full of other literary titans. But the comedic, self-mocking tone fits with the book’s writing style, which will be immediately familiar to anyone who has read his (often excellent) New Yorker essays.
Apropos of Nothing has no chapter headings, but it is a book essentially of four parts, which are in turn good, great, requisite but grueling, and satisfactory. What we’ll call part one takes up the first quarter of the book. Straight biography, it is fine, plain spoken, reads well, and informative if not what you’d call full of surprises (family, magic, baseball, jazz, Judaism, godlessness, the lure of Manhattan for a Brooklyn boy, and so on). Generally the picture presented here is consistent with the one painted in numerous profiles and biographies, but hearing them in this voice, and with some new-to-us observations about his early family life, are certainly valuable. From there, the young Woody emerges as a comic writer, placing items in the papers, dropping out of colleges, moving on to the NBC writer’s development program, and from there to great success writing for television during its late golden age, and in a stunning move, abandoning all that for a risky career in standup comedy. Here also we have the first marriage and its tribulations, and a reminder of how the rhythms of the early Bob Hope influenced Allen’s own initial comedic on-screen persona (seen most clearly in Love and Death). There are some novelties here; an introspective comment about what therapy can and cannot provide—and who knew “fear of entering” (as in a cocktail party) was high on his list of phobias, but it is apparently so. Woody also reveals a pretty solid lean to the left, signing up for Stevenson over Kennedy, marching on Washington, and actively supporting Gene McCarthy and George McGovern in their ill-fated Presidential runs. Still, I wanted to hear more about the considerable struggles of the early phase of that reckless leap into standup comedy, and the determination it took stick that out (and inevitable doubts along the way), which are really only hinted at here.
As it clears the end of his first marriage and moves fully into the 1960s and 1970s, Apropos of Nothing really soars. This full middle third of the book is packed with vivid anecdotes and scattered observational gems about things of interest; it is hard to remember (especially as Woody purposefully retreated from the public eye in the early 1980s) what a major cultural presence he was: headlining in nightclubs, appearing on television (even guest hosting for Johnny), writing Broadway plays; as a screenwriter and then a comedian-who-directed, emerging finally by 1979 as a Major American Filmmaker. Allen’s review of these decades features sketches of the many friends, lovers, collaborators (especially writers), and assorted elbows rubbed with notables along the way—for anyone with any interest in the sixties and the seventies, this is essential reading. Often the jaw-dropping names go by too quickly. (“At the Blue Angel I appeared with Nina Simone and working there I met Paddy Chayefsky, Frank Loesser, Bily Rose, Harpo Marx,” is an almost typical sentence. And there he is, in a casino in the south of France “with friends of Charlie Feldman’s, like Darryl Zanuck, John Huston, William Holden”—Hello? That’s it for John Huston and William Holden?) But admittedly there is so much ground to cover, and Woody does slow down to discuss some of his more intimate relationships (including those with second wife Louise Lasser, Dick Cavett, Tony Roberts, Diane Keaton, and Jean Doumanian among others). I devoured this third of the book with pleasure and rapt attention, and learned much I didn’t know. And these passages also walk through some sticky business (the second marriage, the terrible falling out with Doumanian)—still I was hoping for just a sliver of Bergmanesque introspection. But here’s a thought that must be entertained—maybe that’s just none of my damn business.
Even here the trips through the movies are too fast and mostly familiar (yes, editor Ralph Rosenblum saved Take the Money and Run). As always, Woody is generous in acknowledging key collaborators, such as longtime casting director Juliet Taylor. And Rosenblum and legendary Director of Photography Gordon Willis are again lauded as his great teachers in filmmaking. (Willis shot every one from Annie Hall through Purple Rose, an incredible run.) Here the modesty rings true: “I knew Gordy knew much more than me and the best way to learn was to shut up and listen. He had the greatest respect for the script, and we went over every single shot before every movie.” I retain those last two sentences because Apropos of Nothing’s other self-deprecating trope is to talk of Allen’s “laziness” as a filmmaker. This is arguably true for some of his twenty-first century films (one is reminded of the quote about the great, prolific Claude Chabrol, “he kept his hand in even when his heart wasn’t”)—but in the 80s and 90s, as Woody states plainly, “I intended to try and grow as a filmmaker, to try and deepen.” Which he did.
Apropos of Nothing, as it must, comes to a screeching halt with sixty grueling pages on the upheavals in his life that followed the discovery in 1992 of his affair with Mia Farrow’s daughter, Soon-Yi Previn (Allen’s current wife), and the subsequent charge by Farrow that he molested their seven year old daughter Dylan, who Woody had co-adopted. It is necessary, but no pleasure, to grind through the formidable case that Allen mounts in his own defense, but, to be fair, if you were accused of child molestation (and endured multiple official investigations), but a few decades later were hounded by an orchestrated, reputation-crushing media campaign, were you to write a memoir you would probably have a few thoughts to share about the matter as well. Our own position boils down to this: taking up with your girlfriend’s daughter is not what we’d call a classy move, and if you never want to watch a Woody Allen movie again because of that—that’s a defensible position. We don’t agree with it, for reasons elaborated in our essay “Art and Artists: Where We Stand,” and we have little patience for critics, hypocritically in our view, who look back and re-read Allen’s films through a Soon-Yi lens. But again, we know that Allen did this, and if that is a deal-breaker for you, so it is.
Accusations of child molestation, on the other hand, are another matter. If you wish to label Allen a child molester, and shun his films for that reason, unless you have looked into the matter, you are engaging in profoundly illiberal acts: embracing guilt-by-accusation, and mindlessly joining an angry mob. Ultimately, there are things that we will never know (although there is no doubt that Dylan Farrow is a victim here; the question is, of abuse by which parent). But as a great admirer of Allen’s films and determined to follow the facts wherever they might lead, I have spent a good bit of time looking into the evidence that is available to the public. Our own conclusion is that the preponderance of such evidence – I would go so far as to say the overwhelming preponderance of such evidence – supports the contention that no such molestation took place. You may disagree—but it is poor form to call someone a child molester and to participate in their public shunning and shaming without taking a moment to look into the matter. We recommend in particular reading this and this and this and this and, of course, this.
Sigh. Wasn’t reading those last two paragraphs a drag? The necessary interruption hurts the book, too, as a memoir, which then has to pick up the story of walking through the movies, and the book’s final hundred pages are shadowed by this melancholia. Late in the volume these themes surface again explicitly, as Woody notes with understandable pride that actresses in his films have garnered sixty-two academy award nominations. He then goes on to recount providing 106 leading female roles and employing 230 women as leading crewmembers “without a single hint of impropriety with any one of them. Or any of the extras. Or any of the stand-ins.” This might sound gratuitous, but for the fact that it would be beyond naïve not to assume that his powerful enemies and muckraking journalists have been desperately flipping over every conceivable rock in an attempt to dig up any such dirt—and its absence is notable.
Still, we’re here for the movies, and even though the last quarter of the book moves even more quickly through them and the narrative shies still further away from engaging in thought-provoking questions about the film productions, there are some fine observations, and bits of news. (Jack Nicholson was once lined up for the Michael Caine role in Hannah and Her Sisters; Woody’s utter reverence for Tennessee Williams and A Streetcar Named Desire.) It is interesting to read that “in retrospect,” Mighty Aphrodite was “too dirty for my taste” (we remember being surprised by its raunchiness at the time), and a pleasure to learn he holds Husbands and Wives in high esteem. Radio Days and Everyone Says I Love You are productions he also looks back at with considerable fondness.
Throughout the book, Allen’s estimation of his own films, consistent with interviews over the years, remains, shall we say, idiosyncratic (he’s not much impressed with Annie Hall, but loves Hollywood Ending). But reading Apropos of Nothing makes clear what should have been obvious to us before: Woody rates his films according to how close they came to his original conception of them. Whereas we in the audience only see the film as presented, and thus our assessment is limited to that quite different experience. So he prefers Stardust Memories (which we, with a small minority, very much like) to Manhattan (which is just ridiculous). Apparently Stardust is Norman Mailer’s favorite Woody Allen film (and, yes, that’s all you’re going to get from Woody about Mailer). It also explains why Allen remains so utterly disappointed with his marvelous neo-Bergman efforts September and Another Woman—the latter is one of our personal favorites.
In sum, as a memoir, we wanted more. But let’s not fight. Instead, we’ll close with our favorite lines in the book, which comes close to summing up that precious difference between filmmakers that have something to say, and who do not: “I never test screen my movies. I am not interested in collaborating with viewers to make my film.”
