tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post1794682191952634804..comments2024-01-15T08:20:03.954-08:00Comments on The Oz Mix: Woody Allen and Uncle AlOz Fritzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-29146770965687447052012-01-30T13:37:38.346-08:002012-01-30T13:37:38.346-08:00I especially enjoyed the encounter with the surrea...I especially enjoyed the encounter with the surrealists in Midnight in Paris, especially Bunuel.Eric Wagnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04312033917401203598noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-54642360643564903222012-01-23T12:46:43.887-08:002012-01-23T12:46:43.887-08:00Forgot to mention in the review that the storyline...Forgot to mention in the review that the storyline of a hack Hollywood screenwriter trying to become a novelist allegorically describes the search for something deeper and more meaningful than superficial, surface appearance.Oz Fritzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-64241246089252204732012-01-23T12:39:52.318-08:002012-01-23T12:39:52.318-08:00Thanks for the comment, michael. Allen's play...Thanks for the comment, michael. Allen's play, "God," reads to me more like an examination of model agnosticism than atheism. To the direct question of "Is there a God?" the play gives at least 3 answers: maybe, yes, and no. <br /><br />Finnegans Wake may have been Woody's bridge to Crowley if he didn't read him first hand. All the key concepts are in it. Allen also knows Marx Bros films intimately, and some of those obviously show strong influence of the 93 current.<br /><br />Hemingway's speech that I mentioned directly confronts fear of death and gives a very life affirming solution, a solution whose theme appears in one guise or another in all of Woody's films that I've seen. However, I don't know if Allen believes one can count on anything.Oz Fritzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-58411674283910868052012-01-23T03:01:38.005-08:002012-01-23T03:01:38.005-08:00What an artistic take on Midnight In Paris! Kudos,...What an artistic take on Midnight In Paris! Kudos, man. This was the best critique of that film I've yet read. I've read a lot about Woody Allen, and I would be surprised to find he'd read any Crowley; they may have been drinking from the same historical fountain, though.<br /><br />Another earlier Woody essay that must be referred to regarding this film is his late 1960s/early 70s "A Twenties Memory," collected in Getting Even. Woody remembers being in Paris, carousing with Hemingway, Picasso, Stein. Gertrude breaks his nose, boxing. His absurdist stuff seems greatly related to magical realism to me. <br /><br />O! How many movies of his do we see the hack magician who actually loses someone in a Hidden Reality? Or some crank herbalist in the East Village actually has herbs that make you invisible for awhile? That kind of comically-Kafkaesque stuff occurs a lot in his writing. <br /><br />The If God does not exist, what? problem is one he's asked often enough in his films he's now some sort of European filmmaker who used to be based in NY: his films always made more money outside the US; only a small segment of geeky Americans have ever liked him (including me: I love the guy). Crowley and Woody are preceded in this by, notably, Dostoevsky. What I love about Woody is it's always okay, in the end, if God doesn't exist, although His non-existence is always good for comically existentialist effects...<br /><br />Woody's actual life seems to me: there is no God, and Death is beckoning us all. The only thing that one can count on is Work. He's been quite candid about this, and there's a brief moment in Annie Hall when the Woody character picks up Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death and says it's his favorite book, and he almost buys it for Dianne Keaton. Woody really is impressed with Becker's book. We deny death; we have to figure out a way to deal honestly with death. For him: constant work, creativity, writing, auditioning, filming. Proof/pudding?michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13526042582094867513noreply@blogger.com