Hear Me Out: The films of Woody Allen were never great
With the benefit of hindsight, it’s curious as to how the idiosyncratic American filmmaker Woody Allen ever became such an industry icon, particularly when considering just how irritating he and his endless stream of films are. Putting himself at the very centre of the films many would consider his very best, Allen created a collection of movies that serve as merely the egotistical musings of a conceited creative.
It would be churlish, however, to suggest that Allen has never strived for artistry. His initial shtick of the auteur was charming when he entered the industry in the early 1970s, even half a century later, it feels more irksome. A man of habit, Allen created near enough the same film time and time again, digging out the thick-rimmed glasses and khaki trousers before messing up his tumbleweed haircut to deliver a carefully curated performance of American anxiety.
Indeed, while there are a few exceptions to the rule, see Hannah and Her Sisters, The Purple Rose of Cairo and Radio Days, the majority of Allen’s films are dedicated to him rolling out the same stagnant performance time and time again. Speaking with a strange Brooklyn accent, he discusses odd phobias, annoying work habits, existential fears, sexual awkwardness and more, with his personality becoming a hilarious ‘quirk’ by which many of his films operate.
The problem is, his supposedly endearing personality is anything but, coming off as more maddening, indeed if he was your friend, you would have told him to ‘shut up’ less than one minute into his painfully self-pitying monologues. Sure, he well captures the neuroticism of a shrivelling New York dweller, but this doesn’t make for particularly compelling cinema, especially when each of his performances is as bad as the last.
A little bit like a younger brother who was once told that he was ‘really funny’, Allen has carried this arrogance all through his career, particularly when he aimed for the heights of Buster Keaton and instead fell to the ranks of Joe Pasquale. From his sophomore feature film Bananas to Sleeper and Love and Death, Allen creates some spiritless comedies that fail to stand the test of time.
His contemporary cinematic form doesn’t do him many favours either, with Allen recently denying retirement on the road to creating his 50th movie, Wasp 22. Looking back at 22 years of 21st-century filmmaking, he doesn’t exactly emerge as one of the most prominent creatives, with the average dramas Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Midnight in Paris and Blue Jasmine sticking out in two decades of consistent mediocrity.
Lacking the originality of his previous act, Allen’s latest oeuvre of movies has exposed his severe limitations as a filmmaker, capable of only twee and quirky romantic dramas, which collapse in quality after every passing year. A good writer of female characters, as long as every character has the personality of either Mia Farrow or Diane Keaton, the more you dissect the films of Allen, the more mediocrity you will find. Even the Best Picture-winning Annie Hall isn’t as good as you remember.
The best filmmakers in cinema history can stand the test of time, with the likes of Fritz Lang, Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock remaining great to this day thanks to constant innovation and effervescent creativity, among other skills. Looking back at half a century of Allen, all that remains is a pretentious and irritating personality whose annoying navel-gazing made endless dramas a chore to finish.
