Woodyism.
A New Republic column by the indispensable Leon Wieseltier on the varieties of realism–apropos of the Bush Administration, the Iraq War, and (mercilessly, hilarously) Woody Allen. You may not be able to get to to it without a TNR subscription, so here’s the portion on Allen:
As I was assembling my little inventory of realisms, I came upon still another one, even bleaker and more disillusioned. “You do the best you can within the concentration camp,” Woody Allen told a reporter from The Washington Post. I had no idea the East Side was so bad. “If you face reality too much,” he added dolorously, “it kills you. … It’s just an awful thing, and in that context you’ve got to find an answer to the question: why go on?” And so on in the same undergraduate vein, just more of Allen’s bargain-basement despair–but then he explained the character of the darkness. “Once you get up in years, like seventies, there’s nothing good about it. The dynamite women you see on the street, that world is gone to you. … One of the great pastimes of my life was eying girls in short skirts, and that’s gone. … I’m not in bed with any of them.” So that’s it: nobody is coming upstairs to see his kvetchings. He isn’t getting laid and it’s Auschwitz. This is not what Primo Levi had in mind. It is also a curious complaint for a married man to make; but realism is realism. Allen concluded with this lasting reflection on the human condition: “Warren Beatty once said to me many years ago, being a star is like being in a whorehouse with a credit card, and I never found that. For me, it was like being in a whorehouse with a credit card that has expired.” Give the man a Gitane! Why do people continue to honor this morbid fool? What is so fascinating about his corduroy puerility? In any event, we must now expand the ranks of the undeceived, and to democratic realism, progressive realism, and ethical realism add penile realism. Compared to him, however, we are all idealists.
Less than even money he was hitting on s johannsen ruthlessly while filming those two englishy things he did.
I saw the match point one on a plane there and must say it’s erotiic stuff was kinda stupid and hollywood-overwrought (a shame too, with sj as the object of desire it would seem hard to over-do it, but they did). Nonetheless it is a dead solid hitchcockian thriller before its over. The plane I was on stopped the movie with five minutes left and I simply HAD to get the thing from blockbuster and see the end before the evening was out. Very satisfying piece of work.
I am very careful and complete reading all your articles! Dry good!