Woody Allen has always been one of my comedy heroes. I got into him via his films, enjoying both the early knockabout comedies and the more serious but still very funny masterpieces like Annie Hall and Manhattan. I haven't heard too much of his stand up but like what I've heard. I also appeared in a student production of one of his plays, "God" in which I played Lorenzo Miller, who if I remember correctly had written the audience. My ambition in my 20s was to be making films by the time I was 40 so he was a role model of an impossible target to aim for.
Not all his early films were great and I haven't seen everything he's done, but I haven't really enjoyed anything he's done since "Deconstructing Harry", which many people didn't like but I thought was great. Of course some of my lack of enjoyment is down to disappointment that the films are not up to the incredibly high standard of his previous work and an artist must be allowed to try and fail and not everything will work. But there's been a long string of duds in my useless opinion (I haven't seen everything) and a couple of films that were embarrassingly bad - maybe the ones set in London didn't work for me because I live there and thought that Allen had failed to represent the city or the way that anyone here actually speaks. But Match Point was a horrible car crash.
I still love the man and whatever he did he couldn't blot out the genius of the stuff I love. The man could have sex with his daughter and I'd forgive him.
But it had got to the point where I was reluctant to watch his stuff because I couldn't bear to see things going so wrong. I suppose some of the reason I like him (and something niche like Deconstructing Harry) is that I identify with him as being both a comedian and a writer, who has a penchant for high maintenance actresses (don't know if Allen is as keen on biscuits as I am) and hooking up with my adopted daughter and I live in fear of the creative decline that will come with old age (and I have a lot less wiggle room to fall through from my own highs). How could someone as rigorous and brilliant not spot that some of these later films are rubbish? But does that mean that as a creative person you become unable to see your own inadequacies? But also, fucking hell, the man is still working and creating in his later years, even if he just seems to make the same film every year with a different person playing him.
Anyway, I remain a fan and I live in hope of the return to form, which every new film is feted as being, but which seems unlikely. But I thought I'd have a crack at "Midnight in Paris" partly because I'd heard it was OK and partly because it sounded very much like a reworking of my favourite terrible sitcom "Goodnight Sweetheart". But he Gary Sparrow in this version has slightly more ambition, because he uses his power to travel back in time to meet all the literary and artistic greats (and actually only them - hardly anyone he meets turns out to be some also ran idiot, but then it's not supposed to be realistic), rather than just stopping in the first pub he sees and chatting up the barmaid.
The film is by no means a return to the golden days, but it is way better than anything I've seen of his for a while, unashamedly intellectual, with dialogue that never made me cringe and Owen Wilson is great in it (I mean it's no "Marley and Me") and Michael Sheen does well with a bit of a stereotypical arsehole character. I liked it, watching the first hour or so before my Ilkley show and the last 20 minutes during the interval.
Mentioning it on Twitter led to varying views on Allen's career trajectory and varying views on which films work and which don't and what went wrong (or right- no let's face it wrong).
From a personal point of view, the lack of any massive success in my life does mean that I don't face the curse of being judged by some massive early triumph (occasionally people might cite the Lee and Herring stuff, but having seen most of it again I don't think it can be seen in anything like the same way). I hope I can still be producing work at his age and it'd be amazing to be in the position to have the autonomy to produce a film every year and not have any interference from others (though ironically maybe some outside interference might improve some of these films). I still dream of having a career that is a pale shadow of what this man has done, except I hope that if I do something that is scandalous and a bit unsavoury that it involves biscuits rather than actresses and their daughters. In fact I might dedicate my life to doing something so morally reprehensible with a biscuit that it leads to similar public opprobrium, but not so bad that I get sent to prison. It's my only chance to emulate this incredible and flawed man.
