by Zan Smith

Created on: May 09, 2008

The genius of Woody Allen is getting financing for some of the worse films in recent years. That is misleading, however. In truth I love Woody Allen, despite the disappointment of his latest films or at least some of them. During my matinee years, when I had the time and inclination to go to the movies often and alone, I saw Hannah and Her Sisters with a large crowd that erupted in spontaneous applause at the end, Shadows and Fog with three other people in the beginning and myself alone at the end, and Sweet and Lowdown which was so believable as a documentary someone had to tell me that it was a fictitious biography and in the end I still don't know if I believe it.

The genius of Woody Allen is that he makes his films seem like a conversation at dinner with your witty and intelligent friend and he shares his opinions about art, literature, religion and the pursuit of happiness. If you don't agree with his logic, or share his opinion, at least you've been entertained. His films move from phase to phase much as life does, as you expect his has. Were you enamored of zany, screwball comedies when you were an adolescent? (I was). His 1960's films Take the Money and Run, Bananas, and Everything You wanted to Know about Sex(but were afraid to ask) shared that delight and ran with it, like private jokes. What's Up Tiger Lily, a Japanese film that he dubs with his own dialog to without changing the film itself, is like having Woody Allen sit next to you in a dark theater watching a bad movie as he whispers alternate dialog in your ear and you laugh hysterically to the annoyance of everyone around you.

From 1965 to the present (there is probably film in a can somewhere about to be released), Woody Allen's films bounce low and high through the angst, elation, life, love and death issues that change perspective for us as we age. There is even a film called Love and Death, an amusing take on Russian literature, brooding classics for brooding youth. Imagine poking fun at something so deep and foreboding as Russian literature. As he grew out of zaniness into drama he lost some of his early audience. He uses this in one of his greatest films, Stardust Memories. The film begins with Woody on a train with the "dirty and unwashed" so to speak and to quote Shakespeare. He looks across the train platform to see a lovely woman in a white silk dress (who happens to be a very young Sharon Stone) involved in a wonderful party, laughing and chatting with the beautiful people in a train

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