Eva Farid
Woody Allen
A life’s work of psychotherapy
What moves us to create? What is that motor which sets our lives in motion? What makes an artist, a scientist, a pioneer? I am not alone in asking these questions, great philosophers and thinkers alike have spent their lives trying to discover the origins of this raison d’etre, this death impulse, this necessary neurosis which moves us to act, to necessarily move forward or die. I cannot pretend to know the answer to these existential questions but I am convinced that there is something, call it a God or a conscious, energy or an order, there is something which ties life to action and a neurosis which is formed by the sometimes unconscious realization of this truth. Woody Allen exposes his neurosis through his art, not because as a person he resembles his characters for in fact he claims to be quite the opposite, but by constantly creating, by becoming a kind of Nietzscheian super hombre and surrendering entirely to his work.
Born December 1, 1935, Woody Allen began his career at 15 as a writer for The Colgate Comedy Hour, he then began performing his own comedic dialogues during the early 60’s and by the mid 60’s he was writing and directing his own films. Since his debut as a director he has written and directed 49 movies which means he has basically directed one film for each year of his professional life. This, in and of itself, is incredibly impressive but the quality of his work makes it extraordinary. He has been critically acclaimed throughout his career, first for Annie Hall in 1977, for Manhattan in 1979, for Hannah and her Sisters in 1986, and then more recently for Midnight in Paris two years ago in 2011. All four of these films are wonderful but even his least popular movies have sparks of comedic, paranoid and neurotic genius. Some say he’s a one trick dog but I wonder if its better to superficially know many tricks or to know, live, breath and become, just one entirely. There is a world of difference in details and his movies are filled with them, after all what’s humor, or anything else for that matter, without detail.
Not unlike his other work, his most recent film, To Rome with Love, is a love note to a beautiful city. Granted the still takes of the city at the beginning are something he’s used in almost all his movies, (Midnight in Paris, Manhattan, Vicky Cristina Barcelona to name a few) but the takes are gorgeous. He shows us how to love the world he exposes us to as him, how to feel his nostalgic romantic humor which cuts through the exaggerated ridiculousness of life. Woody Allen, in my opinion needs to create, needs to keep going, his movies are an almost desperate attempt to capture the beauty of life, a love note that hopes to remain immortal.
Woody Allen
A life’s work of psychotherapy
What moves us to create? What is that motor which sets our lives in motion? What makes an artist, a scientist, a pioneer? I am not alone in asking these questions, great philosophers and thinkers alike have spent their lives trying to discover the origins of this raison d’etre, this death impulse, this necessary neurosis which moves us to act, to necessarily move forward or die. I cannot pretend to know the answer to these existential questions but I am convinced that there is something, call it a God or a conscious, energy or an order, there is something which ties life to action and a neurosis which is formed by the sometimes unconscious realization of this truth. Woody Allen exposes his neurosis through his art, not because as a person he resembles his characters for in fact he claims to be quite the opposite, but by constantly creating, by becoming a kind of Nietzscheian super hombre and surrendering entirely to his work.
Born December 1, 1935, Woody Allen began his career at 15 as a writer for The Colgate Comedy Hour, he then began performing his own comedic dialogues during the early 60’s and by the mid 60’s he was writing and directing his own films. Since his debut as a director he has written and directed 49 movies which means he has basically directed one film for each year of his professional life. This, in and of itself, is incredibly impressive but the quality of his work makes it extraordinary. He has been critically acclaimed throughout his career, first for Annie Hall in 1977, for Manhattan in 1979, for Hannah and her Sisters in 1986, and then more recently for Midnight in Paris two years ago in 2011. All four of these films are wonderful but even his least popular movies have sparks of comedic, paranoid and neurotic genius. Some say he’s a one trick dog but I wonder if its better to superficially know many tricks or to know, live, breath and become, just one entirely. There is a world of difference in details and his movies are filled with them, after all what’s humor, or anything else for that matter, without detail.
Not unlike his other work, his most recent film, To Rome with Love, is a love note to a beautiful city. Granted the still takes of the city at the beginning are something he’s used in almost all his movies, (Midnight in Paris, Manhattan, Vicky Cristina Barcelona to name a few) but the takes are gorgeous. He shows us how to love the world he exposes us to as him, how to feel his nostalgic romantic humor which cuts through the exaggerated ridiculousness of life. Woody Allen, in my opinion needs to create, needs to keep going, his movies are an almost desperate attempt to capture the beauty of life, a love note that hopes to remain immortal.
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