Age difference between Woody Allen (Harry Block) and his co-stars:
1) Bob Balaban (Richard, Harry’s best friend): 10 years
2) Kirstie Alley (Joan, Harry’s ex-wife): 16 years
3) Caroline Aaron (Doris, Harry’s sister): 17 years
4) Judy Davis (Lucy, Harry’s ex-girlfriend): 20 years
5) Elisabeth Shue (Fay, Harry’s current girlfriend): 28 years
Non-white actors with speaking parts:
1) Hazelle Goodman (Cookie, a prostitute)
2) Sunny Chae (Lily Chang, a prostitute)
I bring these figures up not because they are easy targets (although, admittedly, they are), or because I’m accusing Woody Allen of being racist or sexist or whatever, but because at this point it’s just so ridiculous and kind of exhausting, at least in the sense of “here we go again, another Woody Allen movie that’s a tribute to Woody Allen, and hey isn’t constantly talking about oneself, even negatively, a symptom of some sort of personality disorder, so why am I spending my time and money, both of which are limited in this one and only shot I have on Earth, on getting my ear jawed off by the type of person I’d cross the street to avoid in real life?” (And if I find Allen’s characters’ relationships with much-younger women gross, doesn’t that just make me an ageist, and don’t I then have no moral authority in this argument?)
Selected narcissistic traits, as listed on Wikipedia:
–An obvious self-focus in interpersonal exchanges
-Problems distinguishing the self from others (see narcissism and boundaries)
-Hypersensitivity to any sleights or imagined insults (see criticism and narcissists, narcissistic rage and narcissistic injury)
-Vulnerability to shame rather than guilt
-Detesting those who do not admire him or her
-Inability to view the world from the perspective of other people
-Belief that others actually read your blog, site stats to the contrary
My preferred types of Woody Allen movies (ranked in descending order):
1) Movies where Allen is off-screen (e.g., The Purple Rose of Cairo)
2) Movies where Allen has only a minor role (e.g., Hannah and Her Sisters)
3) The gimmicks (e.g., Zelig)
4) Movies with Diane Keaton (e.g., Manhattan)
***
5) All other Woody Allen movies
(Note: Allen’s pre-Annie Hall filmography is a personal blind spot. Will rectify eventually.)
Deconstructing Harry fits snugly in category 3, as it’s a meta-narrative – and a whole two years before Being John Malkovich made postmodernism trendy in indie film. Harry Block is a writer, by which I mean an author of literary fiction and not a screenwriter, and the film deconstructs his short stories and novels to reveal the real-life sources (“real-life” within the life of the movie, although, naturally, by drawing attention to the very concept of deconstruction, Allen is inviting us to also consider the relationship of his art to real-real life). What may have been yet another Allen relationship dramedy is reinvigorated by having a thematic anchor – OK, a gimmick – that forces Allen to focus while at the same time giving him some fresh ideas to play with. That’s also what makes it the probably “last good Woody Allen movie,” although to be fair I haven’t seen most of the movies he’s released since. The ones I have (Match Point, Vicky Cristina Barcelona) are category 1 entries, and thus aren’t really “Woody Allen movies” in the understood sense. And he has made more gimmick movies (Melinda and Melinda, for instance) that haven’t gotten good notices, so maybe my already shaky theory’s off-base anyway.
Movies in my Netflix queue ahead of Deconstructing Harry:
1) GasLand
2) The King of Marvin Gardens
3) Bringing Out the Dead
Reason those four movies were at the top of my queue:
1) Their Netflix status is listed as “Very Long Wait.”
2) I’d like to see them eventually.
I’m sorry if I’ve seemed kind of down on the guy, because I actually quite liked Deconstructing Harry! Still, it took me about half of the movie to get past all of my usual anti-Allenisms, and I never got completely over them. But looking over the list of Allen’s movies, there’s none that I’ve seen that I actually hate. Well, What’s Up Tiger Lily?, but no one likes that one. (There’re also several I‘d call overrated, but even those I enjoyed to some degree.) Part of this is surely self-selection – I avoid those Woody Allen movies I suspect I’ll find unbearable – but I think it also betrays the fact that, maybe, sorta, I have some degree of affection for the Woody Allen persona hiding beneath that vague repulsion? Would I have liked Deconstructing Harry more if, say, Albert Brooks (12 years younger than Allen and without all the baggage) was in the lead? Maybe! Would I like to revisit Allen in another lead role post-Deconstructing Harry? Not really! Do I have some catching up to do with Allen’s filmography. Oh, probably. One day.
Look, Sally, Look 