Ni n e Qu e s t i o n s f o r Wo o d y Al l e n : an In t e r v i e w

Derek Parker Royal

Allen agreed to respond to several questions I could pose to him via email. Of the ten questions I sent him, he answered five. Then in December of that same year, I asked if the filmmaker would respond to a few additional or follow-up questions. He agreed. I sent him ten more questions—a couple of them re- phrasings of earlier questions he neglected to answer the first time around—and this time he responded to four. The result of these ef- forts is the brief interview that follows. While may have not had the time to answer some of my questions more fully, what he does say is highly revealing. Much thanks to Woody Allen for find- Woody Allen is an extremely busy man, ing the time to correspond with me, and to producing a film a year and always seeming Melissa Tomjanovich who was instrumental to work on more than one script at a time. in helping to bring this interview about. Eric Lax, in both his 1991 biography and his Derek Parker Royal: You’ve been writ- more recent Conversations with Woody Allen: ing for film or directing since the mid-1960s. His Films, the Movies, and Moviemaking (2007), You state in previous interviews that your reveals how Allen is constantly juggling proj- filmmaking strategies have changed over ects and is continuously shuttling from shoot- that time and with each successive film. From ing site, to editing room, to mixing board, to your perspective, how would you character- projection room, and in-between all of these ize your films over the past two decades? activities still finding the time to write out Woody Allen: My films of the past two new scripts by hand. Such a schedule does decades are better than my earlier films be- not surprise me, for I have indirectly suffered cause they are more grown-up, more ambi- from its effects. On several occasions during tious, and in the main, just better movies. 2008 and 2009, I tried contacting Woody Allen DPR: Looking at your body of work for an interview. Most of these times I was since Alice, which films stand out the most politely informed by his assistant that Mr. to you, and why? Which do you feel are the Allen was either out of town (or about to leave most successful? town) on a shoot, or that he was much too WA: , Cassandra’s Dream, busy finalizing the next project to talk with , , me. I understood and respected his dilemma, , Manhattan Murder Mys- but I nonetheless persisted in requesting an tery, Hollywood Ending—These films comprise audience with the filmmaker. Finally, in June some of my best work. 2009, my perseverance was rewarded. Woody

Volume 31, No. 2 9 Post Script DPR: Over the past twenty years, which amusement over the observations made movies of yours are you the least satisfied about me and the attributes given to me that with, or the most disappointed in, and are based on my films. why? DPR: You were an actor in a string of WA: Curse of the Jade Scorpion and Scoop comedies from to Anything are two of my worst films, both because of me Else (and the Scoop), but since that time you being in them. I’m not being facetious. If the have remained off the screen. Why have you lead roles had been played by different actors, decided to remove yourself from the cast and the films would’ve been better, not because only write and direct? I’m incompetent but rather badly cast. WA: I’d be happy to be in a film if the DPR: Many have seen Deconstructing part is right. Nothing that I’ve written in the Harry as a somewhat autobiographical movie, last few years had a part that I’d be right a chance for you to create a nasty character for. and respond to the way the media was por- DPR: Where do you see yourself going traying you in the early 1990s. (I remember now in your filmmaking, both in terms of the the joke toward the end of the film, as you kind of scripts you have in mind and where were descending into Hell, that the level you’ll primarily shoot? containing the media was completely filled.) WA: I’m always struggling to find in- What went into the creation of Harry Block? teresting ideas and I’ll probably do less films And when you were making the film, did with me in them although there will be some. you have any real-life authors in mind, such I’m still trying to make a really great film. I as Philip Roth (whom many have seen in the would like to work in New York more but I figure of Harry)? can’t afford it. WA: I never thought I was unlikable. The DPR: Many of your recent movies have film was not remotely autobiographical, and contained some very heavy subject mat- I would never set out to address any aspect of ter. Why has there been such a concentration my life in my films. I just search for amusing of so many dramas lately? With the success ideas and when the idea hit me of a writer of Match Point, have you been wanting to character that you would learn about through explore that form more fully? seeing his works dramatized, I thought it was WA: I’ve always wanted to explore it, amusing. Philip Roth never crossed my mind, always have in the past. Match Point was the nor any of the other nonsense. I’ve never only commercial success. I really do whatever suffered from writer’s block all my life and idea I come up with and there is no agenda made up the story. I have no particular point or plan. It could be ten dramas in a row, ten of view ever that isn’t what’s expedient to comedies in a row, or random alternating. entertain. And so, if I did a film, for example, DPR: Musical history plays a major about a psychoanalyst and he did a heroic role in your movies. I’m thinking here of thing, people might come away thinking and , where it that I like analysts or psychoanalysis, but I became a central theme, and Everyone Says I have no pronounced feeling about that or Love You, where many of the old standards any other subject when it comes to work and were put center stage. And I’ve read that you would not hesitate for a second to do a story would love to make a film on jazz, perhaps where the psychoanalyst was a scoundrel or something more historical or based on your a murderer, if that gave me a good plot. The idol, Sidney Bechet. Besides its influence on point I’m making is that you really can’t tell your soundtracks, how might your love of anything at all about me from my movies (or certain forms of music find its way into your very, very little) because I’ll take any position future projects? that makes one of my totally prefabricated, WA: Obviously, almost all of my films made up stories work. Therefore, over the are scored with my favorite kind of music, years, me and people who know me shake which is, in order: Jazz/Popular Song/ our heads in astonishment and often get Classics.

Volume 31, No. 2 10 Post Script DPR: It’s clear that is WA: I’m still influenced by the foreign a filmmaker that you admire, and you men- filmmakers of the ’50s and ’60s and there’s tion his works in several of your early mov- no one around today that influences me but ies. What kinds of films do you watch, now, that’s not to say that there are not directors that you admire and perhaps even find as a that I enjoy. source of inspiration (or competition)? And for that matter, are there any works of fiction or particular authors that you find yourself reading and that have an influence on your filmmaking?

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