Universidade de Departamento de Línguas e Culturas Aveiro 2006 Tânia Sofia de Matos A Inter-Relação da Arte e da Vida nas Comédias de Antunes Ferreira Woody Allen (1972-1998) Trindade The Interpenetration of Art and Life in the Film Comedies of Woody Allen (1972-1998) dissertação apresentada à Universidade de Aveiro para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Estudos Ingleses, realizada sob a orientação científica do Prof. Doutor Anthony Barker, Professor Associado do Departamento de Línguas e Culturas da Universidade de Aveiro ii o júri presidente Prof. Dr. Kenneth David Callahan professor associado da Universidade de Aveiro Prof. Dr. Anthony David Barker (Orientador) professor associado da Universidade de Aveiro Prof. Dr. Joaquim João Cunha Braancamp de Mancelos professor auxiliar da Universidade Católica Portuguesa – Centro Regional das Beiras - Viseu iii acknowledgements I would like to thank Professor Anthony Barker for his important ideas, suggestions and corrections and also for having expanded my knowledge of American film comedies. I am also indebted to Cinemateca Portuguesa – Museu do Cinema for the splendid assistance of its helpful staff that provided me important material concerning the scope of my study. I am particularly grateful to my family and closest friends for supporting me in countless ways and for repeatedly reminding me that my enterprise was worthwhile. iv palavras-chave arte, vida, Judaísmo, autor, Nova Iorque, show business, persona, comédia resumo A presente dissertação tem como objectivo investigar a inter-relação da arte e da vida nas comédias de Woody Allen, incidindo particularmente no período compreendido entre 1972 e 1998. Este trabalho analisa o papel de Woody Allen enquanto auteur, a importância da fantasia na sua obra e a sua relação com a realidade, a forma como as suas raízes Judaicas influenciaram a sua concepção de arte, o abismo entre Woody Allen e a indústria cinematográfica americana e a complexa relação estabelecida entre o verdadeiro Woody Allen e a sua persona. A tese é composta pelo estudo de filmes particularmente relevantes no que diz respeito à temática arte/vida, por uma lista bibliográfica, por uma filmografia do autor (Woody Allen) e por uma lista de filmes de outros autores igualmente importantes para o estudo em causa. v keywords art, life, Jewishness, auteur, New York, show business, persona, film comedy abstract The present dissertation aims to investigate the interpenetration of art and life in the film comedies of Woody Allen, focusing particularly on the period between 1972 and 1998. This work analyses Allen’s role as an auteur, the importance of fantasy in his work and its relationship with reality, the way his Jewish roots have influenced his conception of art, the gulf between Woody Allen and the American film industry and the complex relationship established between the real Allen and his onscreen persona. The thesis comprises the study of important films concerning the art/ life thematic, a consulted bibliography, a Woody Allen’s filmography and a list of films by other authors equally important for this study. vi INTRODUCTION 1 All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography. Frederico Fellini Allen’s Cultural Background and Career Over the past decades, Woody Allen’s films have awakened the attention of film critics and several studies have been conducted to unveil the work of a man who has enjoyed a dual status and a singular place in the history of the American cinema. American Jewish born,1 Allan Konigsberg would be consecrated as one of the most prolific independent American directors and would establish his own production unit away from the tentacles of the Hollywood monolith. His filmography comprises thirty six feature films, which were not blockbusters but which nevertheless allowed him to develop a solid and respected reputation as a filmmaker, especially in Europe. Before undertaking the task of analysing Allen’s films and his career as a filmmaker, it is important to offer a brief overview of his cultural background as well as of the evolution of his career. Allen’s parents belonged to a generation of Jewish immigrants haunted by the memories of their parents’ escape from Europe and who inevitably faced the burden of their ancestry. Although Allen was raised in a typical Jewish family and in spite of having attended Hebrew school before he moved to Midwood High School, he has never felt attracted to Judaism or to other religion. As the author states in Woody Allen – A Biography, I was unmoved by the synagogue, I was not interested in the Seder, I was not interested in the Hebrew school, I was not interested in being Jewish. It just didn’t mean a thing to me. I was not ashamed of it nor was I proud of it. It was a nonfactor to me. I didn’t care about it. It just wasn’t my field of interest. I cared about baseball, I cared about movies. To be a Jew was not something that I felt ‘Oh, God, I’m so lucky’. Or ‘Gee, I wish I were something else’. I certainly had no interest in being Catholic or in any of the other Gentile religions. (Lax, 40-41) 1 Woody Allen is the pseudonym for Allan Stewart Konigsberg, who was born on December 1, 1935 in the Bronx, New York. Allen’s childhood and upbringing were partly connected to Europe since his parents’ roots were European. Like most American-Jewish people, Martin Konigsberg and Nettie Cherrie were born in the Lower East Side of Manhattan but their families came from Russia and Vienna respectively. 2 Paradoxically, Allen’s films reveal a strange obsession with themes like the existence or non-existence of God, the meaning of life and the necessity for a moral order and moral integrity. The characters of Allen’s films often search for a substitute for religion to fill the spiritual vacuum of modern life, a space which is often occupied by art, as it will be discussed further on in this thesis. With regard to the fact of being a Jew, the author also attests that it has never influenced his artistic consciousness. As he explained to Natalie Gittelson, It’s not on my mind; it’s no part of my artistic consciousness. There are certain cultural differences between Jews and non-Jews, I guess, but I think they’re largely superficial. Of course, any character I play would be Jewish, just because I’m Jewish. (Woody Allen quoted by Nancy Pogel, 25) In spite of denying the influence of Jewishness on his work, much of Allen’s humour emanates from his urban Jewish background and the persistence of Jewish themes is a constant in his films. Furthermore, Allen’s persona finds its roots in a typical figure of the Yiddish tradition, the schlemiel, which is a popular stereotype of the guilt-ridden and anxious Jewish mentality. In spite of having never directly felt the burden of being a Jew, Allen’s cultural heritage probably accounts for the fact that his persona is constantly haunted by the spectrum of ‘outsiderdom’. Allen’s character type represents a stranger within his own society, a man whose inability to fit in reflects his frustrations and his anxieties. In this context, by invariably playing and portraying Jewish characters, the figure of the outsider reflects the figure of the artist himself. Radio Days (1987), for example, recollects the childhood of a young red-haired Jew patterned after Allen himself and the everyday life of a Jewish family, which in many aspects resembles Allen’s own family. In this context, the echo of past memories builds “a portrait of the artist as a young man”. The author himself attests for this when interviewed by Stig Björkman in Woody Allen on Woody Allen: STIG BJÖRKMAN: How close is the story in Radio Days to your own childhood? WOODY ALLEN: Some things are very close and some things are not. But a lot of it is based on an exaggerated view of my childhood. I mean, I did live in a family with many people present in the house: grandparents and aunts and uncles. And a certain period of my childhood I did live in a house right by the water. In Long Beach. But I didn’t want to travel all the way to Long Beach to shoot the film. Yes, many of the things you see in the film 3 did happen. My relationship to the school teachers was like that. My relationship to radio was like that. The same with the Hebrew school. And we used to go out to the beach and look for German aircraft and German boats. And I did have an aunt who was forever getting into the wrong relationships and unable to get married. She never did get married. And we did have those neighbours who were communists. Much of all that was true. I was taken to New York to the Automat and to radio programmes. My cousin lived with me. We did have a telephone line where we listened in on the neighbours. All these things occurred. (Björkman, 158) A deeper examination of Allen’s comic persona as a reflex of the artist is going to be expounded in the upcoming chapters of this thesis. Woody Allen came into film from writing. He started writing jokes for newspaper columnists such as Earl Wilson and Walter Winchell at sixteen. After this, he started writing comic material for several entertainers, including Bob Hope and Arthur Murray. When Allen left Midwood High School, he enrolled on a film course, “Motion Picture Production,” but he failed it and he dropped out of university after the first semester.