Woody Allen thought Annie Hall was just "okay"
By Virginia SmithAugust 2nd, 2011, 6:30 pmComments (14)
Adding further to the lore of his own neuroses, an upcoming documentary on Woody Allen reveals that the director isn't all that proud of some of his most classic films. Apparently, Allen felt that Annie Hall was merely "okay," and really didn't like Manhattan, feeling that he "had blown it so badly it was unreleasable."
The two-part American Masters documentary will air on PBS in November and includes interviews with Allen, a visit to his Brooklyn childhood home, and old footage. At a press event for the documentary, Mariel Hemingway (who appeared in Manhattan when she was seventeen) awkwardly offered that Allen only paid attention to "actresses depending on how young they were." Uh, yikes.
In any case, it's all bound to be interesting, but you do have to wonder why Allen seems to be downplaying his best work. If anything, shouldn't he be busy making his apologies for the likes of Scoop?
Commentarium (14 Comments)
The worst thing about "Annie Hall" was the subsequent career of the excruciating Diane Keaton.
disagree
You know she was in the Godfather, right? Plus, she was in Manhattan after Annie Hall, and that was a pretty good movie. Just saying it's easy to hate on someone's career all anonymously on the internet, would you say that to her face?
Thanks Diabe.
Well I would not be so blunt. There is after all a perfectly valid disconnect between what one might say anonymously, and what one would say out loud in public, and even more so to a person's face. I would be quite civil to Ms Keaton were we to ever meet. I have found her much more engaging as an interviewee on television than as a movie character; quite charming in fact.
But I stand by what I said about her career. Yes, I know she was in "The Godfather'. I just don't think she was very good in that film, nor really in many of her others.
I loved Manhattan when it came out (not for the least reason that I was a sophomore at the high school where Mariel Hemingway purportedly was a junior in the film and that a number of my friends were extras in that scene), but I never imagined until years later that it was an autobiographical pedophilic fantasy. Ick.
Can't blame the guy. Who doesn't like boning young chicks?
Well, lots of people don't like fucking their step-daughters, and I suspect even more don't want their daughters fucked by their step-fathers. I admit I don't have data to address that issue, but it seems pretty straightforward common sense.
no blood relation yo. It's straight.
It wasn't his stepdaughter. He never married her mother, never even lived with her, he just dated her.
His children with Farrow were the siblings of Soon-Yi. He functioned as a step-father in that family. To claim he wasn't because they were not married and maintained two households is to elevate form over substance. Here is their son on the subject: "He's my father married to my sister. That makes me his son and his brother-in-law. That is such a moral transgression. I cannot see him. I cannot have a relationship with my father and be morally consistent... I lived with all these adopted children, so they are my family. To say Soon-Yi was not my sister is an insult to all adopted children." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_allen#Soon-Yi_Previn
People are endlessly willing to forgive talented/famous people for moral transgressions. Sad but true.
This isn't news. He never kept his opinions of his own films a secret. In case you were wondering, The Purple Rose of Cairo is one of his favorites.