The Diversity of Woody Allen

Woody Allen is known for making movies about neurotic New Yorkers with relationship issues. Manhattan and Annie Hall are probably the two best known Woody Allen films, made just two years apart (1979 & 1977 respectively), and they both concern neurotic New Yorkers with relationship issues.

In between these two highly entertaining and creative pieces of cinema, Woody Allen did something quite different, making the quietly tragic film, Interiors. A dark story of family disintegration and psychosis, Interiors demonstrates the scope of Allen's writing talent.

The themes of family turmoil and mental trouble are not new for Woody Allen, but the tragic arch that they follow in Interiors puts us in a whole new territory.

Abandoning his penchant for music-laden films, Woody Allen chooses instead to create a quiet, brooding film with no score and no musical soundtrack (with the brief exception of two songs played at what is probably the most depressing marriage party in the history of movies).

Interiors has got to be one of Woody Allen's greatest achievements as a writer and director, yet it the film doesn't enter into most Woody Allen conversations because it does not fit the neurotically neat and inaccurate view we hold of this autuer.

Woody Allen has written 64 movies and television shows and of those 64, many of them have been nothing like Annie Hall.

Consider these titles: Match Point, Bananas; Vicky Cristina Barcelona; Shadows and Fog; Sweet and Low Down.

Each of these films comes from a very different place in writing and style and should show us that no matter how many Billy Crystal and Diane Keaton movies Woody Allen has made, he has made another that is significantly different.

In Match Point, we find Woody Allen working with themes of affluence and deception, a film of a different sort than Sweet and Low Down where the film is focused on an insanely ambitious jazz guitarist with a self-destructive streak.

As his career continues and the diversity of his catalogue grows, we should try to let our vision of Woody Allen grow too, even if we do keep going back to memorable New York relationship films of the 1970's and 1980's.

Resources:
IMDb.com