Why should we take Woody Allen seriously? To many, Allen is unquestionably better known for his highly publicized personal life and for his early work as a comedian than for his serious exploration of philosophical themes in later films such as Crimes and Misdemeanors, Another Woman, and Husbands and Wives. While Allen is generally conceded to be an influential master of the comic genre in which he began, many look with disfavor on his efforts at creating more serious films.
Yet, in this book, I will contend that Allen has developed into one of the most important of America’s film artists. From a philosophical standpoint, Allen’s films are of enormous import in that they are obsessed with issues of contemporary metaphysical concern. While I will explore a broad variety of such issues, for the purpose of this introduction these themes may be reduced to the following five:
(1) Philosophically, perhaps the greatest tension in Allen’s work is based on the desire of many of his characters to ground their lives in a set of traditional ethical values for which they simultaneously and sadly acknowledge the lack of an ontological foundation. This tension could be called “the existential dilemma,” as it plays a vital role in the work of a variety of so-called existential philosophers such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Buber, Heidegger, and Sartre.
I will investigate the role which such existential themes explicitly play in Allen’s films, and his rejection of other philosophical approaches—for example, those presented by the so-called analytic philosophers such as Bertrand Russell, who have argued that the primary role for philosophy in the twentieth century is to act as a servant to the sciences.
(2) A second tension in the body of Allen’s work relates to the first. There appears to be a dialectical opposition between what might be called his more optimistic films (e.g., Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters, Another Woman) and his more pessimistic films (e.g., The Purple Rose of Cairo, Husbands and Wives, Deconstructing Harry). While some may find this characterization too simplistic (it has been suggested to me that there should be a third category for “ambiguous films”), it certainly raises the question of whether Allen will ever be able to resolve the conflict in his films between despair and a hope based on some sort of faith. An examination of this question will lead to an examination of Allen’s love-hate relationship with God in which his intellectual tendency towards atheism combats his spiritual yearning for some form of salvation. As one way of portraying Allen’s inner religious struggles in the course of his career, I will use some of the ideas presented by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik in his lengthy essay, “The Lonely Man of Faith,” which was written in March 1965 for the journal Tradition, but which has recently been republished in book form for the first time.
(3) Allen’s films present us with penetrating insights into gender issues relating to romantic love, sexual desire and the ongoing changes in our cultural expectations of both men and women. Throughout these films, many relationships are presented as being of the “Pygmalion-Galatea” variety; i.e., relationships between a mentor and an apprentice which always end in the emotional suffocation of the apprentice and the abandonment of the mentor. I will explore the significance of Allen’s repeated use of this motif and the possibilities for successful love relationships as they are presented in his films.
(4) Throughout Allen’s career, he has frequently been accused of narcissism and the advocacy of moral relativism, when in fact he has been, and continues to be, one of film’s most forceful advocates of the importance of an awareness of moral values in any meaningful life. Indeed, the one theme which permeates all of his films derives from his contention that contemporary American society is rapidly descending into barbarism precisely because of our societal failure to maintain our sense of individual moral responsibility.
Ethically speaking, he clearly believes that things were much better for his parents’ generation, for whom there existed an acceptance of a common set of societal values. I will examine what responsibility Allen believes artists have for creating this situation and what, if anything, he believes they can do to revitalize this sense of community, especially given the current emphasis on “diversity” within American society.
(5) Allen’s films also explore our society’s interest in, and suspicion of, the use of the techniques of psychoanalysis for understanding human awareness and behavior. I will investigate Allen’s attitudes towards analysis, his perception of its relationship to other aspects of our culture such as religion and the media, and his conclusions concerning its strengths and limitations.
In his serious films as in his earlier comedic work, Allen demonstrates an understanding of the history of Western philosophy which is quite extraordinary for a man whose formal education ended at the age of nineteen when he was ejected from New York University. His early parodies of traditional philosophical concerns (as in his essays “My Philosophy” and “Mr. Big” from his 1971 book, Getting Even) show that, even then, Allen had read and thought about philosophy. In the first five films he directed, ending with Love and Death, Allen continued to comedically explore such concerns, including, in the last film, parodies of both Tolstoy’s musings in War and Peace and Ingmar Bergman’s obsessions with human mortality in The Seventh Seal.
Starting with Annie Hall (1977), Allen’s first really serious film, elements of his own philosophy appear in ways that are no longer primarily comedic. Structured in the form of a long therapy session, this film begins and ends with Allen’s persona, Alvy Singer, telling us jokes which are more serious than funny. In this film Allen perfects his technique of using humor to genuinely explore philosophical issues, as opposed to his earlier practice of exploiting traditional philosophical arguments in order to be humorous.
Allen’s distinctive wit is the thread running through all the characters he has played. Allen’s humor imposes an existential running commentary on all the events in his films, a commentary which proclaims his unique identity and his rebellion against the traditional behavior of others. Whether tearing up his driver’s license as he explains to a policeman that he has always had a problem with authority (Annie Hall) or portraying his employer, a successful television producer, as a clone of Mussolini (Crimes and Misdemeanors), Allen uses humor to distance himself from others and proclaim his ultimate autonomy.
Yet Allen never suggests that humor can fulfill his characters’ goals or even uncover the truth. Alvy Singer can only get Annie to return to New York in his fictional play, not in the reality of the film. Alvy’s obsession with his own mortality, his condemnation of the lax moral values of Los Angeles, and his attempt to create meaning for his life through his destructive relationship with Annie, are all vital elements of the philosophical themes which will haunt Allen’s work throughout the rest of his career. It is also in this film that Allen first makes reference to a specific text, in this case Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death, as a source for his concerns. Becker’s book, a serious study of philosophical and psychological issues from the perspective of such thinkers as Søren Kierkegaard and Otto Rank, sets the parameters of the treatise on mortality which Allen presents in his film.
From this point on, Allen’s films continue to explore these and other serious philosophical themes in ways that are quite explicit. These films are filled with clues and frequent specific references to thinkers and their work. For example, A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy (1982) begins with a lecture given by a pompous philosopher, Professor Leopold Sturgis (José Ferrer), on the impossibility of knowledge in all areas of metaphysics, including ethics, religion, social theory, and aesthetics. For those familiar with the history of philosophy, Allen clearly intends Sturgis’s views to mirror those of contemporary analytic thinkers such as Bertrand Russell, and Sturgis’s eventual transformation into a being of pure spirit may be read as Allen’s critique of such views.
Similarly, in September (1987), Jack Warden plays a physicist who shares his professional frustrations at discovering that the universe appears scientifically to be a meaningless place, governed by arbitrary rules which appear indifferent to human concerns and values. Allen shows us how such conclusions lead this character, and those who hold similar views in Allen’s other films, to abandon all responsibility for moral action in their cynical search for hedonistic pleasure.
On the other hand, in Another Woman (1988), Allen’s primary protagonist is a professional philosopher named Marion Post (Gena Rowlands), who is initially identified as a critic of the views of the existential theorist Martin Heidegger. Yet, as the film progresses, we watch her transformation from a repressed intellectual into a caring, authentic individual as she personally discovers the truth of Heidegger’s insights and her own spiritual beauty as symbolized in the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke.
Allen’s pessimism is portrayed most powerfully in Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), perhaps his best film to date, in which the main character, Judah Rosenthal (Martin Landau), comes to “see” that in a world devoid of a divine presence, all acts are permissible, even murder. The apparent philosophical despair of this film, in which the most moral individual, a rabbi, is shown gradually going blind, refers us to the writings of such thinkers as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Buber.
Husbands and Wives (1992) presents a pessimistic view of romantic love and marriage which clearly mirrors that of Jean-Paul Sartre in his existential writings. Once again, Allen peppers his audience with clues and references to help us identify the theories he is using. In this case, the first clue comes at the film’s beginning when we see Judy Roth (Mia Farrow) holding a book with Sartre’s name emblazoned on its cover. Later, Jack (Sydney Pollack) mentions Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre’s lifelong companion and collaborator. And, at two points in the film, there is discussion of the desire of Allen’s character, Gabe Roth, to move to Paris, where he would like to live in a small apartment and spend his days writing at a table in a cafe—precisely the lifestyle traditionally associated with Sartre. These clues by themselves seem trivial, but given the similarities in the apparent conclusions reached by Allen and Sartre on the issues of love and marriage, there can be no serious doubt that Allen intended to make the connection explicit.
What does it mean to say that my analyses of Allen’s films in this book are philosophical? How does this book differ from others on the subject of Allen and his work? For the purposes of my study of film, and in my role as an officer of a scholarly society dedicated to the philosophical study of the visual arts, I have reflected a great deal on these issues, both on my own and in rigorous debates with my colleagues in philosophy.
In my view, philosophical writing about film plays a distinct role within the general field of film studies. Clearly, some approaches to film studies, such as those emphasizing the technical, psychological, or historical aspects of the filmmaking process, have little or nothing to do with philosophy. On the other hand, it is equally obvious that theoretical or aesthetic approaches may raise general questions that also apply to the realm of philosophy. This is especially obvious when theorists make specific references to the work of undisputed philosophers or relate their discussion to a more general debate of traditionally philosophical issues. But what about projects, such as this one, which also engage in examinations of specific films in order to reveal the philosophic themes contained within them?
The philosophical interpretation of a film is not simply a matter of uncovering themes obviously contained within the text. In my view, some of the most valuable contributions to the philosophical study of film are made when an author presents an unusual interpretation which may initially appear unlikely, but which, upon further examination, is found to be a credible reading that furthers our understanding and appreciation of the film’s complexities. In these cases, the author must argue for an interpretation using the standard tools of philosophical debate in any area. When such innovative interpretations are successful, as in the work of such theorists as Raymond Bellour and Stanley Cavell, they deepen our appreciation of the work while stimulating fruitful philosophical debate.
Thus I would argue that a film’s ability to elicit a wide range of interpretations deepens its philosophical significance. Of course, there are films which make sense only when viewed from a single philosophical perspective. While such films may have aesthetic worth, other films which are more ambiguous in their philosophical content are of particular interest to philosophers because they encourage us to explore their themes creatively. Any author who succeeds in arguing for a specific philosophic interpretation of a film, using the material presented in the text of the film in a manner consistent with all aspects of that text, has, in my view, made an important philosophic contribution to the understanding of that film, even if his or her interpretation differs from others that are better established.
It is of course essential that any serious analysis of a film give an accurate account of its text. Technological advances of the past twenty-five years, such as videocassette and DVD players, allow a level of accuracy previously impossible in scholarly examinations of film. They also allow the reader of film studies to obtain and examine copies of the films under discussion, a practice I recommend. In the first version of this book, to assure scholarly accuracy, I engaged in a detailed scene-by-scene analysis of each of Allen’s films. In rewriting, I have removed a great deal of this sort of detail in order to make the work less cumbersome. Throughout the book, I assume that the reader not only has seen the films in question but is willing to examine them again in a detailed way in order to better understand the philosophical claims of this study.
Another issue which came up in the writing of this book has to do with its organization. One editor suggested that I arrange the book by idea or concept rather than film-by-film. This would avoid giving readers the impression that “there are no qualitative distinctions to be made among the films.” In other words, in a film-by-film format where each work merits a separate discussion, Mighty Aphrodite (for example) may wrongly appear to be “the artistic and intellectual equivalent” of Crimes and Misdemeanors. Also, so this argument goes, it is strange to have such great disparity in chapter lengths. After all, the chapter on Manhattan is more than twice the length of the chapter on Deconstructing Harry.
I am extremely grateful to this editor, and to all the other colleagues whose constructive criticisms of the earlier drafts of this book helped me immensely in completing this project. Yet, in the final analysis, I decided, for a variety of reasons, to retain the film-by-film approach. First, I believe each of Allen’s serious films deserves to be viewed initially as a complete and independent work of art rather than merely as a small part of his overall aesthetic project. While I obviously agree that the meaning of each of Allen’s films is enhanced by an understanding of its relationships to his other works, it seems to me that something of great value is lost if one merely skips from film to film to examine similar themes without also analyzing each film in its entirety.
Furthermore, I trust the reader to recognize that the arrangement of this book is not meant to imply that all of the films under discussion are equally valuable or thought-provoking. Indeed, by allowing the analyses of some films to grow much larger than those of others, I believe that I am making clear my views on the qualitative differences between these films.
In exploring the philosophical themes which pervade Allen’s films, I will speak of Allen as the primary artist responsible for those themes. In doing so, I confess that I am relying somewhat on an approach to film interpretation usually referred to as the “auteur theory.” Since this theory was first introduced in the French film journal Cahiers du Cinéma in the 1950s, many have attacked and rejected it. Perhaps the most famous American battle over this theory took place in the early 1960s between Andrew Sarris and Pauline Kael, two noted film critics.
In his “Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962,” Sarris discussed what he called the three circles of the theory. The first, according to Sarris,
is the technical competence of the director as a criterion of value…. The second premise of the auteur theory is the distinguishable personality of the director as a criterion of value…. The third and ultimate premise of the auteur theory is concerned with interior meaning, the ultimate glory of the cinema as an art. Interior meaning is extrapolated from the tension between a director’s personality and his material [1985, pp. 537–538].
Kael, in her 1963 article “Circles and Squares,” vehemently attacked Sarris’s interpretation of the theory in ways that are unquestionably justified; yet, rather than destroying the theory, this interchange deepened American critics’ understanding of it by pointing out Sarris’s misreading and allowing each critic to interpret the theory in a way that seemed appropriate. One could even make the case that Kael herself utilizes an interpretation of this theory. Thus, without going into all of the details of the dispute between Sarris and Kael and the many others who have followed them, I will now briefly explain how I am using the theory when I claim that Allen is one of the clearest examples of an American film auteur in this century.
François Truffaut, the noted French film director and film critic, is generally conceded to be the originator of the notion that the relationship between certain directors and their films should be regarded as equivalent to the relationship between other artists and their works. Truffaut’s presentation of the theory subordinates the importance of the contributions of others involved in creating a film—for example, the screenwriter, the producer, the cast, the technical crew, and the film editor. Truffaut would acknowledge that the auteur theory does not apply to the works of directors whose films are strongly influenced by others involved in their production. Yet the auteur theory is convincing when applied to directors, such as Allen, who exert complete control over all facets of their films.
As Kael has pointed out, not all directors are auteurs, and films made by auteurs are not necessarily better than any other films. An auteur does not necessarily have any greater technical competence, nor need there be, as Sarris mistakenly states, any tension between the director’s personality and the material. Many filmmakers who are not auteurs are more technically competent than many of those who are, and most auteurs are in no conflict with their material because they are the ones who have chosen or written that material. To say that a director is an auteur is to imply a control so complete that his or her films may reasonably be regarded as the works of a single artist. Not all auteurs are great filmmakers. Some never rise much above competence, and some use their complete control to churn out endless rubbish. To say that a film was or was not made by an auteur tells us nothing about the quality of the film in question. Some of the best films ever made—Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, or Casablanca, for example—were the work of many people, none of whom had anything like total control. There are other magnificent films, for example Rebecca, where control was split between two powerful individuals (in this case Selznick and Hitchcock) who were at odds with one another throughout the creative process, yet were able to create a masterpiece.
One advantage of the auteur theory is that it offers a structure within which a film may be critically analyzed and profitably discussed. Yet this approach has been seriously, and often successfully, criticized over the past three decades by a succession of important theorists, including semiotic structuralists, Marxists, Freudians, feminists, and deconstructionists. This is not the place to engage in the kind of detailed and careful analysis which these criticisms deserve. However, given the overall existential perspective of this book, and of its author, one obvious disagreement between these perspectives and my own bears consideration here.
A major theme of this book, and of Allen’s films, is that although we are affected by our genetic makeup and environment, ultimately each of us is free to choose the fundamental meaning of his or her life; and, furthermore, each of us is responsible for the consequences of that choice. Thus while I accept many of the claims made by the theorists just mentioned (particularly those of the feminists), I reject any views which deterministically attempt to separate the creative activities of the artist from the ultimate meaning of his or her work. I acknowledge that the themes in an artist’s work might be better understood if one engaged in a systematic examination of the artist’s economic, cultural, and psychosexual history, but I do not attempt to engage in such an investigation in this book.
Obviously, not every film in which Allen has been involved has been the result of his work alone. Other important artists—Marshall Brickman, Diane Keaton, and Gordon Willis, for example—have made important contributions to the success of parts of his work. Yet it is clear in all of these films that the hand of Allen has been the determining factor of their overall worth. In addition, Allen has contributed to film projects on which he is not the sole auteur. While this fact must be kept in mind while analyzing such films as What’s New, Pussycat? or Play It Again, Sam, it does not mean that these films may not be studied for interesting indications of the themes we find in later films which are solely Allen’s own.
Although Allen does not produce his films, all of those which he has written and directed, starting with Take the Money and Run, have been produced by individuals who have unquestionably given Allen control over all their artistically interesting aspects. For each such film, he has either written or co-written the screenplay; chosen the cast, crews and locations; had the final say on all of the technical aspects of the filming process; done the final editing; and participated in the marketing and distribution process. On the American scene, in fact, very few individuals have ever had such complete control over their work as has Allen. (Alfred Hitchcock, in the latter half of his career, comes to mind as one of the few other examples.) Thus there can be no question that Allen qualifies as an auteur.
Once again, a film made by an auteur is not necessarily a good one, even if there is agreement that the auteur is a genuine artist. In my opinion, Allen’s early comedies are minor films. We may study them to help ourselves understand the themes of his more serious films, but this does not raise them above the level of slapstick comedies such as those by Mel Brooks or Monty Python during the same period. For this reason, I discuss the early films together in the first chapter.
This is by no means the first serious study of Allen’s work. I am indebted to the many others who have gone before me, especially Maurice Yacowar in his groundbreaking Loser Take All: The Comic Art of Woody Allen. I have also been influenced by the insightful comments made in a number of other works, including those by Douglas Brode, Foster Hirsch, Diane Jacobs, and Nancy Pogel. This book differs from all other critical works in that it is the first, to my knowledge, to be written by a philosopher, and, thus, the first to place its primary emphasis on philosophical themes.
While Allen’s films present many other worthy areas of interest, such as his directorial and technical approaches, I will not be discussing those here. I am sure there are others much better qualified to discuss those facets of his films.
There are instances where the insights of others have affected my thinking. Where I agree with those earlier insights, I have been careful to indicate their source. Where I disagree with an earlier interpretation, I cite that interpretation only if it seems to represent a view that is commonly held.
Finally, I wish to thank Woody Allen for his support of this book and for his answers to questions I sent him (see Appendix). This support does not imply, of course, that Allen agrees with everything I say. Indeed, there are various issues of interpretation on which I know that we disagree, and I have indicated such disagreements as they occur.