Scene By Scene: Woody Allen Posted Tue Jun 20 16:41:12 BST 2000 by Juliet Swins

In the new Radio Times....

ALISON GRAHAM'S SEMI-CONSCIOUS TV REVIEW
This week: Woody Allen: Scene By Scene (BBC2, last Saturday)

That Woody Allen interview, eh? He's a bit weird, isn't he? Mad, bad, dangerous to know. You may have forgotten that he was involved in a court case about child abuse or something (he was cleared, insist RT's mighty legal department, but makes you think). I think I saw one of his films in passing - set in New York, he played a Jewish man who was somewhat neurotic. A bit boring, but he is An Artist.

Right from the start of the interview, "Wooden" (and that's just his acting) resolutely refused to watch any clips from his movies (I know the feeling - have you seen Coupling yet?!). The jury's out to lunch on whether he's out to lunch, but I say he might be.

They probably intercut the interview with scenes from some of his films - ranging from EVerything YOu Ever Wanted To Know About Interiors to Hannah & Her Bananas, Albert Hall, and of course, Zebra. But even this was a shocking rip-off of the subsequent Oscar winner Forrest Gump, starring Tom Hark and Gracie Fields.

Surely, though, the most bizarre revelation in the first five splendid minutes I saw - before passing out in a vodka-fuelled mini-haemorrhage - concerned his attitudes to watching his own films. He doesn't. Nutter! I mean - imagine finishing a piece of work, and never even looking at it again. YOu might have made some terrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrible errroooooooooooooosr. [Note to sub-editor: Look at this before you even fucking THINK of leaving here tonight].

[Now turn to page 28 for Alison Graham's soap opera column "On Safer Ground". And on pages 34-39, be amazed at her incisive feature "Out Of Control", a sideways look at her experiences down the years losing the remote.]

[Next week: Alison Graham reviews more Mark Cousins interviews and concludes that he was a much better ice skater.]

Alison Graham's space-filling A-Z of Woody Allen:

A Allen: it's his surname, you know.
B Boxing - he doesn't really participate in this rather aggressive contact sport.
C Children - enough said!
D Doesn't watch his films after he's spent hundreds and thousands of hours making them.
E We'll come back to that one.
F Films - he's made loads. Five at least.
G Glasses - he wears them.
H Home - lives in New York. Mad as a March hare.
I Insanity - rumours have dogged him, I suspect.
J Jazz - he's a bassoon virtuoso. Not much demand there!
K Keaton - oh, he's made numerous films with Buster.
L Lobster - name of pet dog. [Thanks to Woody Allen expert Graham Allison for that one.]
M Movies - too many to mention. As many as ten, perhaps.
N New York - do we know if he lives there yet?
O Oboe - reached grade 4. (So did I!)
P Patsy Palmer - now SHE should be in one of his films.
Q Queens - a suburb of New York. [Any answer yet?]
R Radio Times - other listings magazines are available.
S Spectacles - he needs them, being mad.
T Tall - except he isn't.
U Under Six Foot Tall - there, proof!
V Voice - what an annoying whine he possesses.
W Woody - he was named after a woodpecker.
X X-rated - but that's quite enough about his personal life.
Y Yippeee - nearly there!
Z Zelda - best film he ever made. About the witch in Terrahawks. It was splendid.



Subject: Re: Scene By Scene: Woody Allen [ Previous Message ]
Posted By Anonymous on Wed Jun 21 08:55:21 BST 2000:

Full marks, Juliet! More please!

Subject: Re: Scene By Scene: Woody Allen [ Previous Message ]
Posted By Bent Halo on Wed Jun 21 18:34:28 BST 2000:

If you make a film then you watch every frame of it until your eyes bleed. You hate it by the time it's finished, what with the baggage attached which has nothing to do with the content of the final piece.

I hate every film I've ever done, but most people don't pick up on minutae errors when they watch them. That's what Woody was getting at. Sadly it crept into the press release and every magazine used it as a quote.

And yes, 'Scene By Scene:Woodsie Allen' was a waste of time.

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