1. Let’s go bananas with
Woody Allen
Made by Natalia
Mashinistova
R-204
id7726745
2. Contents
1. Biography
2. Woody the director
3. Woody the husband
4. Filming
5. Writing
6. Live, Laugh, “To Rome with Love”
3. Name: Allan Stewart Konigsberg
DOB: 1 December 1935
Place of Birth: New York, New York, USA
Occupation: Director
Woody Allen was born December
1, 1935 in Brooklyn, New York. As a
young boy he became intrigued with
magic tricks and playing the clarinet,
two hobbies that he continues today.
He broke into show business at
age 15 when he started writing jokes for
a local paper, receiving $200 a week. He
later moved on to write jokes for talk
shows but felt that his jokes were being
wasted. His agents, Charles Joffe and
Jack Rollins, convinced him to start
doing stand-up and telling his own
jokes. Reluctantly he agreed and,
although he initially performed with
such fear of the audience that he would
cover his ears when they applauded his
jokes, he eventually became very
successful at stand-up.
After performing on stage for a
few years, he was approached to write a
script for Warren Beatty to star in:
"What's New Pussycat?" It was from this
experience that Woody realized that he
could not work on a film without
complete control over its production.
Biography
4. Woody's theoretical directorial debut was in "What's Up, Tiger
Lily?"; a Japanese spy flick that he dubbed over with his own
comedic dialogue about spies searching for the secret recipe for egg
salad. His real directorial debut came the next year in the
mockumentary “Take the Money and Run”. He has written,
directed and, more often than not, starred in about a film a year
ever since while simultaneously writing more than a dozen plays
and several books of comedy.
First films
5. Although his
stories and style have
changed over the
years, he is regarded
as one of the best
filmmakers of our
time because of his
views on art and his
mastery of film-
making.
6. —Can a man love two women at the same time?
— More than two. (Laughs) I think you can. That’s why romance is
a very difficult and painful thing, a very hard, very complicated
thing. You can be with your wife, very happily married, and
then you meet some woman and you love her. But you love
your wife, too. And you also love that one. Or if she’s met some
man and she loves the man and she loves you. And then you
meet somebody else and now there are three of you. (Laughs)
Why only one person?
7. In 1992 Woody Allen’s
longtime companion and lead
actress, Mia Farrow, found his
nude Polaroids of 21-year-old
Soon-Yi Farrow Previn, one of her
adopted children. Farrow accused
Allen of sexually abusing their
adopted daughter, Dylan, then
seven. Allen indignantly denied
her charges. “I never did anything.
I would never molest a child,” he
said during a hearing. He was
cleared by a panel of doctors, but
Farrow eventually won full
custody of Dylan. Allen was
ultimately denied visitation rights
with Dylan.
Later Woody married Soon-
Yi, they have 2 children.
Family scandal
8. “If my films don’t show a profit, I know
I’m doing something right”.
—Woody Allen
10. Woody Allen is a great
writer: his works are rich in
delicate irony and humor.
For example, here’s the
story about a man who
dropped dead of a heart
attack and was reincarnated
as a lobster. He finds himself
in a tank at a posh Upper
East Side seafood restaurant.
11. It’s a wonderful thing to be able to
create your own world whenever you
want to. Writing is very pleasurable,
very seductive, and very therapeutic.
Time passes very fast when I’m
writing—really fast. I’m puzzling over
something, and time just flies by. It’s an
exhilarating feeling. How bad can it be?
It’s sitting alone with fictional
characters. You’re escaping from the
world in your own way and that’s fine.
Why not?
“
”
12. This is my perspective and has always been my perspective on
life. I have a very grim, pessimistic view of it. I always have
since I was a little boy; it hasn’t gotten worse with age or
anything. I do feel that’s it’s a grim, painful, nightmarish,
meaningless experience and that the only way that you can be
happy is if you tell yourself some lies and deceive yourself”.
“Happiness in life is impossible:
13. Despite his pessimistic views on life, Woody Allen
continues to direct light, dreamy and beautiful movies.
Last 7 movies he has made over the past seven years are
directed in London, Barcelona, Paris and Rome. Allen even
says that he dreams of being a ‘foreign filmmaker’.
“I always wanted to be a foreign filmmaker,” he says
seriously. “But I’m from Brooklyn so I couldn’t be because I
wasn’t foreign. But all of a sudden, through happy accidents,
I’ve become one, to such a degree that I’m even writing
subtitles. So I’m thrilled with that”.
European Seven
14. Go watch “To Rome with Love”!
Storyline
Set in the romantic city of Rome.
The intertwining stories of a
worker who wakes up to find
himself a celebrity, an architect
who takes a trip back to the street
he lived on as a student, a young
couple on their honeymoon, and a
frustrated opera director who has a
talent for discovering talented
singers.
15. Woody Allen is 77, but he
successfully manages to understand
people of all ages.
He looks at all the things that
happen to him with humor, he treats
with irony even his aging:
—What’s your take on getting older?
— I find it a lousy deal. There is no
advantage getting older. You don’t get
smarter, you don’t get wiser, you don’t
get more mellow, you don’t get more
kindly, nothing good happens. Your
back hurts more, you get more
indigestion, your eyesight isn’t as good,
you need a hearing aid. It’s a bad
business getting old and I would advise
you not to do it if you can avoid it. It
doesn’t have a romantic quality.
16. — Will you ever stop making films?
— I simply enjoy working. You shoot a film, and the result could
have always been better. You try again, and fail once more. In some
ways I find it enjoyable. You never lose sight of your goal. I don’t do
my job to make money or to break box office records, I simply try
things out. What would happen if I were to achieve perfection at
some point? What would I do then?
17. Webliography
• Woody Allen, The Art of Humor No. 1
• Reconstructing Woody
• Woody Allen: “the whole thing is tragic”
• Woody Allen
• DeviantART
• Tails of Manhattan
