I promise that my books aren't just going to alternate between pulp detective noir and compendiums of interviews with filmmakers (it really can't, as I've already read my next book, and SPOILER ALERT it's a Czech novel of instant-classic status and almost no goons busting in on private-eye protagonists). But I gotta say, if there are more interview collections of this caliber out there, particularly for directors who fascinate me endlessly (Altman, Leigh, etc.) I may keep disappearing down this rabbit hole.
Okay, that's just to say, this was pretty great. Allen is a brilliant mind, and these interviews find him mostly (and delightfully) free of the obligation to entertain -- it's just a set of very sober, probing, sometimes quite insightful reflections on his body of work (about which he's largely ambivalent, considering all of his films with the possible exception of Stardust Memories to be failures), his philosophy, the nature of mankind, and a generalized riff on dating (loosely paraphrasing: a guy will look at himself in a mirror, change ties, change to a gray suit from a navy blue one, change ties again, change shirts, and meanwhile the girl he's about to go on a date with has already decided whether or not she's going to sleep with him). It's fascinating stuff, deeply enjoyable, and if nothing else, reminds me that for all that I've seen a dozen of his films and change, I have major gaps in my Woody education. So thanks, Reading-Blog, for adding an impossible list of films to my to-do list on top of your grueling literacy demands! Will you leave me no rest, no rest at all?
No comments:
Post a Comment