Woody Allen is a man of many contradictions and mixed
confidences—a timeless wonder. He’s one of those people that has
lived more than you or I ever will. A man who has made a film a year
for the last 30-plus years. In other words: the perfect subject for a
book.
Eric Lax spent the last three decades interviewing Allen on various
movie sets and in editing rooms, and Conversations with Woody
Allen is the thorough result. The book darts from one decade to the
next in a mish mash of interviews, organized under loose headers like
“Editing” and “Writing.” With another subject this might be confusing,
but not so with Allen, whose consistent persona and appearance just
goes to illustrate the timelessness of the man and his films. Lax says
in an interview, “[Your films are] not of a time.” And Allen answers,
“I’m not of a time.”
A perfectionist to the extreme, Allen is also one of the
self-proclaimed laziest filmmakers around, caring more about writing,
editing, and scoring than directing, his least favorite aspect of
filmmaking. Lax persistently drills him about his recollections of past
films, but Allen is an elusive interviewee. Allen almost willfully
cannot remember much about his films, saying that they were all varying
disappointments to him and once they were in the can they became
boring, inanimate things.
Allen will only concede one artistic success on his part: 2005’s
Match Point, in which Allen finally realized his true dream of
creating a “serious” film. A reoccurring theme in Conversations is Allen’s confidence in his ability to be funny, offset by his desire
to follow in the footsteps of Ingmar Bergman and make dramas. True
enough, Allen is a very funny man, and it’s true that his films can be
hit or miss. But that’s one thing I’ve always loved about Allen: the
wealth and depth of his “honorable failures,” like the misunderstood
and underrated Deconstructing Harry.
My only complaint about the book is a minor one, easily forgivable
for all the enjoyment it provided. Because the interviews from all
three decades are mixed up willy-nilly style in the book, it became
repetitive. But I’ll chalk that up to poor organization on Lax’s part,
not to Allen himself.