Woody Allen's Bibliography

Introduction

Woody Allen is a movie screenwriter, director, and actor who has given an exemplary performance in more than 45 movies since the beginning of his career in the 1960s (Solomons, 2015). Allen's films have been nominated and won multiple awards making him one of the most respected artists in the industry. One of Allen's most distinctive characteristic is his level of control over his films. He often wrote, directed and acted in them, which allowed him to micromanage almost every aspect of a movie. Many of his motion pictures are comedies and have romantic themes, although his versatility is evidenced by his successful of genres that are more serious. Scrutinizing Woody Allen's career and work reveal such exciting aspects as deduced from his projects, on which this film bibliography dwells.

Ranking Allen's best and worst films would be subjective and would be a matter of opinion more than any other factor. However, there are those that left a mark, whether negative or positive, due to Allen's ability to cause a stirrup in the industry by bringing out specific sensitive themes. Manhattan is one of several movies which Allen wrote, directed, and played the main character of his film. It was also massively acclaimed, and a commercial success produced in 1979 (Bailey, 2014). It is categorized as a romantic comedy but exhibits more drama than many drama films.

The most prevalent theme of this film is illicit love and romance (Solomons, 2015). The entire movie is punctuated by numerous instances of infidelity in relationships, even among those who are not married. 42-year-old Isaac Davis who is the films main character is played by Allen and is dating 17-year-old Tracy. His best friend who is married is having an affair with a particular Mary. The dynamics of their lives are intertwined as Mary's ex-husband, and Isaac's ex-wife has a role to play in the movie. Isaac's ex-wife has recently come out as a lesbian (Bailey, 2014). As the story unfolds, Isaac ends up dating Mary for a while before she announces that she is leaving him. He attempts to get back to Tracy, the relationship with whom he had ended, only to find that she is also departing to pursue higher learning. It is a plot that reveals the vanity of illicit love and ends in Isaac losing three women who were previously his lovers all because of his greed and lust.

Annie Hall was a movie that Allen wrote, directed, and starred in two years before Manhattan was released. It is also a romantic comedy featuring Alvy Singer as the main character who is nostalgic and reminiscent of his relationship with Annie Hall, whom he considers to be one of the loveliest he ever met. It follows a romantic script and is highly representative of the theme of loss (Bailey, 2001). The story of the romance between the two characters is told as a flashback, and ends in their separation, as Singer, played by Allen, attempts to get back his estranged lover using a wedding proposal.

This film was very successful and raked in an estimated $38 million compared to its $4 million budget (Bailey, 2014). One of Woody Allen's most significant traits is his ability to maximize value and minimize the cost. He achieved this by choosing to do most of the work in his films, as shown in Annie Hall and Manhattan so far, where he wrote, directed and acted. He also was able to maximize the quality of movie production and maintain relevance by providing his audience with well presented romantic thrills to keep them interested.

Crimes and Misdemeanors is yet another romantic disappointment where Cliff, played by Woody Allen, has to lose a lover to another man. This film was shot in 1989 and shows Allen's propensity for dramatic love stories. This film tells of two stories that are happening concurrently, and that are not related to each other until the end of the film. Judah kills a woman with whom he had an affair because she is a threat to the stability and survival of his marriage. Cliff, on the other hand, gives up on a woman he is love with because he is intimidated by a more prosperous rival. Two situations are juxtaposed each against the other; a man who did whatever was necessary to preserve his marriage and another who gave up on his lover and let her marry his rival.

Crimes and Misdemeanors is a display of Woody Allen's ingenuity when it comes to coming up with unique content and storylines for his films. Allen also asks essential questions about morality all through the film, which engages the audience to rethink their lives and the values with which they live. There are various scenes in which the characters are acting in retrospect, and Allen uses these scenes to appeal to his audience (Bailey, 2001). This work, therefore, has a thoughtful touch and explores the feelings of guilt that people have to live with as consequences of the choices that they have made. It is the quest for a clean conscience, versus the tendency to compromise the same conscience when people are forced by circumstances to make choices and act regrettably.

Quite similar to Crimes and Misdemeanors is Another Woman, which was released a year before. The latter contains the same self-evaluation and found the thought-provoking presentation of ideas as the former (Solomons, 2015). In another woman, the main character, a 50-year-old professor unintentionally eavesdrops on a therapy session whereby a frustrated woman is being counseled. Eventually, she is affected by the goings on whereby she is forced to rethink her outlook towards life. Finally, she ends up making some radical decisions out of this influence, one of which is separating from her second husband. She vows to lead a better life afterward.

This film is one of the few severe movies that Woody Allen wrote and directed. Notably, he did not have any acting role in this film. To the audience, the film is likely to have the same effect that it had on the professor, albeit at a much lesser intensity (Solomons, 2015). It causes a self-evaluation that might reveal some things about one's life that they may have unintentionally overlooked. Critics favorably rated this drama, and well received.

One indisputable fact about Woody's humor is that he can create comical pieces in almost any situation. In Take the Money and Run, his 1969 film, he can make issues such as bank robbery, bullying, and general misfortune seem funny to the audience (Lee, 2002). This movie, which was one of his first before he broke out to be the acclaimed filmmaker that he is, is a pure comedy which is presented as a documentary. This movie was also Allen's first attempt at directing after having played previously numerous roles in other films. Based on this fact and the success of the film, Allen made a smooth transition into directing. The jokes contained in this movie may, however, have been considered at the time, due to their glorification of heinous crimes (Bailey, 2001).

Woody Allen tends to depict or to promote the art of filmmaking inside his films. The careers of the characters he plays in his movies are, more often than not, related to the film industry (Lee, 2002). In the film Crimes and Misdemeanors; for instance, he met his lover while filming a documentary on the life of his step-brother. In other films, he will be shooting a video on something or will somehow be involved in the production of a specific movie. This could probably be attributed to Allen's love for the arts and the innate need to promote filmmaking (Bailey, 2001). In Hannah and Her Sisters, which he produced in 1986, his character is a television screenwriter, which is somewhat impressive, because Allen himself is a writer. Also notable is that all other characters in the movie are artists in a way, with Hannah's parents and sisters all being actors (Solomons, 2015).

Hannah and Her Sisters tells the tale of a complicated family where interpersonal relationships are significantly affected by numerous external factors and situations. In this movie, Allen brings out the realism of the situation in which most people in the society then, and now find themselves in (Bailey, 2014). The plot has a theme of illicit love whereby Hannah's husband has an affair with Hannah's sister, Lee. The plot depicts the increasingly compromised nature of marriages, whereby most spouses are dissatisfied and are highly prone to infidelity.

One negative implication of this film is its portrayal of marriage as a weak and casual union whereby infidelity is glorified (Solomons, 2015). This seems to be the case with many of Allen's films seeing that in most of them, infidelity and illicit affairs are prominent themes. Ironically, this is also reflective of Woody Allen's personal life. The trend observed in his films can be tracked in his own life, which has been marred by various sagas (Lee, 2002). Given that he is both the scriptwriter and the director of his movies, it is, therefore, safe to conclude that these storylines are born from an internal disposition whereby it is his accurate view of marriage.

Allen's views on the current dynamics in relationships are also exhibited in his 1992 movie, Husbands, and Wives, a tale of the lives of two couples. One couple ends up broken up, and the man ends up being lonely and unmarried at the end of the film. The rifts in relationships as exhibited in this film are often caused by issues that seem petty to a mind that is seeing clearly. It is evident that couples often disagree on seemingly significant matters, yet after a few moments and careful retrospect; the two partners resolve their differences and resume their intimacy. In this movie, the theme of jealousy is also brought out, especially after the separation of partners, whereby neither of the partners is comfortable with the other dating someone else (Lee, 2002).

Allen also ventured into fantasy comedy films, his 1990 movie Alice being one of them. Interestingly, this Woody Allen did not have an acting role in this film. This film involved fantasy ideas whereby the main character, Alice, went to see a doctor for a headache which had been supposedly induced by her denial of intense feelings that she was having for Joe, a man she has met. The doctor gives her herbs which, when consumed, allow the consumer to have special abilities such as invisibility and the ability to communicate with ghosts (Bailey, 2001). The 'Magical Herbs of Dr. Young' was the original title of the movie but it was changed to Alice presumably because the former would give away the plot even before the audience has watched the video.

Similar to his other films, Woody Allen made sure to incorporate the theme of love in the movie. Alice has to struggle to decide whether to approach Joe, for whom she has strong intimate feelings or to stay away and retreat to her healthy life with her wealthy husband. Alice asks for help from various quarters, for each significant decision that she is about to make, including her dead former lover. This film is representative of a real-life situation that occurs in relationships whereby two married people are often faced with the challenge of preventing negative outside influence on their ability to remain partners. Notably, this film also explores the possible implications of lack of trust and invasion of privacy to two partners who are in an intimate relationship (Bailey, 2001).

Some of Woody Allen's more cent works include Match Point, a 2005 movie whose plot involves the usually complicated family relationship sagas Allen often composes (Bailey, 2014). However, it is significantly different as it is a psychological thriller. The comic effect that has been characteristic of most of Allen's films is absent in this one. In its place are intense competition, secrecy, and rivalry, as well as conspiracy and murder. Following in this new found trend is Cassandra's Dream, another thriller which invol...