What would Woody do?

My English teacher junior year of high school once said that every smart kid goes through a Woody Allen stage. Now, most people that even remotely know me are aware of the fact that I’m obsessed with this guy. But to me it isn’t so much a smart kid thing – or even a Jewish or an agoraphobic or a nervous kid in general thing. Granted, there’s no denying if you fall into these categories, you are slightly prone to relate to him. And Woody himself is smart indeed. As a film director, writer, actor, jazz musician and comedian, he has proved to be quite an intellectual. But the thing about Woody is, in his decades of making art, today he is more prevalent than ever. \nHe has pretty much released a film a year for the past forty years – whether they’ve been comedies, dramas, murder mysteries, etc. Actually, they can be best when he combines all of these elements. No matter what particular genre they might fall into, Woody’s films will depict the human condition in modern society in a most brutally honest way. If anything its because often times, the characters he portrays and the situations he is put in can’t help but parallel his own life. He can be known to depict himself as successful in his art, but a failure in his personal affairs. \nAnd like any artist, his personal failures can prevail in his work. For someone who can so brilliantly portray life, he seems to have some difficulty actually going about it. He portrays his shortcomings in a self-depricating fashion, making it easy to understand his flaws. Yet instead of coming off as whiny or annoying, he places emphasis on his imperfections in a hilarious way. For those of you not familiar with his work or persona, this can be anything from his stutter to relationship issues. \nSo he’s pretty awkward and imperfect, but everyone I know is like that, too. So instead of trying to mask it, Allen opts to articulate it. Let’s take an example from perhaps his most famous and celebrated film, “Annie Hall.” He stars in the film with his once girlfriend, Diane Keaton, whose nickname actually was “Annie Hall.” Its storyline hits every aspect of the rise and fall of a relationship. Fabricated romantic comedies these days will highlight the serendipity that surrounds a budding relationship, then briefly conceive a flaw that the couple will eventually get through by means of some dramatic event. But sometimes relationships don’t work, and there are far better movies out there than “The Breakup” that will show this. And sometimes, people can even get murdered. Now, it’s not so much that he is pessimistic, but realistic. And sometimes relationships do work out, but Allen is going to show this in a most unsuspecting way, as in “Hannah and her Sisters.” \nSo if you’re tired of irrelevant and mindless films – or ones that are too long for your 21st century attention span, go with a Woody flick.