1970-01-01 00:00:00
Filmmakers’ legacies are usually not limited to physical copies. However, to talk about the subject, Woody Allen chooses a metaphor for someone who is still attached to film reels. They can take his footage and throw it in the sea or set it on fire, he says he doesn’t care. The director spoke to the Leaflet via video from his New York apartment.
The city, the stage for the films that made the director famous, is from the picture in “Golpe de Sorte em Paris”, his 50th and perhaps the last performance amid the difficulties he had in his homeland.
“If someone comes with enough money to make a film, then I would make another film. But I’m not going to go looking,” says the director Leaflet.
If, on the one hand, Paris is Allen’s declared passion, on the other hand, filming outside the United States emerged and for the first time in French as a necessity. More than 30 years after his adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, accused him of sexual abuse, the American industry has turned its back on him.
Creator of classics such as “Neurotic Groom, Nervous Bride”, which relates to a generation of filmmakers who rebuilt Hollywood in crisis, alongside names such as Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, the filmmaker says that he has always had difficulties in his productions funding, despite releasing almost one film per year between 1982 and 2017.
Everything has taken a turn for the worse since the MeToo movement successfully leveled Dylan’s accusations against him, prompting stars such as Timothée Chalamet, Kate Winslet and Greta Gerwig to express their regrets about working with the director, and after the release of the documentary “Allen vs Farrow”, which tells. the case, in 2021.
Dylan, now an adult, reiterated that Allen abused him in 1992, when she was seven years old. A few months earlier, the 57-year-old separated from Farrow and announced his relationship with the actress’s other adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, who was 21 at the time, to whom he is still married. today. The investigation into Dylan’s case in 1993 concluded that there was no abuse, and Allen has always pleaded not guilty.
Questioned by Leaflet At the launch of “The Festival of Love” three years ago, about how he felt about his cancellation, Allen replied that he liked being an outcast. “If there is a culture to be abolished, this is the culture. Look at it, the two major parties in the United States are more threats to the country than the nations we were at war with. The culture is motivated by profit.”
Now he is frustrated and discouraged as he leaves Hollywood. But as well as New York, Paris is the new backdrop for the darkly funny, clever and verbal dialogue, with its typical Jewish mood, confronting the fear of death and love, which nurtured the director’s style.
Scheduled for a Sept. 19 premiere in Brazil, “Blow of Sorte in Paris,” which is less comedic than tragic, tackles themes that Allen cherishes, such as the unpredictability of life, the nuances of romantic relationships and the worst part of people.
In the plot, Fanny, who is married to a rich man, meets Alain, a writer with whom she studied in New York, and is drawn back to her childhood dreams of pursuing an intellectual career.
Unexpectedly, the love triangle comes to a tragic suspense, set to the sound of jazz music, when Fanny’s husband decides to take revenge.
Although protesters protested his appearance at the Venice Film Festival last year, where he presented the film, Allen seems unconcerned about criticism or audiences who disagree with his author and work. separation. “I don’t think I even knew that until you mentioned it now. None of that is in my head,” he says. But his pessimism is intact. “I think we are going through very terrible times.”
“Lucky Break in Paris” is his 50th film. How do you feel?
I am surprised. It seems like yesterday that I started. I was so naive when I started, so inexperienced. And at that time, I was so happy to make a film, it was so difficult to make one. I had a lot of trouble getting the money together, so if you told me I’d make 50 of them, I wouldn’t have believed you.
You have often said that you like to have complete control over your films. Has this affected your relationship with Hollywood?
I have complete control in all my films. If I make a bad film, it is my fault and no one else’s. My first few films were very successful, so they let me control the next few films. This was useful because I didn’t have to constantly interrupt other people who would mess things up, slowing down the film and making everything complicated.
You talk a lot about the difficulty of finding financiers in the United States. Do you feel you had to go into self-exile to continue making films?
Not only in the United States, I have trouble financing my films everywhere. I was lucky for a few years with studio funding. But I always had this problem.
Your films always contain outlandish reflections on the meaning of life, and you used to say that we live in terrible times. Do you still believe that?
I think we are going through terrible, terrible times. They are always terrible, but at the moment they are very terrible. They are worse than usual. Wars are going on everywhere, authoritarian leaders have emerged in some countries in recent years. It’s not a good time, but that doesn’t mean it won’t last. I mean, the story comes and goes, it keeps a stable and not always very pleasant level.
Which French directors inspired “Golpe de Sorte em Paris”?
I’ve been inspired by European cinema since I started taking the idea of filmmaking seriously, and, given my age, it was a coincidence, because when I was in my late teens and early 20s, masters used to European. [Vittorio] From Sica, [Federico] Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, [Jean-Luc] Devil, [François] Truffaut became very important and prominent in the United States, especially in New York. Many of us watch their films and are automatically influenced by them without thinking about it. We just absorb it.
You recently said that the romance of filmmaking is over. Why do you think that?
When I was growing up, and even when I was an adult, movies were something different. There were beautiful cinemas all over the city, people went to the cinema, it was exciting, like an event. The film was shown on the big screen and hundreds of people watched it together and talked about it. If I made a film that people liked, it would stay in theaters for a year.
Anywhere in New York, there was always a movie theater that was showing “Neurotic Groom, Nervous Bride” or “Manhattan”, it was very exciting. You finished your film, you released it, and there was a sense of celebration. And then you moved on. But now, most movie theaters are gone in New York. The cinemas [que sobraram] they let the film run almost off duty, for two weeks, maybe three and, almost immediately, it was on TV [streaming].
The whole ritual of working on a film and releasing it so that it can then have a romantic relationship with the public is over. If I release a film like “Break of Fortune in Paris”, you don’t need to go to the cinema to see it. You can watch it in your room, on TV. That’s not very exciting to me.
You have said several times that you have many ideas in a drawer. What destination do you envision for these projects?
I have ideas that would make good movies. I don’t know if they would easily transfer to another medium. I don’t know if they would make a good book or a good play. I have written several plays recently, which are being performed at the theatre. And I want to write a book. I find it very difficult, but I am trying. And if someone comes with enough money to make a film, then I would make another film. But I’m not going to look. Funding a film is tedious, you have to go to a lot of lunches and meetings and talk to people. I’ve done this many times, and I don’t want to do it anymore. If somebody comes from somewhere and says, ‘We love your films, we want to sponsor another film of yours’, I might do another one, but other than that, I’d be quite happy writing for the theater or trying to. write prose.
Her appearance at the Venice Film Festival was criticized by people, especially the American media. Does this bother you?
I don’t think about it. I mean, I don’t think I even knew that until you mentioned it now. None of this is in my head. When I shoot a film, out of duty, I have to do a bit of promotion for it, even though I don’t like it. I don’t like to sit around and say, ‘I made a great film,’ and all that nonsense. I just released the movie, and if you like it, you watch it. If you don’t like it, don’t watch it.
But I have to promote it because people are investing in it and expect me to help a little bit with the marketing of the film. In other words, I go where they send me. If they send me to Venice, I will go there. If they sent me to Cannes, I would go to Cannes. If you want me to appear on TV, do an interview, I’ll do it. And it has always been like this for many, many years.
At the age of 88, are you happy with your legacy in cinema?
I am not someone who is very attached to legacies. Whenever I make a film, I never see it again. I made my first film in 1968 and haven’t seen it since. After I finish my films, I don’t care about them anymore. Being 88 years old, I will be dead soon, so I don’t care about my legacy, it means nothing to me.
If, when I die, they take my films and throw them in the ocean, or burn them, I don’t care. I will be dead. When you’re dead, nothing matters. Inheritance is a fantasy for people, it is like religious people who believe in life after death. But you’re not there, so who cares about my movie? I am not.
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