I’ll bet that the bemused subject of “Woody Allen: A Documentary” wonders, even if PBS doesn’t, who will have the curiosity and stamina to stick around for all 31⁄2 hours.
There must be a dozen times when the Jewish gag writer, stand-up comic, screenwriter, playwright, filmmaker, New Yorker humorist and clarinetist expresses self-deprecation, typically with a wry smile or deflecting one-liner, in this two-part entry in the venerable “American Masters” series.
All of this time on camera, primarily in the form of recent interviews to which the staunchly private artist acceded, represents a coup for director Robert Weide.
But let’s tell it like it is (to borrow a phrase from “Bananas” sportscaster Howard Cosell): Access, as much as the merits of Allen’s ambitious and impressive body of work, is the raison d’être for this epic-length piece.
Unfortunately, the insights gleaned are largely familiar and superficial. “Woody Allen: A Documentary” is reasonably interesting and (for baby boomers) nostalgia-inducing, but it fails to examine the prolific director’s importance and influence in American culture.
Weide applies no critical dimension and therefore lends no gravitas to the artist’s work, resulting in a program that is perfectly watchable and largely forgettable. “Woody Allen: A Documentary” airs Nov. 20 and 21.
Allen tells us very little that we didn’t already know about his childhood, his creative process and his self-doubts. The good news is his unvarnished running commentary — devoid of the mock humble, self-congratulatory, self-mythologizing patter of many movie folks — works to save the film from the endless fawning of actors (including Louise Lasser, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts and Larry David), critics (F.X. Feeney, Leonard Maltin and Richard Schickel) and various other talking heads (Dick Cavett, Chris Rock).
Weide is best known for producing and directing HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and prior portraits of the Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields and Lenny Bruce. His background is comedy and television, not movies, and he’s clearly more interested in diverting his viewers than challenging them with a probing analysis of Allen’s work.
So we get a soup-to-nuts chronology of Allen’s career, beginning with plenty of clips of him on the Dick Cavett, Steve Allen, Jack Paar and Ed Sullivan TV shows. These early stand-up bits are quite funny, and we readily accept that the guy was a comedy prodigy who got his start in high school placing one-liners in Walter Winchell’s and Earl Wilson’s New York newspaper columns.
Allen quickly got gigs writing for comedians, radio programs and a TV show starring Sid Caesar. He then penned the screenplay for “What’s New Pussycat?” (1965), including a part for himself, but was appalled by the way the studio turned his thinking-person’s sex comedy into slapstick farce. He vowed to direct his own scripts from then on, and the success of “Take the Money and Run” (1969) and “Bananas” (1971) won him total control on all his films ever since.
This is ancient and familiar history for Allen’s loyal fans, who will revel in the sunny sound bites and clips from “Sleeper,” “Love and Death,” “Annie Hall” and “Manhattan.” But it’s unlikely that viewers younger than 30 will be inspired to check out the movies, for the documentary makes no effort to establish a broader social or historical context for the work.
Allen and Robert Altman were the U.S. filmmakers who spoke most directly and consistently to a new generation of post-collegiate Americans. But there’s no discussion here of the shift in social mores of the ’60s and ’70s, and why Allen’s dialogue-based Jewish humor (or New York humor, if you prefer) resonated with moviegoers all over the country.
Do you think Mel Brooks, a peer and friendly competitor, might have something interesting — even if it was critical — to say about Allen’s style and success? Don’t hold your breath waiting for Brooks to show up, or Jerry Seinfeld, Ben Stiller or Sarah Silverman, who
wouldn’t have careers if Allen hadn’t mainstreamed Jewish identity.
Mainstreamed and sexualized it, I might add, for sex was as central to Allen’s appeal and worldview as literature, mortality and morality. None of which, incidentally, are addressed in any depth.
If you do watch the entire 31⁄2 hours, you’ll at least be rewarded near the end with the most provocative comment of the entire documentary.
“I don’t have the concentration, or the dedication, that you need to be a great artist,” Allen says with utter seriousness.
The sheer number of films — and many exceptional ones — that he’s made belies his frank self-assessment. Too bad “Woody Allen: A Documentary” didn’t grapple more with the question of its subject’s greatness.
“Woody Allen: A Documentary,” 9 to 11 p.m. Nov. 20 and 9 to 10:30 p.m. Nov. 21 on KQED TV–Channel 9.