WILD MAN BLUES A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 1998 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
Welcome to the lives of the rich and famous. Today, thanks to Barbara Kopple's new documentary called WILD MAN BLUES, we visit with Woody Allen, his lover, his sister, and his jazz band as they tour Europe in style befitting royalty. (The band members' unseen accommodations are undoubtedly less patrician.)
Kopple had a real challenge in constructing an interesting film since Woody turns out to be as dull as his movies are exciting. He suffers from self-proclaimed "chronic dissatisfaction," which means, for example, that when he's in New York he wishes he were in Europe and vice versa. A hypochondriac, he keeps taking his temperature in the hopes that it will stop reading normal.
Woody and his soon-to-be wife - "This is Soon-Yi Previn, the notorious Soon-Yi Previn," is how he introduces her - make an odd couple. She treats him like her pupil, lecturing him on the how to perform on stage and how to greet dignitaries. And the supposedly oversexed Woody acts like they are an old married couple, showing her little visible affection for her except for a little handholding.
A typical scene has them in one of their palatial hotel rooms - he prefers getting 2 large adjoining suites so he can have his own bath - making small talk at breakfast about subjects from the temperature of the shower to the lack of toast. It reminded me of a two-person junior high school skit I was in, in which I was supposed to be playing "a member of the elite society," whatever that meant.
The most striking conclusion from viewing the movie is how incredibly unhappy Woody is even with millions of fans and dollars. In one hotel there are a thousand people in the street below his room, hoping to get a glimpse of him. Even when playing the New Orleans style jazz that he reportedly loves, he looks miserable. Grimacing with his eyes closed, he produces music that can be described as, well, pleasant, but he makes it look less like a labor of love than something to be endured.
Woody, although he clearly mugs for the camera at times, seems fairly natural. Looking disheveled and rapidly aging, he and his relatives travel from their private jet to their limo to their next unbelievable room. One even has its own large, indoor swimming pool with elaborate tiled mosaic floors that looks like it was last seen in an episode of "I, Claudius."
With enormous doses of Woody's music, the film spends little time analyzing what attracts Woody to it. "There's nothing there between you and the pure feeling of playing," Woody says, giving us some hint of his motivation. "There's no cerebral part to it."
In one of the film's little insights, Woody talks about why Europeans like his movies better than Americans. Europeans even love his films, such as INTERIORS, that bombed in the US. "The Europeans like pictures that drone on, and I'm good at making pictures that drone on," he explains.
What may surprise Woody's fans is that he is rarely funny in person and sometimes surprisingly inarticulate. ("I'm appropriately animate for a human being in the context in which I exist," is his retort to Soon-Yi's criticism of his lack of gestures on stage.)
"He's great," effuses one of his adoring fans. "He can do whatever he likes to do." Actually, the film serves as proof that he doesn't enjoy anything.
"You are so happy to be so intelligent," one party guest, whose native tongue isn't English, tells Woody. "With intelligence comes great responsibility," he replies gravely. You'll never catch him being happy.
The sad movie ends in what Woody calls a "lunch from hell" with his octogenarian parents. He sets them up and then hates them when they respond to his taunts exactly as would be predicted. Perhaps the metaphor for how he views his life - quite apart from its reality - is the hall where they were to perform in Venice. It was completely destroyed by a fire just before they arrived.
WILD MAN BLUES runs 1:45. It is rated PG for a single use of the F-word and would be fine for kids around twelve and up.
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