I think it's funny (but natural in a way) that people insist on reading Woody Allen films as autobiographical even when he insists they are not. I think it's especially funny with this film since Harry isn't really much like Allen at all.
This is kind of my problem with the film.
It's clear that Allen often comes up with ideas for films that loosely relate to his own life. This film deals with, among other things, the fact that being good at creating art that speaks to the human condition doesn't easily translate to being good at living among actual humans. I'm quite sure that resonates strongly with Allen.
But to turn this into a story, Allen creates this exaggerated Philip Roth-style novelist who drinks excessively, is extremely vulgar, and is a compulsive womanizer ... and since Allen plays this role people call the film "extremely self-critical". This character isn't Allen.
It's so much Allen that I just don't buy him in the role. Allen is a very self-consciously cerebral actor, and whenever he tries playing anything earthy, I completely reject him. I just do ... so very little of this film works for me. It's not a bad film ... in fact it's probably one of his better films of the 90's (which is not a very strong decade for him).
The weird staccato editing trick is a complete failure. Every time it happened I wanted to shout "STOP!" at the screen.
This is kind of my problem with the film.
It's clear that Allen often comes up with ideas for films that loosely relate to his own life. This film deals with, among other things, the fact that being good at creating art that speaks to the human condition doesn't easily translate to being good at living among actual humans. I'm quite sure that resonates strongly with Allen.
But to turn this into a story, Allen creates this exaggerated Philip Roth-style novelist who drinks excessively, is extremely vulgar, and is a compulsive womanizer ... and since Allen plays this role people call the film "extremely self-critical". This character isn't Allen.
It's so much Allen that I just don't buy him in the role. Allen is a very self-consciously cerebral actor, and whenever he tries playing anything earthy, I completely reject him. I just do ... so very little of this film works for me. It's not a bad film ... in fact it's probably one of his better films of the 90's (which is not a very strong decade for him).
The weird staccato editing trick is a complete failure. Every time it happened I wanted to shout "STOP!" at the screen.