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Home Front: Politix
Lileks takes on Woody Allen re: 9/11
2005-06-28
Allen: But the truth of the matter is that existence in general is very very tragic, very very sad, very brutal and very unhappy. Every now and then, something happens that's funny. And that's refreshing.


Like a Coke, or one of those nice cool damp towels they bring you at the hotel.

Q. So is this one of the reasons why we don't see any hint of what happened on September 11 in your recent films? Would your fans be scared?


Is this what German entertainment writers think? Silly little American fans, ready to bolt in fear if Woody tackles 9/11? I know what his characters think about it. I can imagine the cast of "Interiors" leaving for thier seaside home to stare at the water and brood about all the pottery that was lost in the attack.

Allen: No, it's because I don't find political subjects or topical world events profound enough to get interested in them myself as an artist. As a filmmaker, I'm not interested in 9/11.


That’s fine; his prerogative, of course. It would be wrong to insist that every filmmaker say something about 9/11 as some sort of litmus test. But let's review.

Insufficiently profound: Attack on America by illiberal religious fanatics; the mass murder of Jews at a hotel; the Holocaust; the tsunami

Sufficiently profound: The incessant attempts of nebbishy intellectuals to get into the pants of ripe young women

(Continuing with Allen: ) Because, if you look at the big picture, the long view of things, it's too small, history overwhelms it. The history of the world is like: he kills me, I kill him. Only with different cosmetics and different castings: so in 2001 some fanatics killed some Americans, and now some Americans are killing some Iraqis.
And in my childhood, some Nazis killed Jews. And now, some Jewish people and some Palestinians are killing each other. Political questions, if you go back thousands of years, are ephemeral, not important. History is the same thing over and over again.
Gah. So: if the Romans kill to conquer, and build cities, streets, sanitation systems, water-delivery systems, courts, and regulate trade to provide a stable economy not based on raiding the next town, this is the same as Barbarians sacking Rome and carting off the gold. Because in both cases you have killing. “Some Nazis killed Jews, and now some Jewish people and some Palestinians are killing each other.” Same thing. Without the ability to make moral distinctions based on motive, consequences, the ethical constructs of various parties, everything is equal, and you end up with people like Woody Allen: a tiny speck of compacted narcissism, revolving around the dead sun in an empty universe. What’s left? Well, thank heavens for little girls.

Not that there’s a heaven.
Posted by:Steve

#8  Woody is another exemplar of why it is important pour les artistes to shuddup and play le guitar.

Two of my favorite films are Allenkraft : Zelig, and Radio Days. The latter being an inadvertant paean to the beauty of immigrant embrace of and assimilation into America. A kind of goofball "Avalon." The former is what it is, a manifestation of Allen's narcissism, yes, but extraordinarily funny, and technically amazing for the time of its creation. Yes, we could do without Susan Sontag's participation in the faux documentary, but it is best to not speak ill of the dead.

And before any of you get too worked up with my giving Allen a pass for some his work, I am a registered Cro-Magnon Branch Rightie.

former is a wonderful
Posted by: Red Lief   2005-06-28 23:18  

#7  Sleeper? Not political? That was his best stuff!
Posted by: Hyper   2005-06-28 18:56  

#6  Woody, if history is too complex for you to grasp, just make up your own version of it, like Ridley Scott.
Posted by: Spacemuppet   2005-06-28 15:31  

#5  Some sketch comedy show--think it was In Living Color--once did a parody commercial in which Woody was making a pitch for his new charity, "Date the Children."
Posted by: Mike   2005-06-28 15:08  

#4  What's the problem? Woody doesn't think he has anything worthwhile to say about 9/11. I'm sure he's right. I just wish Michael Moore had made the same decision.
Posted by: VAMark   2005-06-28 14:22  

#3  When Woody goes to the Great Beyond, not only will the lights on Broadway be dimmed, but all the barely legal Asian porn sites will go offline for one minute...
Posted by: tu3031   2005-06-28 13:28  

#2  And Hollywood wonders why it's in such a slump.

A studied unwillingness to tackle the relevant topics of the day is not a sign of sophistication; it's a sign of intellectual flaccidity (and I'm sure that's not the only thing flaccid about Mr. Allen).

Don't build it, and they most assuredly won't come.
Posted by: Dreadnought   2005-06-28 13:17  

#1  What have the Romans ever given us?
Posted by: Omise Sholuting9208   2005-06-28 13:17  

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