Gabriel Contreras
For my dear Moni, who is always here
David Evanier wrote a new biography of Woody Allen.
In that book, Allen is much more than a famous filmmaker. Evanier is a biggest journalist and writer, he is giving us a new profile of the author of Manhattan, Interiors and… Bananas…
GC. How do you feel about being a biographer now, in the Internet and Wikipedia age?
DE. My feeling is that that while the internet has greatly expanded the possibility of acquiring information and knowledge, it really hasn’t done that. There is such a welter of information on the internet: genuine information, contradictory information, false information including innuendo and gossip, that I think the ultimate effect is to lessen its usefulness, that I think the ultimate effect is to cancel out some of its usefulness as a learning tool. It does , however, expedite obtaining facts and tools for research, and I utilized it for this purpose. But essentially the biographer’s job remains a different and unchanging one:: to reach an understanding of one’s subject on a human level. This involves both a very personal and a dispassionate search; it involves getting as close as possible to the subject without sacrificing objectivity. That means finding close friends, relatives, boyhood pals, lovers. It means analyzing his work and arriving at an accurate appraisal of the nature of his artistic achievement. The nature of genius is inexplicable. One can’t trace it back to any one source or cause. We have in Allen the difficult parental upbringing: parents who didn’t speak to each other, who didn’t understand what their child was up to. We have a neurotic who was able to overcome his fears in the most creative ways by utilizing the paradoxes of his personality to create a human picture of vulnerability and strength that was both comic and deeply moving emotionally, that spoke universally to people all over the world. We had never seen a character like Woody Allen before. His achievement was the product of a powerful will, a great talent, of being able to look at himself objectively and see the humor in his personal predicaments. And he possessed–and still does–a very disciplined work ethic and an unshakable self-confidence. He never suffered from writers’ bloc, which, I think, is essentially a crippling self-doubt. And he had an ability to always keep growing. He often fails, but he goes on to find new and imaginative ways of triumphing anew.
GC. What were your creative processes and your mind exercises for work on the Woody Allen topic for two years?
DE. I lived with Woody in my head. I visited the orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn where he lived, trying to imagine it as he experienced it. I visited the Talmud Torah school he went to and hated in the afternoon, the Kent Theater where he watched movies with his pals, a Jewish bookstore that had been in the neighborhood for 55 years. Mainly I tried to get the texture of these neighborhoods. I walked through Central Park in the areas he walked every day with Dick Cavett and Soon Yi. I studied all of his work both for its artistic achievements and for clues into his character. I studied his early plays, especially «The Floating Light Bulb,» , little known now, that contained sketches of his parents (however transfigured) and of himself as a boy. In short, I dug into every nook and corner I could find. I also explored Woody by exploring my own boyhood, which followed a somewhat similar trajectory, although a few years later. My father, like his, had introduced me to Broadway and Times Square when it was still a Damon Runyon world of raffish characters, of live stage shows at the Roxy, the Strand, Loew’s State and the Palace, of Lindy’s and Jack Dempsey’s restaurants, and where I ate at the Automat next door to the 24-hour Laff Movie on 42nd Street that played Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello and the Marx Brothers and Buster Keaton 24 hours a day. It was a world of innocence compared to what came later. And of course, a critical key for me were the fifty interviews I conducted.
GC. What is Woody Allen’s actual opinion about your book?
DE. Woody maintains that he does not read any books or criticism about himself. When I had lunch with him this fall, he was very responsive and cordial, but we did not discuss my book.
GC. How many times have you seen the film «Manhattan?»
DE. At least ten times. It never fails to move me deeply.
GC. Was there anything funny in your process of writing about the greatest Jewish comedian?
DE. The funniest moment for me was when a boyhood friend of Woody’s told me that in order to get girls despite his shynes, Woody would call them on the phone and play romantic music in the background to get them in the mood. It never worked. I was amazed to hear this, since I had done the same thing when calling girls when I was a teenager. It worked for me one time. There were several other funny accounts of Woody’s boyhood tribulations with girls that also reminde.
GC. How do you imagine New York City without Woody Allen?
DE. A profound question, I think. There is no way of imagining Manhattan without Woody Allen. He will endure forever, for this reason and for scores of others. The iconic picture of Woody and Diane seated on the bench by the Queensborough Bridge at Sutton Place is our permanent remembrance, our way of thinking of Manhattan. For me personally, I have a memory of standing at that exact spot with my first girl friend (there was actually no bench; a bench was provided for the filming). But above all so many of his films will endure forever. And in many those films Woody and Manhattan are entwined. They touch us and inspire us each time we see them. And we see them over and over again. We will never stop seeing Woody Allen.
