On Woody Allen

The world of cinema should always be thankful to Woody Allen. He is that shining sun under whose gaze even the ordinary particle musters the gleam to shine to its glory. Every moment that he picks, takes that special shift from transitory to transcendental that you seem intoxicated by it for days and month to come by. And all this is done with such genius that hardly seems cloying; it’s rather inspirational to have such genius. True that his films may be overt in his self-indulgences and bear a typical maverick expression which only Woody can do.

His actors are very deftly handled in terms of space, inner conflicts. I even noticed some emotional jumps during conversations but somehow they feel liberated and deliver improvised performances with pauses or beats or gestures which only real life dialogue can evoke. Also they all seem to speak the woody allen speak at times out of their own comfort blocks but that’s again not too overboard. The point is all this adds to the mood and may be even intentional, sort of.

Woody may be laying too much emphasis on dialogue, the good old debate of showing versus telling. He may be a bit too liberal with flamboyance or cerebrally motivated lines which seem out of place with the characters at times but the overall impression is far too aesthetically sweeping to ignore.