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iView Author: Rusted Rick (Kolkatta, India)
EMAIL: ritchick.mozumdar [at] gmail [dot] com

Title: How I discovered Woodey Allen
“I do the movies just for myself like an institutionalized person who basket-weaves. Busy fingers are happy fingers. I don’t care about the films. I don’t care if they’re flushed down the toilet after I die.“- Woody Allen

That’s woody Allen for you in his practical best. But irrespective of what the 72 year old film maker feels about his work, there is always going to be people who would care about his films. No matter how insignificant their number might be but these people are still around, hiding somewhere some place like some social outcast, afraid people might call them weird and freaks ( and don’t forget the worst of them- “boring”) too as many have started to call Woody himself. Woody once said that he has no idea about his audience and who they are and what they do, except that he is pretty sure that they exist, and would always come out to watch no matter what he churn out of his camera every year. And not only are their existing loyal fans but every year some hapless person like me bumps into his DVD’s and then there is no turning back.

Four years back I was at my friend’s house and his dad was watching some film which rather seemed to me like a kind of parody on Russia. The film was called LOVE AND DEATH. After watching 30 minutes of it I sort of found it really interesting and so took the DVD from my friend’s dad and came home. I saw the film that night and although there were a lot of stuff which I couldn’t grasp at that time like the references to Dostoevsky and Tolstoy and the parody of THE SEVENTH SEAL at the end I really enjoyed the film. There was something so inherently entertaining about the story and Woody’s dead pan expression acting that I got hooked to it. I really can’t remember when I laughed so much watching a film before. And so started my relation with woody. The coming months saw me watching films like TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN, SLEEPER and BANNANAS all basically part of Woody’s early slap stick years. After that came his more serious and light hearted films like Crimes and Misdemeanors, Manhattan and off course ANNIE HALL, which remains by favorite till date. Back then I had no idea about how great a film maker woody allen was and how philosophical his films were, but still I loved him. That’s the great thing about his films; one doesn’t need to get the intellectuality to love them. You don’t need to have read Sartre or Freud extensively to get what he is talking about. Years later when I am revisiting them I find them to be so much more than they seemed to me at that time. In that respect his craft is very much like Chaplin’s, even a child can find his films entertaining, its this rare gift of expressing the most powerful thoughts and philosophies without even once burdening the audience with his intellectuality that makes woody allen truly one of the greats of modern cinema.

Four years down the line I have seen almost every single one of his films numerous times and don’t think I ever got bored. They have this quality about them which can cheer you up in even the most depressing of moods.

Yesterday a kid from next door came over while I was watching DECONSTRUCTING HARRY and I think I just sowed the seeds for another woody worshipper.

P.s- am really grateful to my friend’s dad who graciously gave me all those DVD’S which till date I never returned. Hope he rests in peace.