Even though Woody Allen makes a movie every year, I have only had rare opportunities to speak with him. Once was on a red carpet for his own jazz performance in Los Angeles. Another was simply to hear him speak at UCLA, but I did not get to ask a question. His new gig as director of a Los Angeles Opera performance provided a rare opportunity to actually sit down with Allen for a whole hour.
Spanish actress Penelope Cruz (L) and US director Woody Allen pose for photographers during a photocall for US director Woody Allen's film 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona' running out of competition at the 61st edition of the Cannes Film Festival, 17 May 2008, in Cannes, France. EPA/CHRISTOPHE KARABA
The Weinstein Company took advantage of Allen's west coast availability to have him speak about his latest film, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona." Named simply after the two lead characters and their summer destination, the film explores relationships between two very different women and a Spanish couple who seduces them over the summer. Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem) asks Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) to spend a weekend with him in Oviedo. Vicky immediately turns him down but goes along to watch out for Cristina. Vicky ends up falling for Juan Antonio first, but then Cristina has the longer affair, further complicated by the return of his ex-wife, Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz).
For a master of one-liners, Allen has a lot of lengthy anecdotes in real life. It does not take many questions to fill the allotted time. Of course, one must also account for translation time, as Allen admits he can no longer here and sometimes needs things repeated to him up close. Once he's clear on the topic though, he has a wealth of perspective to share.
Q: You have been exploring relationships in all of your films. Have you found any answers?
Woody Allen: I haven’t found any answers that you would want to hear. [Laughs] At the end of this movie, it’s a very pessimistic movie. I have a pessimistic view of relationships. My view has always been that you talk about it with your friends, you scheme, you plot, and you see psychoanalysts. You see marriage counselors, get medicated, do everything they can, but in the end you have to luck out. It’s complete and total luck.
You have all these exquisite needs, some woman has all her exquisite needs, and the odds of all those wires going together are very, very slim. If one of those wires is not there then it gets annoying and she gets dissatisfied, you get dissatisfied. So, to get it all clicking in is a very happy accident. It does happen to people, because there are so many people in the world, which statistically a certain amount of them luck out. They meet someone, fall in love, they are happy with that person, no real friction, but its luck. This is my observation of it, this can be argued, but if you ask me I would say that’s what I’ve learned.
All the advice, planning, self help books, anything you do, dating services, you’ve got to get lucky. If you do it’s great. Some people do, but you can see by the divorce rate, the amount of relationships people go through, and the amount of people in unhappy relationships but stay together because of inertia, because of children, fear of loneliness… there are very few really wonderful ones. You have to get lucky. I hope I haven’t depressed you.
Q: Do you believe that people can change and evolve?
WA: There is always the possibility that people will change. Real change is more rare. You are who you are at a certain age in life you are pretty much a variation of that your whole life. It’s conceivable that you will change but it’s not likely. Rebecca [Hall as Vicky] is never comfortable, she’s never going to have an affair, and cheat on her husband. She’s all nervous and full of anxiety. She changes her clothes a million times, she can’t decide if she should kiss him, go to bed with him, should she leave. She so some people are not meant for adventure or adultery.
There will always be that beautiful girl who all the guys run after and she will get involved with the next poet, or factory worker would be her next action. That won’t work out, so she’ll get involved with a swimmer, and the list will go on and on. I don’t hold high chances for people changing who they are, but again I’m pessimistic person. You could be speaking to someone here who’s full of buoyant optimism and they could be correct and I could be wrong.
Q: Since you do not act in this film, does Vicky represent your character?
WA: It’s funny that you should ask me that. You are the third person that has asked me that question. To me, it seems so outlandish. Apparently it’s not though because you are the third person to ask me that question. Years ago when Pauline Kael saw "Interiors" she insisted to me that I was the Mary Beth Hurt character, on the flimsy evidence that she was wearing a tweed sport jacket that I liked to wear. I was saying, "No, it’s not true because her problem in the movie is that she can’t express herself artistically. She’s full of feeling and can’t get it out." I’ve always been able to write a little bit, or make jokes, I’ve never had that problem. As the years went by people would say, "John Cusack is you, Kenneth Branagh is you, or this one is you…" so when I did "Match Point" someone said that Jonathan Rhys Meyers was playing my role. I’m thinking, how can someone possibly come to that?
In my wildest incarnation I couldn’t play that role, be that character, or think that way. The same here. Not for a second would I think of myself, in any relation to Vicky. I would have thought myself, and I don’t mean this because he’s so charming and charismatic, in Javier’s role. I could see a funny scene of me getting up in a restaurant and trying to pick up two attractive women, then not being successful at it, or getting in over my head. I could see Javier’s atheistic, existential point of view, as one I’ve expressed many times. No one has said, "Javier was kind of talking for you at times."
They think that the girl is speaking for me. I see it as absolutely not so, but it’s interesting that it keeps coming up, so I can only think I have a blind spot. It’s not like you’re the only crazy in the city. I have a blind spot and I don’t see it, but apparently its there for other people to see. Now it’s come up again and again. I don’t see it in any way, but I can’t honestly say that my perspective on it is correct. I’m starting to lose confidence.
Q: What inspiration do you get from women?
WA: The interesting thing is, and I’ve said this before, when I first started I could never write for women. When I wrote my first couple of films and did them, and when I used to write my cabaret act, and I would write sketches for television, I could never write for women. I always wrote the male point of view. This went on and on for quite a while. People even commented about it at the time. Then I got into "Play it Again, Sam" with Diane Keaton on stage. Keaton and I started dating, we started living together, and became very close. Through some kind of Socratic osmosis or something I started writing for women.
I started writing for Diane, and I found I could write for women. Then I sort of only wrote for women. I wrote more and more for women, and I wrote for them all the time. I like women, I enjoy their company. The person I edit with is a woman, my editing assistants are all women, and my press people are all women. My producer is a woman. I just enjoy their company very much. I get a big kick out of them. For some reason I find them interesting to write about too, men occasionally, but really my heart is in it more when I’m writing for women. I don’t know why but I remember when that transformation took place from an inability to write a credible woman. I couldn’t write anything but a one-dimensional woman. Then I was writing for women all the time.
Over the years I’ve written many women’s roles that turned out to be some of my most interesting roles. A bonus is that there are so many wonderful actresses out there, it’s much easier to get a woman for a role, than it is a man. If you write a role there are always a couple of women you can get for it, where as with a guy, if you don’t get the one or two guys you want its not so easy. There is a scarcity of guys, really, on that level. There are so many gifted women out there that are just waiting for an opportunity to work.
Q: Specifically, what does Scarlett Johansson inspire in you?
WA: Scarlett was an accident. I had Kate Winslet for "Match Point" to the last week in pre-production, when she said she couldn’t do the picture, because she had worked continually and had spent no time with her child. She asked would I forgive her, and of course I understood that completely, and I didn’t know Scarlett from a hole in the wall. I thought she was too young to play the part. She was only 19 years old at the time. I was in a hole, I had to get somebody fairly quickly, and I knew that Scarlett was a great actress and a beauty. I didn’t know if she was really what I had written.
I hired her and became totally captivated by her. I thought she could simply do anything. She was not only beautiful but also bright, amusing, charming, and gifted. I’m very happy to work with her. Whenever there is a part that fits anything she could do I would always call her and hope that she would be available for it, as I did with Keaton for years. I did that with Mia [Farrow]. I did many roles with her, thought she was a wonderful actress, and she never let me down. I think that the same with be true with Scarlett.
Q: This is being called your sexiest movie yet. Why have your more recent films explored actual sex scenes more than your early films?
WA: It’s just by chance. Everybody thinks that there is an agenda that I have. Maybe they think its certain psychological turning points in my life. It’s not really so. It just so happens that this story requires a certain amount of sensuality. There is a kissing scene, a scene between the two girls that is brief, and there isn’t really a lot of sex in the picture. It’s nothing really that I’ve discovered after all these years. Whatever is required.
I just finished a picture with Larry David, Evan Rachel Wood, and Patricia Clarkson. There is no sex in the movie. It’s a comedy, a romantic comedy, but there’s no sex at all. It’s just by chance that the next film I thought of was a musical with no sex, or a very sexual picture, or if I have an idea for what I felt was a brilliant pornographic comedy idea. If I had an idea for a family comedy, it’s just whatever idea I come up with. "Match Point" had a little passion in it, but there wasn’t major sex to speak of really. Yesterday when I was practicing my clarinet in the hotel, I turn on the television set and "Showgirls' was on TV. Now that was clearly sexual. This one isn’t.
Q: Were you comfortable directing Scarlett and Javier in their love scene?
WA: When they are kissing? It’s nothing. I mean for me, I didn’t feel a thing. There are two fabulous performers. They started kissing, and I thought I would be going very, very long on it to make the scene extra long, beyond what you would think would be long. I wanted to have in and out of focus. They just kissed, and kissed, and kissed. Then when it was over that was it. They went their own way and there was no real…they are actors. They get paid. Kissing for a couple of minutes, I watch, and say "Okay, that’s enough." Then it’s over and we movie on to the next thing.
Q: How have you found writing for younger characters, since your leads are now 40-50 years your juniors?
WA: What happens is that you get a lot of help from people. I write the thing as best I can, for the generation, but I don’t think it’s a different generation, I just wrote it. They play it and when they play it they say, "We would really never say this. We would never go to that nightclub. We don’t do this anymore." They would tell me and I would strike it then ask, "What would you do?" Then I add it and let them do that thing instead. I never think in terms of writing for a culture or for a generation. I just write the story so that it works. When you are doing it you would be amazed how many people chime in with corrections. Everyone from the cameraman to the guy delivering coffee. It could be the actor or actress. All of that helps to focus the thing, so that it works by the time you finish, and it’s reasonably accurate.
Q: How did you deal with the fans surrounding your shoot in Barcelona?
WA: Yes, there were huge crowds hanging around. It was no problem at all. They were the most polite, sweet people. They would hang around, they didn’t bother us, and before a take if I needed quiet I would go like this to them [lowering my arms]. They would all get very quiet. They were totally cooperative and nice. We had an enormous amount of cooperation from the city in every way. If you look at the end of the picture you see all the credits of people that participated. People were giving us things for nothing left and right. They couldn’t have been sweeter.
I was able to make the picture and because of all the freebies I could make it for the small budget that I had. I never had a lot of money. I make my pictures for approximately 15 million dollars. Some go to 16 and some will be 14, but that’s the ballpark. We were able to make the picture for that, and the picture looks healthy, because we got so much cooperation and free things. The town was great to us. The museum would open up for us. The crowds in the street, which were enormous, it was not like shooting in New York where you get a couple of drifters that watch, and they are jaded, and don’t care. We really got hundreds and hundreds of people. They could not have been sweeter or more cooperative.
Q: How did you get a statue in Oviedo?
WA: My statue in Oviedo is one of the great mysteries of western civilization. It’s a lovely town in Spain, I went there a couple of times, and it’s beautiful. I went once years ago for something. Without asking me, I never did anything there, I never saved anybody’s life, and they said, "We are putting a statue up of you in town." I thought it was a joke. Then in the town there is a statue of me. It’s a good statue, completely undeserved, but a bronze statue of me. It looks good. I’ve got my sport jacket on, corduroy trousers.
First I thought it was one of those things where I leave town and they take it in, then when Brad Pitt comes to town they put his statue out. Why a statue of me? I’ve never done anything up there. I have a photograph of it at home with two feet of snow piled on my head. People keep stealing the glasses from it, and they are welded onto the statue. Guys come with blowtorches at night and they take the glasses off. I have been there where I’ve had half of my glasses off. They fixed it up this time when I was going there. It’s inexplicable. I don’t know what the connection is, like picking someone off the street. I just don’t understand, but they are nice people, and I’m happy to go there. I don’t visit the statue much.
Q: Why did you choose to use a narrator for this film?
WA: I primarily feel I’m a writer who only directs so my stuff is not mangled on the screen. I’m a writer. I always feel the narrative voice. I was a stand up comic who always spoke to the audience. I write and very often in my films I either talk to the audience, have a character talk to the audience, have a narrator. I just feel the presence of the author all the time. I’m literary in that sense. When I thought of the story I thought of it in that way, instinctively. I thought I was writing something. I wrote it and went out and got a narrator to do it, but I never conceived it in any other way. I’m a writer and that’s what I do. I direct because of that reason.
Q: How did you get involved with directing the LA Opera?
WA: I didn’t want to direct anybody else’s material before. I never directed a significant thing in the theatre live. The only live thing I directed were my own little one act plays. I certainly never directed on Opera. I’ve only been to about 15 of them in my life. One of the heads of the board of LA Opera is a friend of mine. He’s been bothering me for a long time to direct an opera. Placido Domingo has spoken to me on a number of occasions to direct an opera.
I always dodged it or slipped out of it. They said, "Look, this is a one act opera that Puccini wrote his three one actors that always play together and William Friedkin, wonderful film director and opera director is going to direct the first two, you just have to do the third one." It’s a small cast, it’s a one hour opera, and it’s only about 10 people. No big chorus. They said, "You can do it, and we’ll help you." This was like three years ago and I figure I’ll be dead in three years, you know, it’ll never gonna happen, so I said "Okay." And I didn’t die. Then time came, "You have to come to LA and do the opera, so tomorrow morning at 9:30 I start." I hope that the Puccini material is strong enough that I won’t get hurt. Unlike movies, they boo in opera.
I don’t know if I can take that, there is some distance. It’s moving personally, but I’ve got to do it, and I’ll give it my best shot. I think it’s okay. It’s only 55 minutes actually. I timed it and it ran 55 minutes. I have to keep it buoyant for 55 minutes. I’m such a novice at it I asked people, "When we rehearse, do we sing?" I’m still not sure how that works. Because when you direct a live scene, there is no singing. So when I direct a scene am I going to have to stop and wait for the guy to sing his whole thing before I move on? I don’t know what to expect. As I say, I’ trying. I brought Santo Loquasto out with me, my art director, who does all the movies and things. We had a wonderful, wonderful set, and I’ll give it my best shot. I hope the material is so strong that they won’t see the flaws in me.
Q: What big life lessons did you learn as a little boy that still serve as a strong source of inspiration for you today?
WA: I think that the biggest life lesson I learned as a boy that has helped me and is still with me is that you really have to discipline yourself to do the work. If you want to accomplish something you can’t spend a lot of time hemming and hawing, putting it off, making excuses for yourself, and figuring ways. You have to actually do it. I have to go home every single day, no matter where I am in a world, no matter what I’m doing, and putting 30 to 45 minutes of practice on my clarinet because I want to play. I have to do it. When I want to write, you get up in the morning, go in and close the door and write. You can’t string paper clips, and get your pad ready, and turn your phone off, and get this, get coffee made. You have to do the stuff.
Everything in life turns out to be a distraction from the real thing you want to do. There are a million distractions and when I was a kid I was very disciplined. I knew that the other kids weren’t. I was the one able to do the thing, not because I had more talent, maybe less, but because they simply weren’t applying themselves. As a kid I wanted to do magic tricks. I could sit endlessly in front of mirror, practicing, practicing, because I knew if you wanted to do the tricks you’ve got to do the thing. I did that with the clarinet, when I was teaching, I did that with writing.
This is the most important thing in my life because I see people striking out all the time. It’s not because they don’t have talent, or because they don’t want to be, but because they don’t put the work in to do it. They don’t have the discipline to do it. This was something I learned myself. I also had a very strict mother who was no nonsense about that stuff. She said, "If you don’t do it, then you aren’t going to be able to do the thing." It’s as simple as that. I said this to my daughter, if you don’t practice the guitar, when you get older you wouldn’t be able to play it. It’s that simple. If you want to play the guitar, you put a half hour in everyday, but you have to do it.
This has been the biggest guiding principle in my life when I was younger and it stuck. I made the statement years ago which is often quoted that 80 percent of life is showing up. People used to always say to me that they wanted to write a play, they wanted to write a movie, they wanted to write a novel, and the couple of people that did it were 80 percent of the way to having something happen.
All the other people struck out without ever getting that pack. They couldn’t do it, that’s why they don’t accomplish a thing, they don’t do the thing, so once you do it, if you actually write your film script, or write your novel, you are more than half way towards something good happening. So that I was say my biggest life lesson that has worked. All others have failed me.
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