A Jungle Is No Place For A Cellist

The first mockumentary? Most people reference This Is Spinal Tap, but I'm thinking it was Woody Allen's Take The Money And Run - the life and times of Virgil Starkwell, inept bank robber. Of course there was the classic "I have a gub" holdup gone wrong...but the school marching band cello player ranks a close second, and is certainly Friday Fun worthy.




Because it makes me smile.

Because We Need The Eggs

After several days of handwaving and link slutting and video posts, it seems only fitting to wrap up the week with two more clips...the opening and closing scenes from Annie Hall. However Woody Allen got there (they still debate today whether Allen deserved a Best Direction Oscar when so much of the finished film was created in the edit suite), these bookends of sweet comedic melancholy are still pure Friday Fun.







Because they make me smile.

But I Got The Berkowitz's...

It's Friday. Classic Woody Allen standup and the 'Moose Story'...



Because it makes me smile...

Don't Speak...Just Write

"Does a man possessed of true artistic genius create his own moral universe?"

In keeping with Comedy Week, and inspired partly by some comments scattered around the net, let's look back at Woody Allen's movies.

Several of the titles that popped up as people's favs prompted surprise..."Stardust Memories", "Crimes And Misdemeanors", "The Front" (a film Allen only performed in)...when we're all used to hearing the usual suspects: 'Annie Hall', 'Manhattan', and 'Hannah And Her Sisters'.

So I'll keep the ball rolling with my surprise pick...'Bullets Over Broadway.'

Now keep in mind I've been a big fan of the Woodman since I caught his comedy/mockumentary about a career loser criminal, Take The Money And Run, on late night television sometime in the 70's. And then read all his books. And then watched Sleeper and Bananas and Love And Death and Play It Again Sam and became a big fan of his 'early funny films'. The first first run movie of his I saw was Stardust Memories in 1980 (where he pokes fun at the fans of his early funny films) and for some reason, I was a little turned off (perhaps being a partying university student just looking for yucks and..yes, being a fan of his early funny films).


A few years later I went to a rep theatre double bill screening of Annie Hall and Manhattan...and was unabashedly back on board the Woody bandwagon again. 'Annie Hall' to this day remains one of my all-time favourite movies. And not just because it was slick and sincere and romantically sweet yet damn funny...but because it utilized an enormous amount of creative film making techniques to give meaning and coherence to a disjointed narrative. Flashbacks, subtitles, split screens, breaking the 4th wall, animation, linear yet non-linear - just like life and love (...because we need the eggs).

I went to and enjoyed every Allen film after that up until the late 90's. Some stand out... 'Purple Rose of Cairo', 'Zelig', 'Hannah', 'Oedipus Wrecks', 'Mighty Aphrodite', 'Crimes And Misdemeanors'... I even liked 'Deconstructing Harry' quite a bit. Eventually though, I grew rather tired of Allen's 'character'. He's never been a slouch as a director however, and while he evolved into the more dramatic long takes, he did always play outside the box. Even when he faltered, you had to love him for trying. But the writing always sang!


Which brings me back to 'Bullets Over Broadway'. The film was his first where he essentially wrote the lead role of David Shayne for himself (or a younger version of himself) and then cast someone else in the part (John Cusack). It took some getting used to, and was hard at first not to see Cusacks performance as an imitation, but the film was ultimately better for it.

"I don't write hits, I write art. My plays are written specifically to be unproduced."

It took a common theme in Allen's work, the artist's struggle between art and commerce, and explored the morality of artist whose will to create accepts no compromise. It opens with this "mock-moral" question: "Which would you save if you rushed into a burning building and could only save one: an anonymous human being or the only remaining copy of the complete works of William Shakespeare?" The result is a hilarious comedy and a witty portrayal of some of the dangerous temptations waiting for artists when they have opportunity for fame and fortune.

Sheldon Flender: [bragging] I have never had a play produced. That's right. And I've written one play a year for the past twenty years.
David Shayne: Yes, but that's because you're a genius. And the proof is that both common people and intellectuals find your work completely incoherent. Means you're a genius.

Allen transposed it to the roaring 20's where Shayne, a young playwright, gets his big break. He can produce his play, but only because the tab is being paid by a mobster...the catch being his girlfriend has to co-star in the production. Olive Neal (Jennifer Tilly) is wonderful as the mobster's tart who can't act. And she's always accompanied by her bodyguard, Cheech (Chazz Palminteri), a working class gangster, who begins to make comments about how he'd rewrite the play to jazz it up. Cusack begrudgingly listens, applies the notes, the play is better for it (or at least more entertaining), and yet his morals and belief in the material and ultimately himself are severely challenged. Who is the 'true artist'?

David Shayne: "Oh my God, I sold myself out! I'm a WHORE! I'm a PROSTITUTE!"

Let it be said that the supporting cast are all stellar. Dianne Wiest plays the aging starlet, Helen Sinclair.

She slays every moment she's on screen, like when she and Cusack enter a speakeasy to discuss the role:

Helen Sinclair: Two martinis, very dry.
David Shayne: How'd you know what I drank?
Helen Sinclair: Oh, you want one too? Three martini's please.

Wiest won a Supporting Oscar for her performance, one that was richly deserved. She tells it like it is when Shayne shows her his rewrite.

David Shayne: You thought my first draft was c-cerebral and tepid?
Helen Sinclair: Only the plot and the dialogue. But this...
David Shayne: Was-was-was there nothing in the original draft that you feel was worth saving?
Helen Sinclair: The stage directions were lucid. Best I've ever seen... and the color of the binder. Good choice.
David Shayne: Thank you. I've always had a flair for stage directions.

And of course there's her mantra..."Don't speak."

Anyway, 'Bullets' is memorable to me for two reasons. One is the movie. The other is the night I saw it. It was late '94 or early 1995. I'd recently picked up and moved to Toronto, but was starting to question my decision. Art. Commerce. Life. Living (as in not making one). What am I doing? Why am I here?

The movie opened. I'd read some decent reviews, and so in a spur of the moment decision, struck out on foot for the theatre. It was playing in the Canada Square Cinema (which is sadly no more, isn't it?) at Yonge and Eglinton. It was a beautiful winter night. Crisp. Cool. A light fog was just rolling in. I hustled down Roselawn Ave. and made it there just in time. Slumped down into a seat and watched the movie. Loved it (it helped there was a full house and lots of laughers). But was also moved and affected by it.



And as I walked slowly home, now engulfed by the thick white fog (just fog, not Shadows And Fog), I was filled with some kind of surreal inner peace. I realized all 'artists' have this debate and struggle and inner turmoil. But it was going to be okay. Because I'd seen it was possible to remain somewhat true to one's calling creating art while also being entertaining.

That wasn't the moral of Allen's story, but it was the message of the movie. I was going to be okay.

Thanks for that Woody. Don't speak...but keep on writing.

SONG&ARTIST? "They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway
They say there's always magic in the air
But when you're walkin' down that street
And you ain't had enough to eat
The glitter rubs right off and you're nowhere..."

Stand Up And Laugh...With Woody

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying."

I'm mending. Slowly. Norah Jones really does help. But other than still looking after other ailing family members, I've been taking it pretty easy. I admit the posts have been rather lackluster of late. Don't hold it against me. It's all about the ebb and flow. Ebb and flow.

But one of the things I did while taking it easy was rummage through the boxes of cd's in the basement again. And while looking for some of Wilco's earlier releases I came across one of my comedy classics: Woody Allen: The Nightclub Years 1964-68.

"My wife and I pondered for a while whether to take a vacation or get a divorce. We decided that a trip to Bermuda is over in two weeks, but a divorce is something you always have."

That's a Woody Allen joke. Today, Woody Allen himself is often thought of as a joke, what with his recent string of mediocre movies and embarrassing personal scandals. But there was a time when Allen was synonymous with brilliantly funny comedy during the second phase of his career when he was a standup comic. The first had seen him as a behind-the-scenes writer of jokes for Sid Caesar and Pat Boone's American TV shows. The third, of course - his writing of, direction of and starring roles in a string of wonderful movies.

"I have a gub. What's a gub?"

But in the sixties, against all odds, Woody Allen hit the clubs and made himself into a successful standup. Allen's performances on this album alone (film and literary career notwithstanding) secure his place in the pantheon of American comedy.

"I'm very proud of my gold pocket watch. My grandfather, on his deathbed, sold me this watch."

The Nightclub Years is a compilation of three albums: Woody Allen, recorded at Mr. Kelley's in Chicago 1964; Woody Allen Vol. 2, at the Shadows in Washington D.C. in 1964; and The Third Woody Allen Album, recorded at Eugene's in San Francisco 1968. In his trademark style, both bizarre and surreal, Allen takes you on a comedic roller coaster with stunning confidence. These recordings catch Allen at his wry, self-deprecating best, exploring themes of his unhappy childhood and his swingin’ ’60s bachelor lifestyle.

"Sex without love is an empty experience. But as empty experiences go, it's one of the best."

For standup comedy, his routines have dated incredibly well, because Allen's comedy is anything but routine. It is written and performed in the first person, in a self-deprecatory, highly surreal style, dealing with everything from the politics of the period to disastrous marriages/failed relationships to all-out insane stories. Any prospective standup comedian should study this material, get to know why it works, and what helps it stand up some forty years later.

“You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred.”

Listeners familiar with Allen's work will recognize a good deal of the live material found its way into films like "Bananas," "Sleeper," "Love and Death," the Oscar-winning "Annie Hall," and others. Some is also partly reworked throughout the published comic essays that comprise his brilliantly hilarious books like Without Feathers.

Several of the bits have been animated in interesting and unusual ways...here we hear Allen performing the 'story joke', executed to perfection in 'Eggs Benedict':



"The car hit him and that was it."

Other animations of some of the bits from these albums are here and here, as well as Neanderthal Man:

"They're mollified by shiny objects...he ate it."

Brilliant. Simply brilliant. I first purchased this set as a double album in the late 70's. And I can't tell you how much I listened to it. Along with Stan Frieberg's 'The United States of America' and Bill Cosby's 'The Best Of' and 'To Russell, My Brother, With Whom I Slept With' - these comedy lp's shaped and influenced me. Some of my friends 'got it', but a lot didn't. To like Woody Allen wasn't very cool. But like any devoted hardcore fanatic I would push this material on anyone I could get to listen. One convert made it all worthwhile.

(It should be noted that the release most easily available these days is an edited down version entitled 'Woody Allen: Standup Comic'. Although the recording is very crisp, Allen's monologues are dramatically cut, from the 95 minutes of the 2-LP set to 76 minutes. This CD is especially frustrating because instead of simply omitting complete routines, smaller internal cuts are made--from several lines to several minutes--*within* routines, ruining the rhythm of the comedy, and often destroying jokes altogether by omitting the original punch-lines! Sacrilege! Why do they do this? Like when they butchered the original Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner Looney Tune cartoons in the 1980's! Made me mental. Try to find The Nightclub Years or the original LPs if you can.)


You can find transcripts of the routines here - (or try this link instead for a partial transcript) though it doesn't do them justice only to read them (his timing and delivery is impeccable) but nevertheless provides a great sampling of his early genius. And speaking of which, we can't go any further without acknowledging his classic 'Moose Story':

I shot a moose, once. I was hunting up-state New York, and I shot a moose, and I strap him on to the fender of my car, and I'm driving home along the west side highway, but what I didn't realize was, that the bullet did not penetrate the moose. It just creased the scalp, knocking him unconscious. And I'm driving through the Holland tunnel - the moose woke up. So I'm driving with a live moose on my fender. The moose is signaling for a turn, y'know. There's a law in New York state against driving with a conscious moose on your fender, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. And I'm very panicky, and then it hits me: some friends of mine is having a costume party. I'll go, I'll take the moose, I'll ditch him at the party. It wouldn't be my responsibility.

So I drive up to the party and I knock on the door. The moose is next to me. My host comes to the door. I say "Hello. You know the Solomons". We enter. The moose mingles. Did very well. Scored. Two guys were trying to sell him insurance for an hour and a half. Twelve o'clock comes - they give out prizes for the best costume of the night. First prize goes to the Berkowitz's, a married couple dressed as a moose. The moose comes in second. The moose is furious. He and the Berkowitz's lock antlers in the living room. They knock each other unconscious. Now, I figured, is my chance. I grab the moose, strap him onto my fender, and shoot back to the roads, but - I got the Berkowitz's. So I'm driving along with two Jewish people on my fender, and there's a law in New York State ... Tuesdays, Thursdays and especially Saturday.

The following morning the Berkowitz's wake up in the woods, in a moose suit. Mr. Berkowitz is shot, stuffed and mounted - at the New York Athletic Club, and the joke is on them, because it's restricted.

Killer. I didn't get half the references when I was young (especially the Jewish references), but there was an absurdest quality to it all that both tickled and inspired.

Allen's life as a standup seemed to culminate with 'Annie Hall', a film that was in many ways a happy accident in that Allen and his editor managed create a funny moving romantic comedy from essentially a sequence of filmed 'bits' (and after excising an entire murder mystery subplot). Allen begins the film speaking into camera, almost as if on stage...



...and closes the film with an amusing yet touching voice over. And then he moved onto his phase of still comedic yet more thoughtful/dramatic film making.

"My one regret in life is that I am not someone else."

I'm not really sure what the point of this post is other than to smile and reminisce a little...and hopefully inform the kids. I guess when I see Dane Cook perform and can't find anything remotely intelligent or funny in what he's saying...and yet hear how the kids these days love him --- I fear for our children and shed a little tear.


The Nightclub Years cd concludes with this fitting finish...

"In summing up, I wish I had some kind of affirmative message to leave you with.
I don't. Would you take two negative messages?
My mother used to say to me when I was younger, 'If a strange man comes up to you, and offers you candy, and wants you to get into the back of his car with him...GO!'

Good night."

-

p.s. It also should be mentioned that Allen has written three terrific and very funny books (one during this early period), all of which are compiled in 'The Complete Prose of Woody Allen'. At a time when so much of what passes for literary humor is nothing more than fart jokes or transcribed standup routines, this collection of Woody Allen essays and stories is a reminder of just how much fun the written word can be, and how much skill it takes to transfer laughter from pen to page to reader.

p.p.s.. I didn't know until now DMc was designating this week 'Comedy Week' in the Canuck blogosphere, so perhaps that's the reason for this post...to play with Denis' roll.

p.p.p.s. The link to the transcripts of Allen's stand up routines worked last night, but now appears to be down. Hmmmm....now up again - yay!