A scene from 'Manhattan' (1979).
When mentioning Woody Allen, the mind immediately travels to New York, the magnetic city that has populated so many of his films. Reading his autobiography Apropos of Nothing (Publishing Alliance), the reader is showered with those iconic views of the imposing skyscrapers of the Upper East Side, the bright colors of Central Park or the romantic scenes with the Queensboro Bridge in the background, but above all the unwavering love that the director feels for the city where he was born is palpable.
That boy who, according to himself says, he knew how to write before he could read and that he was a lousy student despite having a high IQ, he was rather lonely and his parents never took him to a show or a museum.
It is impossible not to escape the reader more than one laugh at the way the also screenwriter and actor recalls his childhood in Brooklyn, where he dreamed fascinated with the glamorous Manhattan that he saw in the movies of his neighborhood cinema in the 40s. Until he was seven years old he did not cross the river that separates his neighborhood from the heart of the Big Apple and at 11 he already regularly escaped from school to walk through the streets of it.
Allen's long-awaited autobiography, a phenomenon this summer.
There are plenty of reasons to read. the autobiography of the neurotic New Yorker and those who are looking for the curiosity of his reply to the accusation of abuse of his adoptive daughter Dylan, you can directly skip the first 250 pages (more or less) of the 439 that the book has and that It is already in its fifth edition in Spain. But, apart from being a shame to miss how he describes that shy boy who made his way with his witty sense of humor, the reader, whether or not he is a fan of his cinema, will understand how both New York and the other cities in which he has filmed end up being one more character in his film, not just a mere decoration.
Allen, whose only recognizable attribute is having a pair of black-rimmed glasses, coupled with a knack for appropriating such complex scholarly quotations that he doesn't even understand but with which he can give the misleading impression that he knows more than he does, He relates that he began to read and listen to music other than jazz, his other great passion, in order to flirt with the bohemian girls he liked.
At the Cannes Film Festival, in 2016, with the 'Café Society' team.
Also, Some of those museums in which the protagonists of his films are interested, he knew them since he was a child, but not due to an innate artistic interest, but because they were his refuge when he fled from the boredom of school, since they were cheap and in winter there was heating. The MoMA, for example, he liked especially because he stayed for the film sessions.
Museums, bookstores, neighborhood cinemas, iconic restaurants and emblematic hotels of a New York that no longer exists parade through the director's first films. With his films, many viewers have had the feeling of getting to know the Big Apple as if it were his own city. In addition, by shooting practically one film a year since the late 1970s, the viewer has been a direct witness to the transformation of this fascinating city.
"My characters wake up and the curtains of their bedrooms open to show New York City with its tall buildings and each of the exciting possibilities it offers (...)", Allen explains in his autobiography.
In the mythical 'Annie Hall', with Diane Keaton.
It is impossible not to be captivated by that Manhattan that he shows, which is why numerous tourist routes have incorporated corners chosen by the director. A guide was even published ten years ago with the most outstanding places in the city that have appeared in his feature films: The New York of Woody Allen's films (ELECTA editorial).
The filmmaker affirms that what he has tried to do with Manhattan in the films that take place in New York is “Show it with love”, a maxim that he would also replicate in the other big cities that embraced his cinema.
It was precisely his debut behind the camera, What's New Pussycat ?, that led him to travel abroad for the first time. The comedy was shot in France in the mid-1960s and allowed him to meet the king's body in London, Paris and Rome, cities that several decades later would welcome him as a member of the exclusive club of those great masters with whom the Hollywood aristocracy yearns to work.
With his statue, in Oviedo.
He loved London –he says in his autobiography–, Paris was "love at first sight" and Rome "meets all expectations". Allen's neurotic magic wand would touch all those capitals despite the fact that, according to himself, he suffers from anxiety if he is not "a stone's throw from the hospital in New York".
In the mid-90s, when the scandal over the alleged abuse of his daughter had already broken out (which the authorities later dismissed) and his relationship with Soon-Yi, his current wife, Dylan's sister, and adopted daughter of his then partner Mia Farrow, Europe, that territory where the director was revered, became a kind of labor refuge.
He shot the musical Everybody Says I Love You in Paris, Venice and New York and he did it incorporating highly identifiable places such as the Rialto Bridge or the Grand Canal in Venice, the Chaillot National Theater in Paris or Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. His merit was that these places were integrated into the plot, far from looking like a succession of postcards.
“What can you say about a film whose making involves have to work in Venice, Paris and Manhattan and kiss Julia Roberts? It was a pleasure from start to finish,” Allen states in his autobiography.
On the set of 'Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona'.
“(…) I gave myself the pleasure of working in cities that I loved and showing Manhattan during all four seasons, an island that is a pleasure to photograph at any time of the year. That's why I say that For me, the only fun in the world of cinema lies in the making of the film. In the act of working, waking up early, shooting, enjoying the company of brilliant men and women, of solving problems that are not fatal if you don't correct them, of having great costumes and fabulous music, ”adds the filmmaker, also summarizing his conception of the trade.
A few years later, in 1997, the romantic city of canals was the place chosen to marry Soon-Yi. In addition, he would return there several times to premiere his new movie at the Venice Festival. Her honeymoon was spent at the Ritz in Paris.
The success of some films shot outside her beloved Manhattan made her start calling from different countries to finance her films in exchange for filming there. “I was more than happy to be able to work that way and my wife loved the opportunity to live abroad with the girls. and really getting to know different cultures,” she explains.
'Midnight in Paris', Woody Allen's love letter to the French capital.
The important thing for the director was to be able to live "decently" with his wife and his two (adopted) daughters during the three or four months it took him to shoot the film. “London was a pleasure; Barcelona, a dream. Had he received an offer from, say, Thiruvananthapuram, he would certainly have declined. When signals came to me from Paris, promising that I could shoot there with all facilities and full cooperation, You can imagine how quickly I pulled the contract out of my back pocket and signed." he recounts it in the book.
Tourism in the French capital also benefited from the pull that Woody Allen supposed to plant his camera in a certain city a while ago. The success of Midnight in Paris and the succession of emblematic places that appear in the film such as the Notre Dame cathedral, the Rodin museum, the Orangerie museum or the Vendome square, also created a tourist route with the places where he had filmed the new yorker
And the same thing happened years before with the films shot in London Match Point and Cassandra's Dream, as well as with Vicky Cristina Barcelona, the film that gave the Oscar to Penélope Cruz, who fueled even more interest in the Catalan capital and put the “adorable city of Oviedo” in the Hollywood orbit. as the director himself describes it.
The Asturian capital decided to erect a statue in honor of the director, who assures that he did not do any merit so that a faithful reproduction of his figure would make him pass to posterity. "Oviedo is a little paradise, only spoiled by the unnatural presence of a bronze image of a poor unhappy man."
The director, who never sees his films again once they are finished and he lacks faith in awards, he also recounts how years before he had already been to that city to receive the Prince of Asturias Award for Arts despite his resistance to awards.
With Penélope Cruz on the set of 'A Roma con amor'.
After reviving the controversy over the accusations of abuse of his daughter, which resulted in the cancellation of contracts and the impossibility of releasing his penultimate film in the United States, the director was given the opportunity to return to work in Spain. Now it remains to be discovered how he will show San Sebastian, the setting chosen to shoot his latest film Rifkin's Festival, starring Elena Anaya, Sergi Lopez, Christoph Waltz and Louis Garrel, among others. This romantic comedy will open the International Film Festival on September 18 from San Sebastian.
In his autobiography, Allen assures that he loves filming cities, he loves capturing “the movement, the animation, the life on the street. And, under the rain, with all that melancholy”. The beautiful Donostia has all these ingredients, so we will have to wait until September to discover if the magic touch of Woody Allen can give it a renewed shine.