About the standup
A fragment from Scoop
"If people come away relating to me as a person, rather than just enjoying my jokes; if they come away wanting to hear me again, no matter what I might talk about, then I'm succeeding." In the three years period of 1964 - 1966, Allen released three comedy albums, called Woody Allen, Woody Allen Volume 2 and The Third Woody Allen Album. The best sketches are then collected in his 1978 release of Woody Allen: Standup Comic, which is the only CD found in stores today. It is filled with great laughs and is rated among The Top Five best standup albums of the century. It is really difficult to describe the sketches and get the same impression as Allen. Therefore we have few audio samples of his standup and some scenes from the Woody Allen TV Special 1969.
Woody Allen: Standup Comic contents:
- The Vodka Ad
- Vegas
- Second Marriage
- The Great Renaldo
- Mechanical Objects
- The Moose
- Kidnapped
- Unhappy Childhood
- The Science Fiction Film
- Eggs Benedict
- Oral Contraception
- European Trip
- The Lost Generation
- Private Life
- Brooklyn
- The Army
- Pets
- My Grandfather
- My Marriage
- Bullet in My Breast Pocket
- N.Y.U.
- A Love Story
- The Police
- Down South
- Summing Up
Miscellaneous
Best Actor
- Nominated: Annie Hall (1977)
Best Director
- Won: Annie Hall (1977)
- Nominated: Interiors (1978)
- Nominated: Broadway Danny Rose (1984)
- Nominated: Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
- Nominated: Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
- Nominated: Bullets Over Broadway (1994)
Best Original Screenplay
- Won: Annie Hall (1977)
- Nominated: Interiors (1978)
- Nominated: Manhattan (1979)
- Nominated: Broadway Danny Rose (1984)
- Nominated: The Purple Rose of Cairo
- Won: Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
- Nominated: Radio Days (1987)
- Nominated: Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
- Nominated: Alice (1990)
- Nominated: Husbands and Wives (1992)
- Nominated: Bullets Over Broadway (1994)
- Nominated: Mighty Aphrodite (1995)
- Nominated: Deconstructing Harry (1997)
- Nominated: Match Point (2005)
- Four actors have won five Academy Awards for their work in Allen films: Diane Keaton (Best Actress, Annie Hall), Michael Caine (Best Supporting Actor, Hannah and Her Sisters), Dianne Wiest (Best Supporting Actress, Hannah and Her Sisters and Bullets Over Broadway), and Mira Sorvino (Best Supporting Actress, Mighty Aphrodite).
- Ten actors have received Academy Award nominations for their work in Allen films: Allen himself (Best Actor, Annie Hall), Geraldine Page (Best Actress, Interiors), Martin Landau (Best Supporting Actor, Crimes and Misdemeanors), Chazz Palminteri (Best Supporting Actor, Bullets Over Broadway), Maureen Stapleton (Best Supporting Actress, Interiors), Mariel Hemingway (Best Supporting Actress, Manhattan), Judy Davis (Best Supporting Actress, Husbands and Wives), Jennifer Tilly (Best Supporting Actress, Bullets Over Broadway), Sean Penn (Best Actor, Sweet and Lowdown), and Samantha Morton (Best Supporting Actress, Sweet and Lowdown).
Education in Woody Allen films
When we watch films by Woody Allen we often see a very peculiar world that is rarely seen on silver screens in American movie theaters. We enter a world of people that discuss New York architecture, novels written by Great Russian masters, Freudian take on human subconscious, and trends in twentieth century furniture design. Those films are rich in very well educated characters with diplomas from the finest American Universities. They are writers, publishers, artists, college professors, etc. All those people call attention to the value of education in human life.
The films of Woody Allen discuss the value of education in a very intriguing way. Interestingly, Woody Allen, being a part of New York intelligentsia, questions the value of knowledge. When watching his films, it is easy to come to the conclusion that the more we as human beings know about world, the more unhappy we become. Woody Allen seems to have a love/hate relationship with education and its role in our lives. This relationship has been changing over the years and a record of it was left in films made at various stages of the struggle.
Ignorance and Education are also clearly portrayed by two cities: Los Angeles and New York. Alvy, who is very well educated, feels great in New York but always gets sick as soon as he arrives in Los Angeles. At the same time, people who live in LA seem much happier than New Yorkers. Their happiness comes from their ignorance and inability to see anything beyond themselves.
All Woody Allen films seem to support the idea that knowing more means suffering more. He always seemed certain that ignorant people are the only ones capable of experiencing happiness. He couldn’t argue against that. He had to deal with it. And he dealt with it in many interesting ways. In a fifteen year period between Annie Hall and Husbands and Wives Woody Allen’s view on the role of education changed significantly. He went from despising the ignorance through the celebration of simplicity to accepting knowledge with all its bad "side effects". It is safe to say however that he didn’t say his last word in that matter. I am sure that his new movies will have something new to communicate on that subject.