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Woody Allen: A Magical Misery Tour
Taught by Andrew J. Douglas, Ph.D., Director of Education, BMFI


At once prolific and profound, at times unnerving and uneven, no matter how you feel about Woody Allen's films, there is one thing on which we all can agree: No other filmmaker has spun so much cinematic gold from his own neuroses. As a result, Allen's work is admired in the cafes of Paris and the bars of the Upper West Side, but not in too many multiplexes.

It is surprising, given the limited draw of most of his pictures, the degree to which elements from them have entered the collective consciousness; and Allen has had this influence while remaining committed to making small, often personal films when a number of his peers have either moved on to larger and more glamorous canvases (Lucas, Scorsese), or appear to have nearly abandoned filmmaking altogether (Bogdanovich, Coppola).

Join us as we travel through Allen's forty-year career---with stops ranging from his paradigm-shifting Annie Hall (1977) to his recent "comeback" film, Match Point (2005)---in an effort to better understand the appeal of the only writer/director who can credibly cite both Ingmar Bergman and Groucho Marx as formative influences. On second thought, perhaps that says it all.

Manhattan (1979)