Вуди Аллен: Apropos of Nothing

To Rome with Love is a bad title. The original title was Nero Fiddled , but the guys who put up the loot in Rome were apoplectic. They begged me to change it at least for Rome. After all, Berlusconi might get the wrong idea. At first I kept the original in America, but it wasn’t a battle worth fighting. I could’ve pulled rank and insisted, but the Italian backers were nice men, and if I could keep them off Berlusconi’s hit list with a small title change, why make their lives miserable?

So now I’m working with Penelope Cruz again and Judy Davis in Rome. Judy and I still don’t speak, but now it’s in Italian. I get to work with Alec Baldwin, always a privilege, and Ellen Page and Greta Gerwig, who went on to direct a wonderful movie herself. Both Ellen and Greta would later denounce me and say they regret having worked with me, and I’ll get to that, but I loved working with both of them and thought they were terrific. Half the movie was in Italian, and I got two big thrills. The first was, I was directing an Italian movie. Me, who grew up on De Sica, Fellini, Antonioni, was directing Italian actors in Italian with subtitles. I knew it would cut down on the box office, as many Americans don’t like to see a movie with subtitles, but this was only half with subtitles. Second, I had the honor of directing the great Roberto Benigni, who I can’t say enough about. He didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Italian, so I couldn’t ruin him with my direction. If you see the movie you’ll see what I’m raving about. I was very impressed. Incidentally, you don’t have to know the language to recognize good acting from bad. It’s in the air, the body movements, the facial expressions, the tone of voice. I bought Benigni a rare book as a good-bye gift when it was over, because he likes that stuff. I think it was the Satyricon . I’m not sure. It was in Italian.

OK, so now I’ll let you in on a secret. An obvious one. I always wanted to be Tennessee Williams. The other great American playwright of my youth, Arthur Miller, was always social, very involved in politics and ethics and moral choice, although Death of a Salesman wasn’t only that, and All My Sons had some of the poetry I liked. A View from the Bridge was only great when Liev Schreiber played the lead and Scarlett was the object ball, and I had seen four different productions of it, including the original. The movie was also quite solid but it had Maureen Stapleton and was directed by a director I love, Sidney Lumet.

But Tennessee Williams. Let us pause so I can wax euphoric. I grew up idolizing Tennessee Williams. Abe Burrows asked me when I was eighteen if there was anyone I wanted to meet to discuss my interest in writing with. I said Tennessee Williams. He said Tennessee’s not the kind of guy whom one can easily sit and chat with. I read all his plays, all his books. Two of my proudest possessions when I was that age were handsome hardcover copies of One Arm and Hard Candy . I’ve seen his plays many times. I have my favorite plays and productions. As I gushed earlier, the movie of Streetcar is for me total artistic perfection. With the exception of the bullshit end moment, bowing to what D. H. Lawrence called “the censor-moron.” It’s the most perfect confluence of script, performance, and direction I’ve ever seen. I agree with Richard Schickel, who calls the play perfect. The characters are so perfectly written, every nuance, every instinct, every line of dialogue is the best choice of all those available in the known universe. All the performances are sensational. Vivien Leigh is incomparable, more real and vivid than real people I know. And Marlon Brando was a living poem. He was an actor who came on the scene and changed the history of acting. The magic, the setting, New Orleans, the French Quarter, the rainy humid afternoons, the poker night. Artistic genius, no holds barred.

OK—now we cut to me, a purveyor of chuckles, of parking space jokes, a second rater risen inexplicably to the ranks of moviemaker, the product of hard work, amazing luck, the right place at the right time. So I experience a fair amount of success. So what does it mean if you long to create alongside Aeschylus, O’Neill, Strindberg, Tennessee Williams. My first attempt at drama is influenced by Bergman. Bergman is my cinema idol. I long to make The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries . Instead I bumble along with Sleeper , Love and Death , Annie Hall . Amusing, perhaps, but not where I want to be. Interiors . OK, nice try. Not a sell-out film, but I’m clearly not ready for prime time. This futile attempt to create in direct opposition to my natural flair happens again and again. September , Another Woman . And every time I’m parked before Turner Classic Movies and Streetcar plays I say to myself, Hey—I can do that. So I try but I can’t, which brings us to Blue Jasmine . Nice try but no cigar. Blessed with a very great actress, Cate Blanchett, I do my level best to create a situation for her that will have dramatic power. The idea came from my wife and it’s a good idea. But it leans too heavily on Tennessee Williams. One will see it again later in Wonder Wheel , my best yet, but I have to get out from under the southern influence.

Anyhow, Blue Jasmine was a success and Cate got her best actress Oscar. Oh, and Kate Winslet was as strong in Wonder Wheel but was hurt opening into the gale force of the second wave of the hideous false molestation accusation, which we’re coming to. Meanwhile, suffice it to say, I’m not Tennessee Williams, never could come close, and while I’m sure you’ve noticed, I just wanted to fess up to it and assure you, you haven’t been wrong.

Sidebar: I’m at Elaine’s one night paying my check on the way out when I’m stopped by who? Yes—Tennessee Williams. He is eating there with friends. He has had a few drinks and stops me on my way out to tell me that I was an artist. I looked around to see if there was an actual artist standing behind me, but no, he meant me. I wondered who he was mistaking me for. Pinter? Christo? I flushed crimson, mumbled a few incoherent obsequies and backed toward the door, bowing over and over like a Chinese eunuch. I wrote his compliment off to too many mint juleps, mistaken identity, routine show business insincerity. Cut to years later when someone did a book on him and stayed with him for months, taking copious notes of their conversations. After Williams’s death, the writer was incredibly kind to send me these notes on what Tennessee Williams said about me. I am too shy to quote from them, and for all I know, the writer made it all up as a practical joke, but like belief that one’s spouse is faithful, I would prefer not to look too deeply. I have the notes at home. I read them over like Moss Hart with his reviews of Once in a Lifetime , put them away, and never looked at them again.

On the plus side, between Bergman’s influence and Williams’s, I’ve written many parts for women including some reasonably juicy ones. Actually, for a guy who’s taken his share of heat from #MeToo zealots, my record with the opposite sex is not bad at all.

My press representative, Leslee Dart, once pointed out to me that in fifty years of making films, working with hundreds of actresses, I’ve provided 106 leading female roles with sixty-two award nominations for the actresses, and never a single hint of impropriety with any one of them. Or any of the extras. Or any of the stand-ins. Plus, since being independent from studios, I have employed 230 women as leading crewmembers behind the camera, not to mention female editors, producers, and everyone always paid exactly equally to the men on my films.