The NewYorker

PUSH PLAY IF YOU WANT TO LISTEN TO THE SOUNDTRACK

"A hypocrite is a guy who writes a book on atheism and preys it sells."
-Woody Allen

A COMEDY genius, who writes faster than he can think. Ever heard that voice in your head that tells y ou what to do, what to say or what to eat? Woody Allen is THAT VOICE. The voice of unreason, of frustration A NEUROTIC voice who screams with sarcasm. Giving us 5 decades full of comedy, drama, great conflict, plot twists and asking ourselves the questions no one has the courage to ask. With his sad face, black glasses and 100% of confusion he asks "What is it like to be a human? to have a mind? to have memories? to have relatives? what is the meaning of everything? why do i still feel i got screwd?  to ask GOD what is going on?? 

Heywood "Woody" Allen (born in Brooklyn New York,  Allan Stewart Konigsberg, December 1, 1935) is an American actor, comedian, filmmaker, and playwright, whose career spans more than six decades. 

Goes by "Woody" in honor of Woody Herman, a legendary clarinetist, composer, singer and bandleader

That is in essence what Woody Allen writes , talks and jokes about. Being ALIVE, married, being divorced, going to buy something, going to the doctor, having a date, being single, being depressed, having writers block, having all and nothing at the same time. In one word he is a  "STORYTELLER".

The STAGE

Longtime fan and season ticket holder of the NBA's New York Knicks.Usually it is NEW YORK, his home town, where he likes to buy bread, listen to jazz and play his clarinette. An eternal lover of his old type writer who he says for certain will live longer than him. Being from a jewish conservative family, his mom describe him as an "IMPACIENT CHILD". 


As a boy growing up in Brooklyn, he spent most of his time alone in his room practicing magic tricks or his clarinet.
He was always running and jumpling. Everyone wanted him to be a normal, functioning, good citizen. But he had this inner voice that he couldnt stop, he was writing jokes and telling jokes so fast, he began to send them to a newspaper. Soon enough he became a regular on different columns before begining his stand up show. He hated doing that. He didn´t like the spotlight. He even threw up several times before going on stage. He always was troubled but had many things to share with the world if the world was willing to hear  HIM.

Is a fan of Alfredo Zitarrosa, one of the best Uruguayan musicians.  After dropping out from New York University, where he studied communication and film, he attended City College of New York.

The style to PLAYWRIGHT

“I’m a compulsive worker, What I really like to do best is whatever I’m not doing at the moment.”

-Woody Allen

His style of comedy is :

• heavy use of dialogue
• traditional jazz soundtrack
• a spring-autumn romance

Allens movies are so complex, so much more than just a film  and so many of them, it is impossibe to talk about just one, he has done one movie each 
year for the past 50 years!


No one is so relevant and so funny as him. You may like him or not, but doing something for 50 years and being as good as him is very very hard. All his films are BIG ensemble casts. BIG NAMES. BIG STARS. He even makes jokes about that . He is not afraid to play himself but he can make 10 different actors make 10 different WOODY ALLENS.


A lot of his movies feature at least one character who is a writer. This is often Woody himself.

Nearly all of his films start and end with white-on-black credits, set in the Windsor typeface, set to jazz music, without any scrolling.
"i was the worlds worst student

 i hated school with a PASSION !!,

it was a curse ."

-Woody Allen

ALLEN SATURATION

Saturate them about yourself and they will love you. Someone told that to Allen. He acted in Television, fighted a Kangaroo and sang with a dog. He appeared  with Johnny Carson and became an awesome improviser.



In 1963..They offered Allen 20 thousand dollars to write the script for "What´s new pussycat" he hated what they did with his script. He didn´t even went to see it in the theatre, he was very angry.

"I won´t do another movie if i am not the director , if i don´t have the control"
Woody Allen (1963)











THERAPY  is (not) for everyone

His variety of neuroses include: arachnophobia (spiders), entomophobia (insects), heliophobia (sunshine), cynophobia (dogs), altophobia (heights), demophobia (crowds), carcinophobia (cancer), thanatophobia (death), misophobia (germs). He admits to being terrified of hotel bathrooms.

Allen spent over 37 years undergoing psychoanalysis. Some of his films, such as Annie Hall, jokingly include references to psychoanalysis. Moment Magazine says, "It drove his self-absorbed work." Allen's biographer, John Baxter, wrote, "Allen obviously found analysis stimulating, even exciting." Allen says his psychoanalysis ended around the time he began his relationship with Previn, although he is still claustrophobic and agoraphobic.

Allen has described himself as being a 

"militant Freudian atheist"

FILMOGRAPHY 

What's New Pussycat? (1965) (actor only)
What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966)
Casino Royale (1967) (actor only)
Take the Money and Run (1969)

Bananas (1971)
Play It Again, Sam (1972)
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972)
Sleeper (1973)
Love and Death (1975)
The Front (1976) (actor only)
Annie Hall (1977)
Interiors (1978)
Manhattan (1979)

Stardust Memories (1980)
A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982)
Zelig (1983)
Broadway Danny Rose (1984)
The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
Meetin' WA (1986) (himself)
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
Radio Days (1987)
September (1987)
King Lear (1987) (actor only – uncredited cameo)
Another Woman (1988)
New York Stories (1989)
Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)

Alice (1990)
Scenes from a Mall (1991) (actor only)
Shadows and Fog (1991)
Husbands and Wives (1992)
Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993)
Bullets Over Broadway (1994)
Don't Drink the Water (1994)
Mighty Aphrodite (1995)
Everyone Says I Love You (1996)
Deconstructing Harry (1997)
Wild Man Blues (1997)
The Impostors (1998) (actor only – uncredited role)
Antz (1998) (voice)
Celebrity (1998)
Sweet and Lowdown (1999)

Company Man (2000) (actor only – uncredited role)
Small Time Crooks (2000)
Picking Up the Pieces (2000) (actor only)
The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001)
Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (2001)(documentary) (himself)
Hollywood Ending (2002)
Anything Else (2003)
Melinda and Melinda (2005)
Match Point (2005)
Scoop (2006)
Cassandra's Dream (2007)
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)
Whatever Works (2009)

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010)
Midnight in Paris (2011)
Paris Manhattan (2012) (actor only)
To Rome with Love (2012)
Fading Gigolo (2013) (actor only)
Blue Jasmine (2013)
Magic in the Moonlight (2014)
Irrational Man (2015)
Café Society (2016)

" Writing TRAGIC theatre and TRAGIC film

 confronts reality head on " 

-Woody Allen

His TOPTEN favorite FILMS are :

The 400 Blows (François Truffaut, 1959)

8½ (Federico Fellini, 1963)

Amarcord (Federico Fellini, 1972)

The Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio de Sica, 1948)

Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Luis Buñuel, 1972)

Grand Illusion (Jean Renoir, 1937)

Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957)

Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)

The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)

Manages his one-film-per-year schedule by setting strict budgets. Actors--famous or otherwise--receive the same salary.

Writes his scripts on a typewriter. He does not own a personal computer, and has his Email account managed by assistants.

Many big-name actors are so eager to work with him that they usually work for a fraction of their usual salaries. He would offer the part to actors he admires by sending them a letter and asking politely if they are interested in being in one of his movies.

Plays his clarinet at a Jazz club where the house rule is that he cannot be addressed by any member of the audience. If someone does speak to him, they are automatically ejected from the club.

As a homage to Gordon Willis, his long-time friend and cinematographer, he includes a scene where you hear the actors talking outside the shot.

Allen works with people who are best for the story and, if it goes wrong in the finished film, he blames his writing, not the cast. His casting is instinctive and decisive and his casting calls are famously, terrifyingly brief. He maintains that actors have nothing to say to him, just as he has nothing to say to them.

He won’t make notes for scripts: he’ll write the script instead.

He has the finished script delivered by hand, always topped with a handwritten note, and has the messenger wait until it is read. Nobody is allowed to read a script overnight, save for rare exceptions: this stops annoying media leaks about the film’s plot and details.

When it’s time to shoot, Allen says he likes to “Get out of the actors’ way and shut up”. He shoots quickly and without many retakes. Allen doesn’t find digital cheaper or faster for filming, but it is faster to edit.  Many actors remember his sole instruction being to play the scene faster. He always worries that the film might be boring, especially if it’s a comedy.

After their release, Allen never watches any of his films. When asked, he says: “Yeah, well I hate them all.” He claims he doesn’t care about what people think and that he doesn’t worry about box office.

Despite accusations that he makes the same film over and over, Allen is interested in trying something new. He works on the quantity theory: among the failures there will be hits.

“I just finished reading this wonderful biography of Bob Hope, by Richard Zoglin. For me it’s a feast. Full of funny lines, quotes you can hear Hope saying them. I would love to make a Bob Hope movie, even an homage to Hope called Hope Springs Eternal, but I fear no one would see it. I’m always defending him to people.”

-Woody Allen 

"All i have in life is my imagination "

-Woody Allen

...But that's another story

 Push play if you wish to listen to the soundtrack 

"Human passions have mysterious ways, in children as well as grown-ups. Those affected by them can't explain them, and those who haven't known them have no understanding of them at all. Some people risk their lives to conquer a mountain peak. No one, not even they themselves, can really explain why. Others ruin themselves trying to win the heart of a certain person who wants nothing to do with them. Still others are destroyed by their devotion to the pleasures of the table. Some are so bent on winning a game of chance that they lose everything they own, and some sacrifice every thing for a dream that can never come true. Some think their only hope of happiness lies in being somewhere else, and spend their whole lives traveling from place to place. And some find no rest until they have become powerful. In short, there are as many different passions as there are people. "

-The Neverending Story

34 YEARS AGO a movie that changed everything made its debut. A whole new generation of children and grown ups got their eyes popped opened and their imaginations flowing with THE NEVER ENDING STORY.

Before the Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings films , and a few years after STAR WARS. A movie was introduced to many of us as children. 

The Neverending Story (German: Die unendliche Geschichte) is a German fantasy novel by Michael Ende that was first published in 1979. The standard English translation, by Ralph Manheim, was first published in 1983. The novel was later adapted into several films.

It became a cultural icon, a movie that became an instant classic. I remember when it came out on video, we rented it all the time.

I believe the success of the film was because of the mixture of many different key elements.

The TIMING

1984 is a year to remember, with such films as  The Terminator , GHOSTBUSTERS, GREMLINS, A Nightmare on Elm Street, THE KARATE KID, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, a

udiences were more opened for fantasy films. 

THE CAST

As in STAR WARS with HAN, LEIA and LUKE this three characters would become timeless.

Noah Hathaway as Atreyu



Before portraying the young warrior Atreyu and becoming a teen idol, the actor appeared in the original TV series Battlestar Galactica, Mork and Mindy, and CHiPs. He's still acting today (his last role was in some 2013 film called Blue Dream). He also works as a tattoo artist and practices martial arts. He's apparently also totally game to make appearances at conventions and events.



Barret Oliver as Bastian

The actor who played Bastian went on to appear as the android Daryl in the 1985 film D.A.R.Y.L. as well as the kid in Ron Howard's Cocoon and Cocoon: The Return. Oliver quit acting in 1988 to pursue a career in photography. Today, he's a published author, printer, and historian specializing in 19th-century photography techniques.  He is the one on the right.

Tami Stronach as Childlike empress

The Childlike Empress is now an adult. She became a dancer and traveled the world with her Israeli dance troupe. She's now a well-respected choreographer and owns the Tami Stronach dance company in New York City. 

THE VISUAL EFFECTS

The people and creatures of Fantasia made it real and possible.

Artax, or..... The Horse That Ruined An Entire Generation


Contrary to Internet rumor, the horse did not really die during the filming of the Swamp of Sadness scene. As confirmed by German magazine interview with Noah Hathaway shortly after the movie, and in the years since at conventions, the horse was given to Noah at the end of filming but due to the cost of transportation, need for quarantine, and sterilization, the horse was left behind in Germany.

There's a reason why the Swamp of Sadness scene took TWO MONTHS to shoot. Most horses won’t walk into deep pools of mud if they have a choice. It took two trainers seven weeks to teach the horse playing Artax to stand still on a hydraulic platform in the swamp with mud up to his chin without trying to swim or run away.

The Nothing, or.....The Terror of Non-Existence

After Atreyu loses Falkor he wanders through the broken remnants of Fantasia without purpose, and ends up coming across the man-mountain known as The Rock Biter. With a sad look in his face , lamenting himself just watching his hands and saying "Such strong hands..." you can feel the sadness of this particular character. Then he just decides he is going to stay there and wait for the Nothing to take him.

THE PRODUCTION

This film adaptation only covered the first half of the book. The majority of the movie was filmed at the Bavaria Studios in Munich, except for the street scenes and the school interior in the real world, which were shot in Vancouver, BC, Canada,and the beach where Atreyu falls, which was filmed at Monsul Beach in Almería(Spain). It was Germany's highest budgeted film at the time.

Most of the film was shot in Germany in the summer of 1983. It was Germany's hottest summer in 25 years.

Author Michael Ende decided that he was unhappy with the film's version of his story, and refused to have his name placed in the opening credits. A small credit appears at the end with his name.Author Michael Ende felt that the movie did not follow closely to the book that he urged that production be shut down or the title of the movie be changed. Because the producers refused to do either, Ende filed a lawsuit against the producers. He ended up losing the case.

Petersen showed the film to Steven Spielberg before it debuted asking for help on the editing room.

Spielberg helped Wolfgang Petersen cut the U.S. version of the film, which is seven minutes shorter than the German version. The pacing needed to be a little quicker for U.S. audiences, Petersen told MTV News, so he asked his friend Spielberg—who had learned his editing technique from George Lucas—for help. “There were little snippets, bits and pieces here and there," explains Petersen. “Nothing major. Nothing that’s like ‘take the entire sequence out.’ It was just a polish kind of thing. A pacing thing; a few seconds here, a few things here.” 

 And for that, Petersen gave Spielberg The original Auryn necklace that now hangs in an enclosed glass display in Steven Spielberg's office.

THE MUSIC

The film score of The NeverEnding Story was composed by Klaus Doldinger of the German jazz group Passport. The theme song of the North American release of the film was composed by Giorgio Moroder with lyrics by Keith Forsey, and performed by Limahl (lead singer of Kajagoogoo) and Beth Anderson. This song, along with other "techno-pop" treatments to the soundtrack, are not present in the German version of the film, which features Doldinger's orchestral score exclusively.





The theme song performed by Limahl was released as a single in 1984, it peaked at No. 4 on the UK singles chart, No. 6 on the US Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, and No. 17 on the Billboard Hot 100.








THE STORY

"Bastian is a young boy who lives a dreary life being tormented by school bullies. On one such occasion he escapes into a book shop where the old proprieter reveals an ancient story-book to him, which he is warned can be dangerous. Shortly after, he "borrows" the book and begins to read it in the school attic where he is drawn into the mythical land of Fantasia, which desperately needs a hero to save it from destruction." -IMDB

Its a story about loss, about how to rise from it. From feeling really sad not wanting to share anything else with the world, to going back out to trust everyone again.

It made us laugh, made us cry, it made us want to fly away, to have adventures, it made us want to run and open book to read stories. It made it possible for us to be on journeys into our minds and imagination. To expand our color palletts and even if you grow up you should hold on to your childhood forever not to be inmature but to always have BIG DREAMS.

"an entirely new world has been created"

-Roger Ebert 

"a gigantic melodrama of kitch, commerce, plush and plastic".

- Michael Ende