"Ever wonder...." Andy Rooney used to wonder. That was his tired, much-parodied opening line when he delivered his folksy (ie, unfunny) light essays on "60 Minutes." In giving us a "slice of life," Andy didn't use rapier wit, nor anything edgy. More of a rusty spoon, spoon-feeding us the obvious in a voice that had all the creakiness of a warped rocking chair.
Have we forgotten that guys like Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce and Mort Sahl gave us better, and deserve respect? That in Woody's case, the incredibly prolific body of work, which includes several funny books and three of the best comedy records of all time, should be mentioned independently from the Farrowing that is all aboout "she said" and not at all about the law?
"Ever wonder..." why The New York Times would have to beg somebody to review a book, and that before getting to the actual review, this guy would have to wheeze, stammer, clear his throat, utter apologies, and drag his wife and family into it?
When I was reviewing books for the Chicago Tribune, the editor would call up, tell me he found something that he wanted my opinion on, and I'd WRITE A REVIEW. Simple.
I didn't start the review by referencing the fucking CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS and "writer Christopher Isherwood," who almost nobody these days even heard of.
Let's stop right there and ask -- why didn't The New York Times pick somebody who isn't an egomaniac, tiresomely pedantic, and a Woody-hater?
The answer is because The New York Times isn't always FAIR.
I did have a flashback to when The New York Times had somebody review Mort Sahl's "Heartland." Who did they choose? Jean Shepherd. Jean panned the book, of course. At least he wasn't verbose about it. But he didn't bother to explain his long-simmering jealousy of Mort Sahl, which was on record, literally. On his "Foibles" album (Elektra) he offered a dark few minutes on a certain unnamed comedian who didn't tell jokes. He just free-associated and for no reason, audiences laughed. Shepherd had the unnamed comedian talk about Eisenhower: "IKE...golf balls!"
No, that's not exactly what Mort Sahl was about, but it seemed that way to Shepherd, who was not a success in nightclubs.
I was chosen to review comedy books for the Chicago Tribune. I'm known for my books on comedy, and I know a lot of comedians...some more than others. Woody I've met a few times, but not for any memorable length of time (compared to Mort Sahl, for example). The point is, you get somebody who is likely to WANT to read the book, because the review is going to be read by people who are THINKING ABOUT BUYING IT, and not glancing at the subject matter and snorting about a scandal that they probably don't actually know anything about.
The Dylan Farrow Story is not what Woody is about. If you want to read a very good piece about all the reasons why, I defer to Bob Weide: Bob Weide on Woody Allen
I haven't "talked Woody" with Bob. Our views are very similar on Woody. Bob did appreciate my pieces on Lenny and Mort (in "Stars of Stand-Up") and we did discuss the complexities of Mr. Sahl. But I digress...
Back to The New York Times.
Once demonstrating his crappy and faux-Woody attempt at humor ("my wife and daughter...stared at me as if I’d announced my intention to find the nearest functioning salad bar and lick the sneeze guard...." the guy began to outrageously attack Allen, showing a tremendous bias that would make him UNQUALIFIED to review the book.
After all, who the hell is going to be reading Woody's book? I can tell you: HIS FANS. The people who admire him and want to know more about him. Somebody's going to spend good money to glower over a page or two where he REFUSES to acknowledge being the world's worst living pedophile? (He's not Jimmy Savile).
Fer Chrissake...
About the only sign of fairness in the review is this:
How nice. The guy actually sides with Stephen King.
An irony here is that I'm currently reading Woody's book. I'm about 75 pages in. I side with the 75% of Amazon reviewers who give it at least 4 stars and find it a welcome addition to the Woody library.
What surprised me in the early going, is Woody's narrative, which doesn't try for that Perelman-esque New Yorker style of arch descriptions and artificially inseminated one-liners. It is indeed, what it claims to be...a memoir, but it doesn't really deserve that grandiose word. Memoir? No, at 84 Woody isn't grandly looking back. He's frankly telling us his deal. I say "deal," because he sometimes uses 40's street slang, which he didn't even use in narrating "Cafe Society."
Did you see that movie or have you given up on his films over the past 20 years? There's always a reviewer to say "No, no, this IS a good one..." and maybe it is. Or isn't. "Cafe Society" had a Jewish gangster character in it, and in reading the memoir, I see why. Woody gives us a look at his tough father, and also confesses to being somewhat shady himself as a teenager.
If you know Woody from his breezy interviews on talk shows from Griffin to Cavett, you know he can be spontaneously funny. So it is here, that after all these years, he can't help writing about his life without a quip or a pungent turn of a phrase.
Another surprise is Woody's matter-of-fact honesty in admitting that he's not only far from intellectual, there are surprising gaps in even his film knowledge. What, he hasn't even seen "Bride of Frankenstein?" He admits what most of us Woody followers already know -- that he was not a weak nebbish as a kid but a very good athlete, but also admits what we might think he doesn't know -- that anyone who comes to hear him play the clarinet does so because he's Woody Allen, not because he's a great player, or because they share his fetish for New Orleans jazz. The book is pleasantly speckled with frank admissions and observations, with honest recollection more important than always ending with a clever line or descriptions that stretch the truth just for a laugh.
The reviewer:
After briefly REVIEWING, it's back to huffing and puffing. We're told this book "is incredibly, unbelievably tone deaf on the subject of women." How...OFFENDED...is this New York Timeser? Any line Woody writes is seized on as proof that the man somehow hates women, degrades them, and depises them and uses them. That's not what I got in reading this book. It was more about how he adores women, and how from the earliest age he wanted to be with women (his best friend was an older female who went to the movies with him).
The reviewer:
And you wonder about the Farrowing that Woody's endured? How easy it is to take things out of context. To believe what you want to believe. To find something evil in the most innocent joke. Comedy by nature is prone to shock for a laugh, puncture expectations, offer up views so honest that people nod and laugh. "I tell the truth," Groucho shrugged, "and people break up."
In the book, Allen puts all the blame of his failed first marriage on himself. He accurately portrays himself as too glum and neurotic to live with. When he talks about his second wife, Louise Lasser, he writes in glowing, romantic terms, and why not? She was beautiful, and guess what, they are STILL friends to this day. His most famous leading lady in films, Diane Keaton, is likewise still his friend. But this schmuck not only doesn't know the basics that anyone familiar with Allen and his work would know, he doesn't seem to have really read Woody's recollections of the early marriages...not when he was busy underlining one quip to disapprove of.
Gee, Woody is honest enough to lust after “delectable bohemian little kumquats." I'm only surprised this New York Timeser didn't sneer that this is why he cast Mort Sahl's wife China Lee as a dancer in "What's Up Tiger Lily," and why his two marriages to white women failed, and why he's had a successful relationship with Soon-Yi. (Oh, doesn't that upset the Woody haters? His DECADES with Soon-Yi??) At other points, Woody expresses his awe over the unattainable showgirls he was meeting while writing for revues, the bombastic beauties on the arms of other comedians, and the sophisticated ladies of the Upper East Side. No leering jokes, no face-saving comments about their possible lack of equal brain power to his, no put-downs at all. We all know that Woody's admiration for women and ability to understand them would translate into cinematic success. Oh, this guy from the Times apparently doesn't know.
A Woody Allen hater isn't likely to admit that rather than being insensitive toward women, the man is one of the MOST sensitive. But I guess you'd have to be familiar with his work and not just be a tongue-clucker and a pitchforker and stand around cringing at your wife and kid over a writing assignment you got. Woody Allen's films have included some of the best roles actresses have ever gotten...roles written from a woman's point of view and so effective that the awards have come to them...from "Annie Hall" to "Blue Jasmine" and back. And yet this reviewer wants to nitpick over a comical phrase here and there? He grumbles over a compliment over an actress's looks...and later on, also grumbles because Woody had a nice remark about Goldie Hawn that didn't reference how cute she is? Woody can't win at all with this reviewer?
How insane does it get? How about comparing Woody to Donald Trump? All because Woody compliments a woman for looking like a million bucks...which is a big reason why the woman in question was hired for roles calling for an attractive actress:
I haven't gotten to the Farrowing, or Woody's side of it, and I'm not looking forward to it particularly. I'm more interested in his early days, his path to comedy, his appraisals of his films, and of course his views on the main themes of his creative work: love and death, sex and therapy, and looking for meaning in a ridiculous world. The New York Timeser finds it appalling that Woody has some sober remarks to make about Mia Farrow.
Got that? "He alleges some pretty horrific parental misbehavior and neglect on Farrow’s part." Yeah? How about Dylan, who screams that Woody should never be allowed to make a movie, that anyone who gets an award for being in his film should reject it, and I guess that every record and DVD and book be burned. (But let's keep everything by Roald Dahl, Richard Wagner and Roger Waters...)
The New York Timeser grudgingly allows that no criminal charges were ever made on Woody, but HELL, let's just keep screaming and bleating and grumbling. Let's dissect every joke, every movie scene, for signs of misogyny and pedophilia. Let's keep jabbing with the pitchforks, to the point where the head of a book company crumbles because a few Starbucks-sipping saps in his office took an extra hour at lunch to stand outside in the warm weather and "protest" Woody's book being published. Let's not forget that this IS an important issue...the #metoo hysteria that has led to unjust firings and the fracturing of many a thriving career. (Has Dustin Hoffman lost work? Jeffrey Tambor? We sure know Woody doesn't have an Amazon deal anymore, which is far worse than losing Hachette is a publisher.)
And I'll never really know how any newspaper that claims to be honest and unbiased, and only offers what's "FIT TO PRINT," calls on somebody to review a book when that nobody hates the subject of the book, and starts off the review by whining about how his wife and kid reacted. Maybe he'll nobly turn the money the Times gave him to charity. Some charity for the blind.
Is this guy blind to anything positive Woody's ever done? He seems to be. He grumbles in disgust that Woody has nice things to say about Owen Wilson and Goldie Hawn, and considers "banalities" any other pleasant remarks Woody makes about anyone. The guy literally has no time or space for REVIEWING what most people really want to know about:
Gee, you don't get a review that mentions whether Woody answers all questions you'd like to know about Diane Keaton. The review was too busy telling you what a heel Woody is for referring to some trendy tarts as "kumquats," or being critical of Ronan Farrow getting surgery on his legs to make him taller. Well, all I can say is if you're interested in Woody Allen because you have been touched by his work, buy the book. If you hate him because he allegedly touched Dylan Farrow one time, it wouldn't matter how funny or vivid or fascinating his tale of Brooklyn rags to Manhattan riches is.
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