The American Spectator

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"I've Never Killed Anybody!"

By Shawn Macomber on 1.24.08 @ 11:09AM

Kelly Jane Torrance gets Woody Allen on the record on that count at least.

As a fan of Allen's early stand-up comedy and an occasional enthusiast for the very occasional movies of his that actually hit the mark--yes, the predictable, Annie Hall and Crimes and Misdemeanors, but I’ll also rank Match Point and Scoop among the mark-hitters--I found this bit of Torrance's story the most revealing:

Mr. Allen is the most prolific American director, making about a film a year since he started four decades ago. And so many of them have been so good that it's impossible to declare one as his "best."

***

"I don't find it difficult," Mr. Allen says of his consistent output. Writing the script is "the hard part but the fun part." That takes "some months" and then preproduction takes a few weeks. He shoots for 10 weeks and edits in, say, just six days: "It's all electronic."

Many times when I have found myself sitting through another Allen dud, like someone who watches the sky every night because they saw a shooting star once when they were eight, I have thought to myself maybe if Allen took, you know, two years to make each film instead of one he'd be a smidgen less prolific but his output would also be considerably less uneven. 

Then again, I guess Allen probably feels some pressure to keep his once-sort-of-step-daughter-now-wife living high on the hog. Whatever track record relationships with a 35 year age difference have probably isn't good.

Still, when he's on, he's on.

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Movies