What’s up with Woody Allen?

He keeps making them, but the films of Woody Allen no longer captivate even the great man himself

From The Times, May 15, 2008

James Mottram

When Mike Leigh was asked whether he liked the work of his fellow director Woody Allen, he responded in a way that many of us have been secretly thinking too: “Radio Days would be on my desert island with me, but if you wanted to subject me to excruciating torture, you’d send me there with a copy of Match Point. I wouldn’t survive 24 hours.”

Match Point (2005) may have earned Allen his 21st Oscar nomination – for Best Original Screenplay – but this did not hide the fact that his once-great works have given way to a series of below-par films.

This weekend Vicky Cristina Bar-celona, the 38th film of Allen’s 42-year career, has its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, in an out-of-competition slot. The story of two American students on holiday in Spain, it stars three of Hollywood’s hottest current stars: the recent Oscar winner Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz and, for a third time, Scarlett Johansson.

Yet when I ask him how he feels about the film now that it is heading to Cannes, the response is distinctly automatic pilot. “I never think about a film once it’s finished and I’m almost finished filming another one. I never give it a second thought. It was finished last summer and now it’s this summer.”

Next Friday his previous work, Cassandra’s Dream, is released in Britain. It’s his third movie in a row to be set in London, after Match Point and Scoop.

Now 72, Allen is well past retirement age but has no intention of stopping. “I would consider it,” he says, “but it’s not something imminent.” The trouble is, though, does anyone care any more? As a friend of mine said to me, “These days being a fan of Woody Allen is like supporting England: you’re nostalgic for the glory days, you go in with hope and you end up being disappointed.”...