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Woody Allen Film Techniques

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His complex cinematic body of work cannot be summarized with only a few terms. His films are an “eclectic mélange of subjects and styles” (Lax 274), as they do not follow a common thread. His writings range from silly, slapstick comedies such as Bananas, Zelig, or Sleeper, over romantic comedies such as Annie Hall, and Manhattan to family and relationship dramas such as Interiors or Hannah And Her Sisters. Since all his films deal with universal and personal themes like hope, sexual desire, love, morals, and the meaning of life, his films are thought provoking to everyone. Each period, which I will define in the next chapter, seems to have a different focus, and a different effect on the writing of Woody Allen without being directly addressed …show more content…

Therefore, everything that happens to and around him, everything he wonders about, and that interests him will eventually have some influence on his writing. As mentioned before, the filmmaker does not like to address political, economic or social issues in his films directly. He rather plays around with philosophical questions such as mortality, spirituality, and the mostly unbalanced emotional lives of his protagonists on a humorous, yet not shallow, level. Relationship problems, the unpredictability of love or unfaithfulness are themes that recur in his films and can be related to Woody Allen’s private life. Mia Farrow once said that “everyone in Woody’s life plays roles” (Lax 179). Mia Farrow was a prominent figure in Allen’s life, as she was his longest and most profound relationship of eleven years. Allen and Farrow did not have a traditional and conservative relationship. They never got married, lived separately in their own apartments across the Central Park, had one biological and two adopted children, and did not share the same interests (Farrow loves to go to the countryside, whereas Allen is not an outdoorsman). She was also one of his muses and leading ladies in thirteen films until 1992 when she

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