CREEMEDIA

Woody's Roots Revisited

CREEMEDIA

MANHATTAN (United Artists) Directed by Woody Allen_

Mitch , Cohen

by

Manhattan is dangerous comedy, comedy that connects in ways that will make people—people involved in the fragile acrobatics of coupling, especially; people doing same in New York City most especially—squirm. After all, it's one thing to call your movie Real Life as Albert Brooks, another amusing fellow, does; quite another to really put it out there where we can recognize it. The hell with Scenes From A Marriage; Woody Allen is twice the artist Bergman is, truer to emotion and detail (and emotional detail), and gets more laughs besides.

Because it has Annie Hall as a prece4ent, it may seem less astonishing, less a creative leap. But the movie's crisp, smart clarity of thought confirms Allen's stature as our most funny, and humane, filmmaker. That "our" in the previous sentence doesn't ring quite true; we under-thirties may claim Woody as,one of us, and since heroes are hard to come by , he looks as authentic a cultural operator to admire as anyone, but he certainly doesn't share a frame of reference with the majority of his most avid followers. He disdains drugs, loud music, television. His Manhattan throbs to the rhythms of Gershwin, not Ramones.

Still, he's an ally. A romantic pessimist. And Manhattan is both the sharpest and least haphazard of his movies. This is his turf: the present tense, relationships in turmoil, guilt, anxiety, keeping your footing. This isn't

easy, as the cast of neurotics (urban intellectual division) demonstrates. Diane Keaton, a writer quick to critical judgement, goes from an affair with married Michael Murphy to one with Allen, and back; Meryl Streep has left Allen to live with another woman, while putting the story of her marriage to Allen between book covers. Woody himself, fnean while, has to cope not only with Keaton and Streep, but with 17-year^old Mariel Hemingway, the straightest arrow in the bunch. Her definition of love: laughs, caring, great sex. Can't do much better than that.

Has any filmmaker ever gotten so much out of New York City—from the Queensborough Bridge to the Planetarium to MOMA to the streets? Once this movie breaks wide, tourism in NYC becomes bullish. Has any filmmaker been willing and able to put so much of himself on screen—his flaws as well as insights? Manhattan is an act of courage. It takes courage to live in New York, to deal with the opposite sex and be true to yourself, and to get it all down takes a talent that only Woody Allen, among modern writer-directors, seems to have.

Pinky Lee's Savage Fury

Meat Mendell knows more about films than any other person I know, tho he rarely goes to the show. "It's television," he tells me. "I see a couple of flicks on the tube every day, sometimes 20 a week. I can't get enough." And he remembers every film he sees. In fact, he remembers every thing he sees, and has seen, on television. "I remember when it started. I probably wasn't even a year old but I remember dim sounds and dimmer

shapes . Thinking about it feels weird. I remember the first recognizable face to come out of that early grayness, the face of the first person I learned to trust and love." His mother? "No, Pinky Lee. This was around '51. He'd come out and sing 'Hello it's me/My name is Pinky Lee/With a funny hat/And a funny coat/And a funny laugh like a billy goat.'He'd be there regularly. I could count on him more than I could my baby bottle. It was a hell of a rush.

"Since then I've been watching as much as possible. Naturally I catch a lot of movies along the way. They're unavoidable. It's all mother's milk to me."

Each year when the Academy Awards roll around, I make it a point to be at Meat's because his movie rap Can get pretty insightful. I mean, this dude doesn't only know who directed Plan 9 From Outer Space, he knows why.

Meat's pad is a mess. He keeps the apartment late-night dark, 24 hours a day. The only light besides the one from the tube comes from a pathetic bulb hanging from the ceiling that can't be more than 10 watts. And he keeps that one painted blue. Scattered across the floor are all the cheap reference books that are a necessary aid to gluttonous movie watching—Scheuer (all'editions), Maltin (all editions), Halliwell (all editions). The room is ripe with the odor of rotting paper.

Meat sits in the armchair with his cat, Scumbag, oh his shoulder, and hands me a smoldering joint. "You gotta try this, man—it's Honolulu gold."

"Yellow paper?"

"Nooooo. It's wrapped in a page from a'58 Scheuer."

"Special kicks, eh?"

"Yeah .. . hysterical images of violence." He giggles.

As usual, the first 80% of the awards ceremony is pretty slow going .But that's to be expected and the slowness is pleasing in itself as it excites dull , emotions and gives small pleasures. Like an Antonioni movie or an avocado.

By the last 20 % of the show, the grass, dancing with the juju of Hawaiian soil and aged printer's ink, is dealing with my brain. As Carson looks for Ed McMahon , panics, finc^s the audience and relaxes again I begin to notice, to feel, that Meat is brooding. "Wuzamatter," I ask.

"I dunno. Nothing. Watch this ..." On the tube Olivier's retrospective speeds by and then there's the old boy himself, fragile and graceful and so eloquent he's almost incoherent. "Beautiful," Meat says, beginning a running commentary that goes on 'til the end of the show. "Did you catch that clip from The Divorce of Lady X? Olivier's made as many boring and stupid movies as anyone else. You gotta love him for it." Fonda cops her Oscar. "It woulda been better if she just stuck her tongue out and went 'Nyaah. ' Or maybe not—but you can almost see her appeal dropping from her shoulders as she becomes more respectable. " Jon Voight nearly breaks down. "He shoulda won back in '69, but people didn't know him and couldn't tell how good he was acting. They thought he was a dumb cracker from Texas like Joe Buck." John Wayne presents the big one to The Deer Hunter. "Look at him, he's praying—'Forgive me God, I didn't mean it when I made The Green Berets, I really didn't.' This is his absolution, giving the Oscar to Cimino."

Wh en the show en ds, I begin to make closing noises as a prelude to rolling home. But Meat is distracted, he's been that way all evening.

"Listen man, " I say, "I gotta make this a wrap."

"Yeah. I dunno."

"Spit it out."

The reply is fast and furious and unexpected, like he's been sitting on it for a while. A burst of brain energy from the balcony. "I hate television. I loathe it. And the more I watch it, the harder it is to give it up. It's ruined me for everything else. I can't read four pages of a book without getting anxious because there's no commercials. I can't sit through a movie at the show because my attention span is so shattered and so fucking pampered. And God forbid I should try to have a conversation with somebody . Sometimes I think I'm gonna do something weird." /^nd with that proclamation, Meat walks oyer and jerks the television off its stand and carries it a few feet until it's directly over his cat Scumbag, who's curled up into a ball and sleeping, and then he drops it. The cat lets out an ungodly shriek that descends into a sickening gurgle. Meat sits on top of the TV and bounces up and down, laughing over the crunching and snapping of kitty bones. Then, he stands over the mess and stares at the TV with a deranged, almost lustful look in his eyes. It's still on and a late night newsman is saying something reassuring about Three Mile Island. Calmly, purposefully, Meat whips out his schlong and proceeds to piss on the set. Without waiting for any further exit cues I walk through the weak blue light toward the door. The set is beginning to crackle and pop. I want to get out of there before he does something weird.

Richard C. Walls