Woody Allen Films

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that his humor and his trenchant insight into the very machinations that make us human enables Allen to portray vivid characters that, in merely a few brief scenes, spring to life. The author points out that, because of this deft and subtle manipulation of his characters, Woody Allen is able to get down all of the elements of family life so powerfully and correctly with an almost shocking reality. The paper relates that, in "Mighty Aphrodite", Allen's family is a constructed one rather than a "real" one, where the fabrication of a family through adoption plays with the idea of the movie itself as a fabrication, emphasized by including a Greek chorus.

From the Paper:

"Woody Allen's movie "Radio Days", made roughly a year before "Hannah and Her Sisters", is a much lighter film that is essentially free of the gravitas and existential concerns that plague the characters of many of his other movies. As such it is a sort of light comedy, a nostalgia pieces that harkens back to the early days of radio and attempts to convey some of the excitement and amusement that came with radio as a popular medium. Indeed, it also speaks to an interesting, intriguing, and short-lived era, in which people listened to radio as a group, but television had yet to appear as the dominant form. The characters in "Radio Days" are all moved by an essential passion or concern, in this case, the radio.

More papers on Woody Allen Films:

• Essay # 73394 : "Satire in Woody Allen's Works"
• Essay # 64860 : "Woody Allen"
• Film Review # 129148 : "Three Films by Woody Allen"

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