Woody Allen

[relaxok]

This is well-trod territory, but -- Woody is often accused of basically lifting entirely from another film to create his films, especially those of Fellini + Bergman.

Below are the ones that I've seen discussed most - but given how much of a pattern it is, I'm wondering if anybody else knows other touchpoints he's used? I'm referring to the structure and rough premise being a major part of the film, not just references or single scene homages, of which there are endless examples. I have this idea that some lesser known Fellinis or something might have inspired other Allen films.

Casablanca -------------- Play It Again, Sam
Cries and Whispers -------- Interiors
8 1/2 ------------------- Stardust Memories
Smiles of a Summer Night -- A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy
Fanny and Alexander ------ Hannah and Her Sisters
Amarcord --------------- Radio Days
Autumn Sonata ----------- September
Wild Strawberries --------- Another Woman
Juliet of the Spirits -------- Alice
Sawdust and Tinsel ------- Shadows and Fog

[Rayon Vert]

"Casablanca----Play It Again, Sam" doesn't fit the lifting of the "structure and rough premise" of the earlier film. He's creatively using importing the Bogart character as a fantasy add-on for a comedy about self-inadequacy!

[JSC]

I would say that Deconstructing Harry is more like Wild Strawberries, as it
uses the same plot device of having the main character return to his alma mater,
intermingled with flashbacks and dream sequences.

[ianthemovie]

Crimes and Misdemeanors deals with themes and plot elements drawn from Crime and Punishment. Manhattan Murder Mystery is Allen's version of one of the Thin Man movies. If memory serves Match Point draws heavily on Room at the Top (with some elements lifted from Crimes and Misdemeanors). Blue Jasmine can be seen as a contemporary re-working of A Streetcar Named Desire. And wasn't Wonder Wheel inspired by a play by Clifford Odets or Eugene O'Neill, someone like that? My sense is that To Rome With Love is probably influenced by one of those episodic omnibus Italian films of the early 50s like Variety Lights or The White Sheik but I've never actually seen that one.

[AWA]

While sometimes one film might be the main piece of what makes up his films, Woody's films are always drawing on a variety of different influences, both film and literature.

For one example, While Autumn Sonata is definitely a primary influence on September, unquestionably so is Chekhov's play The Seagull. Of course, Chekhov is also likely Bergman's source on his film too as Bergman borrowed ideas like any great artist does.

Another example is Match Point drawing on Room At The Top, Crimes & Misdemeanours, Dostoevsky's novels (especially Crime & Punishment) but, perhaps more than any other source, it is drawn from Theodore Dreiser's novel An American Tragedy. In fitting with a common theme in Woody's work, about how the same sorts of stories can be told as both comedy and drama (reusing a dramatic plot line from Another Woman as a comic one in Everyone Says I Love You, all of Melinda & Melinda, etc), he reused the same source material from Dreiser for the film that followed Match Point, but this time as a comedy - Scoop.

Another one that doesn't get cited enough is Small Time Crooks being based on the very funny 1942 film Larceny, Inc.

The Curse Of The Jade Scorpion is based on folding together some of Bob Hope's films with a bit of The Maltese Falcon. I've even seen some theorize that it draws on Play It Again, Sam, with Woody's Briggs character being someone who is taking on a Bogart-esque role.

For additional Bergman influenced films not already listed, one not mentioned here yet is Scenes From A Marriage, which is definitely a primary influence on both Husbands & Wives (very much so) and Annie Hall (less so).

Like Bob Dylan, there is ***always*** more than one layer going on in sourcing... and also like Dylan, if you don't have a source identified yet, it's because you haven't dug deep enough yet. And also like Dylan, Woody is a post-modernist in that he WANTS you to find out his sources and to go view / read / listen to them so that the meaning culled from the sources adds additional meaning and insight into their new works.

[domino harvey]

Fanny and Alexander ------ Hannah and Her Sisters

Am I dense? What is the connection here?

[Rayon Vert]

I'm dense as well on that one.

[AWA]

Fanny and Alexander ------ Hannah and Her Sisters

Am I dense? What is the connection here?

The ensemble look at a family?

Hannah seems more based on Chekhov's play The Three Sisters if you ask me.

[swo17]

Say "Fanny and Alexander" out loud while holding your tongue

[phoenix474]

Fanny and Alexander ------ Hannah and Her Sisters

Am I dense? What is the connection here?

The ensemble look at a family?

Hannah seems more based on Chekhov's play The Three Sisters if you ask me.

Both movies depict one year, starting and ending on the holidays (Christmas and Thanksgiving)

[domino harvey]

A lot of these are a stretch, but that one's a ssssttttrrrreeeettttcccccchhhhhhhh

[Matt]

Doesn’t Small Time Crooks also borrow heavily from Big Deal on Madonna Street?

[AWA]

Doesn’t Small Time Crooks also borrow heavily from Big Deal on Madonna Street?

Doesn't Big Deal On Madonna Street (1958) borrow from Larceny, Inc (1942)?

Woody has never mentioned either of them, but safe to say (no pun intended) that Larceny, Inc - with the drilling in the adjacent shop comedy, the business they take over as a front that becomes wildly successful, etc, is definitely the primary source.

[relaxok]

For one example, While Autumn Sonata is definitely a primary influence on September, unquestionably so is Chekhov's play The Seagull. Of course, Chekhov is also likely Bergman's source on his film too as Bergman borrowed ideas like any great artist does.

Another example is Match Point drawing on Room At The Top, Crimes & Misdemeanours, Dostoevsky's novels (especially Crime & Punishment) but, perhaps more than any other source, it is drawn from Theodore Dreiser's novel An American Tragedy. In fitting with a common theme in Woody's work, about how the same sorts of stories can be told as both comedy and drama (reusing a dramatic plot line from Another Woman as a comic one in Everyone Says I Love You, all of Melinda & Melinda, etc), he reused the same source material from Dreiser for the film that followed Match Point, but this time as a comedy - Scoop.

Another one that doesn't get cited enough is Small Time Crooks being based on the very funny 1942 film Larceny, Inc.

The Curse Of The Jade Scorpion is based on folding together some of Bob Hope's films with a bit of The Maltese Falcon. I've even seen some theorize that it draws on Play It Again, Sam, with Woody's Briggs character being someone who is taking on a Bogart-esque role.

For additional Bergman influenced films not already listed, one not mentioned here yet is Scenes From A Marriage, which is definitely a primary influence on both Husbands & Wives (very much so) and Annie Hall (less so).

Fantastic, thank you for some of these I wasn't aware of! I forgot to put Scenes From A Marriage => Husbands & Wives in the original list as I've seen that discussed a lot too.

I should clarify that I haven't seen ALL of the source films I mentioned, I've just seen them discussed in the context of the Woody film as having strong similarities and clearly being inspirations. I didn't mean that they were remakes or something, perhaps I put it too strongly.

It does make me wonder if almost all of his films can be matched up with a strong primary inspiration, some of which just have not been widely discussed or noticed by many (even serious) film fans.

[relaxok]

Crimes and Misdemeanors deals with themes and plot elements drawn from Crime and Punishment. Manhattan Murder Mystery is Allen's version of one of the Thin Man movies. If memory serves Match Point draws heavily on Room at the Top (with some elements lifted from Crimes and Misdemeanors). Blue Jasmine can be seen as a contemporary re-working of A Streetcar Named Desire. And wasn't Wonder Wheel inspired by a play by Clifford Odets or Eugene O'Neill, someone like that? My sense is that To Rome With Love is probably influenced by one of those episodic omnibus Italian films of the early 50s like Variety Lights or The White Sheik but I've never actually seen that one.

I also forgot about all the Blue Jasmine / Streetcar discussions, thank you!

And I do recall reading discussions of Wonder Wheel having a lot of lifts from O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night and The Iceman Cometh - I haven't seen Wonder Wheel though, but I'm wondering if it's just referring to some of the tropes, which is not the same as premise/framing being the same, which is what I'm thinking about.

[AWA]

Woody was a guest on the Leonard Maltin podcast Maltin On Movies. In this he discusses his past development as a writer, working with Ralph Rosenblaum as an editor, Rifkin's Festival (which opens in USA cinemas this week as well as North American streaming services), his daughter Bechet not having any interest in making films but his other daughter Manzie looking at establishing a career working in filmmaking... and his new upcoming book titled Zero Gravity, which collects some of his later New Yorker pieces with new works. Woody notes the reason he doesn't write for the New Yorker is the format has changed with humour pieces being only given a single page now, which he doesn't want to restrict himself to.

[Mr Sausage]

Woody/Orson dust up moved here.

[DarkImbecile]

Allen (in an Instagram interview with Alec Baldwin, of all places) indicates he might retire after his next film, a Paris-set drama:

“I’ll probably make at least one more movie. A lot of the thrill is gone,” Allen said. “When I used to do a film it’d go into a movie house all across the country. Now you do a movie and you get a couple weeks in a movie house. Maybe six weeks or four weeks and then it goes right to streaming or pay-per-view…It’s not the same…It’s not as enjoyable to me.”

[therewillbeblus]

Sure, advances in streaming technology vs ‘how it used to be’, aaaaand it used to be that people ruled not guilty of charges could have their artwork shown. I suspect that even if all streaming services disappeared and the entire population went back to theatres as often as before, Allen would retire for the exact same reasons of his films not being shown

[furbicide]

Sorry to nitpick, but I think it's important to point out that people ruled guilty of similar charges – Polanski, Victor Salva, etc. – generally had no impediment to their artworks being shown either. The wearing away of cultural belief in presumption of innocence was just collateral damage in the broader push to use artistic distribution/platforming as some kind of pseudo justice system. Perhaps if the latter had ever been a rational or considered process, a distinction between "proven guilty" and "accused" could have been maintained; instead, it simply became broadly taken as a given culturally (and backed up by corporate policy) that making/showing art is a privilege that you should have to prove you're entitled to, not something that we should value independently regardless of the artist's personal virtue (perceived or otherwise). So I think Allen was going to be damned either way.

[therewillbeblus]

I'm just pointing out that Allen is sidestepping a more pronounced reason why his films aren't being shown across the country, and it's extra amusing since he's using How It Used To Be as a reason, just attached to another cultural change without acknowledging the other. He's only addressing the dog when there's an elephant in the room.

[AWA]

Sure, advances in streaming technology vs ‘how it used to be’, aaaaand it used to be that people ruled not guilty of charges could have their artwork shown. I suspect that even if all streaming services disappeared and the entire population went back to theatres as often as before, Allen would retire for the exact same reasons of his films not being shown

It should be noted here that Woody has had these complaints for years about the way films are released - the theatre runs now are often so slight, only to serve a technicality to get qualified for awards. And he has long despised home movies and only agrees to allow VHS / DVD releases of his films as a contractual necessity. The media picks this up to make it as though Woody can't get funding (he absolutely can - standing offers from MediaPro for any time he wants to shoot plus this Paris project is apparently being done with USA funding), as though his films don't do well at the box office (Rainy Day turned a profit on its budget at the global box office alone). Americans are absolutely terrified of loud angry mobs on the left and right on social media, but that makes (thankfully) a relatively small fraction of the population of both America and of the globe in general. He also said he might make a few more movies, not that that the next one will be his last. And he's talked in those terms for sometime now - and why wouldn't he? He's 86 (!!) and while in excellent health for someone his age (mentally and mostly physically aside from one eye and one ear), it won't last forever. Or all that much longer.

[therewillbeblus]

I hope he makes a movie a year and lives to be 200, as long as they're not the quality of his last movie. But even something like that is worth sitting through. A Rainy Day in New York gave a glimpse of a new chapter of his own existential growth toward serenity, following the documented spiritual growth in Magic in the Moonlight, and novel exploration of his overthinking egoism in Irrational Man's uncompromising self-skewering. As crazy as it might sound, I think Allen has the capacity to do his very best work still

[AWA]

I hope he makes a movie a year and lives to be 200, as long as they're not the quality of his last movie. But even something like that is worth sitting through. A Rainy Day in New York gave a glimpse of a new chapter of his own existential growth toward serenity, following the documented spiritual growth in Magic in the Moonlight, and novel exploration of his overthinking egoism in Irrational Man's uncompromising self-skewering. As crazy as it might sound, I think Allen has the capacity to do his very best work still

Rainy Day In New York was great, one of his better later films - although I think that would've been better in B&W (which, thanks to VLC, you can do, which I highly recommend).

Rifkin's Festival was fun, just not all that well executed. Still some great lines throughout. The homage scenes were really well done, recreating not only scenes but how the camera moved in those films, lighting, etc etc. Just wish they were blended into the film more like Stardust Memories or Purple Rose magic realism.

Blue Jasmine, which nudges into the top 10 all time Woody for me personally, gives me hope that your thoughts on his capacity to do some of his best work still remains is indeed correct.

One could also argue, in regards to the current scare in American media circles about accusations (proven or not, or likely or not), that it is carrying on a long standing tradition of scare politics in American media, terrified into towing the line for a loud minority. The most notable being the Hollywood Blacklist, but American media has always been afraid of offending purists. Just sometimes it isn't as afraid. This, sadly, is not one of those eras. I can't help but think this time will be looked back on as the Blacklist was to the right wing, but this social "justice" era will be for the left. And I say that as a dyed in the wool socialist NDP voting Canadian.

[ford]

I can't help but think this time will be looked back on as the Blacklist was to the right wing, but this social "justice" era will be for the left. And I say that as a dyed in the wool socialist NDP voting Canadian.

Strongly agree. It’s been an era of left of center hysteria, insanity and cowardice.