There’s an old joke. Um, two elderly women are at a Catskills mountain resort [clears throat] and one of them says, “Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.” The other one says, “Yeah, I know. And such small portions.” Well, essentially, that’s how I feel about life. Full of loneliness and misery and suffering and unhappiness, and it’s all over much too quickly. The other important joke for me is one that’s, uh, usually attributed to Groucho Marx, but I think it appears originally in Freud’s Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious, and it goes like this, I’m paraphrasing. Um, “I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member.” That’s the key joke of my adult life.
“When I was looking for some of his quotes that I could share,” says the film festival programmer to the Elgin Theatre audience, “I came across this one: ‘Eighty per cent of success is showing up.’ Then, further down on the page, I saw, ‘Seventy per cent of success is showing up.’”
The little man waits in the wing.
“I’m not sure how to account for that ten per cent difference, but I do know that we’re one hundred per cent lucky he showed up today to introduce his wonderful new film. Please welcome…Mister Woody Allen.”
The little man appears. He walks to the podium in his usual manner, shoulders slumped forward and arms stiff, swinging with just a bit too much exaggeration. There is a standing ovation; he looks up, and gives a timid wave. The applause continues as he takes to the podium, where he nods, gives a tiny smile, and mouths, “Thank you.”
The audience finally quiets, and the little man looks down. There is tittering. His eyes widen, and his hands dart up to accentuate his first word. “Genius…” he says, in his New Yawk voice. Laughter fills the hall.
“…is a word that’s thrown around a lot in this business, BUT…” — his left hand rises and falls to punctuate each syllable — “…every once a while, the term applies.”
There is again much laughter. The little man looks down, and smiles very slightly. He raises both hands in mock alarm. “I’m referring, in this case, to my cast. Not myself…” More laughter. “And I would like to introduce them to you, before you see the film.”
“The first person I would like you to meet is a woman that I didn’t know before I made the movie, but who turned out to be…” — he raises both hands — “…just a startling, startling…contributor to the movie…”
He raises both hands again. “You’ll see what I mean when you see the movie, I don’t wanna oversell it. I WOULD like to, but…” his voice trails off and everyone laughs. It’s the trademark self-deprecation. He gives the audience a little smile. “So, first I would like you to meet Gemma Jones.” His smile is unusually wide as she joins him onstage.
“And also with Gemma is a young woman who I didn’t know at all before I made this movie. She had to…” — his hands rise, and move in circles with the rhythm of his sentence — “…audition, and beat out many, many formidable actresses for this role.” He raises his left hand and looks straight at the audience. “And again, as you’ll see when you see the movie, is quite an astonishing discovery…Lucy Punch.”
“The third female that’s here this evening, uh…you probably know from Slumdog Millionaire, uh…” Scattered cheers from the audience.
“This was an easy decision. We needed someone…as you’ll see when you see the film, who had an…exotic, and…beautiful quality. And the first time her name came up, it was a done deal as far as I was concerned. Freida Pinto.” The Bombay actress takes the stage.
“When I was writing the film, I had no idea who would be in it.” His left hand now waves more or less continually. “But as I was halfway through, it occurred to me that the guy I was writing about could not be played by anybody else but Josh Brolin. And I called, and it turned out he was available and interested, so I consider myself very blessed…” — both hands rise and fall in a circle at this last word — “…that I was able to get him for this movie. And he, you will see, did not disappoint for a second. Josh Brolin.”
Brolin walks onstage in a perfectly-fitted suit jacket, top buttons undone, his face styled with a symmetrical Vandyke. He flashes a Movie Star grin and waves. The photographers compete for ideal spots to shoot the little man’s latest on-screen surrogate.
“Chapter one. He adored New York City. He idolized it all out of proportion.” Er, no, make that, “He romanticized it all out of proportion.” Better. “To him, no matter what the season was, this was still a town that existed in black and white, and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwin.” Uh…no, let me start this over. “Chapter one. He was too romantic about Manhattan, as he was about everything else. He thrived on the hustle-bustle of the crowds and the traffic. To him, New York meant beautiful women, and street-smart guys who seemed to know all the angles.” Ah, no, corny — too corny for a man of my taste. Let me try and make it more profound…
The Borscht Belt Philip Roth. The child of Chaplin, Groucho, and S.J. Perelman. The neurotic Jewish pseudo-intellectual from Manhattan. “When I was kidnapped, my parents snapped into action — they rented out my room.” Mia Farrow. “The early, funny ones.” Soon-Yi Previn. “Bergmanesque.” How his movies were so much smarter and more sophisticated than everything else I was seeing at age 13.
The way that every man has, at one point or another, considered himself Alvy Singer to someone else’s Annie Hall. The personal disappointment I’ve felt from all those Jade Scorpions and Hollywood Endings. The queasy feeling that Alvy Singer and Harry Block might be the same person. The fact that I see his movies every year without really knowing why anymore. How strange to see this man who has meant so much to me, so far from Elaine’s, or Michael’s Pub, or any of the coffee shops, bookstores, revival theatres, and high rise condos of his Upper East Side.
“I have nothing more to say to you except that I hope that you like the film very much. I was blessed with this cast. If you do like the film…” — the little man shrugs and waves his arms around — “…y’know, give it all to them, they made me look good. You know, do your best to sit through it…” The cast grins on cue, and everyone laughs.
“I’ll be on a plane back to New York.” I get goosebumps hearing how he says this: “New Yaawk.”
“I’ve seen the film, I know how it ends. Low grosses.” Much piteous laughter. “And…” — his hands reach out and his shoulders shrug — “…enjoy yourselves.”
Y’know, lately, the strangest things have been going through my mind, ’cause I turned 40, and I guess I’m going through a ‘life crisis’ or something, I don’t know. And I’m not worried about aging, I’m not one of those characters — although, I’m balding slightly on top, that’s about the worst you can say about me. I, uh, think I’m gonna get better as I get older, y’know. I think I’m gonna be the balding, virile type, as opposed to, say, the distinguished grey. Unless I’m neither of those two. Unless I’m one of those guys with saliva dribbling out of his mouth, who wanders into a cafeteria with a shopping bag, screaming about socialism.
The film begins. It’s another of his light, slight comedies about the upper-middle-class, where love is lost and gained in a sunny city free of cell phones, computers, the Internet, television, pop music, and other modern irrelevancies. The narrator reminds us of the frightening void that awaits us, and once again we are told that the great self-delusion of spirituality, and the unreliable emotion of love, are all that stand between us and nothingness. “Whatever works,” as the little man might say (or was it, “It’s just like anything else”? These things blur together sometimes.).
But before that, the little man leaves the podium. Brolin opens his arms, and the little man comes in for a hug. Then the little man hugs Anthony Hopkins, then Pinto, and gives one more timid wave as he exits the stage. White hair aside, he looks nearly identical to his 40-year-old self. The more things change, the more Woody Allen stays the same.
