Woody Allen – a director from the future: on the set of the sci-fi comedy Sleeper (1973) / OUTNOW.CH

The film is made in the genre of an anniversary portrait. It is a biography, organized in simple chronological order - from the hero's infancy to the present day. The most interesting is the early period. Allen Stewart Konigsberg looks at us from the cradle, takes his first steps on stage, decides to wear glasses in a horn frame, comes up with a pseudonym, makes up 50 jokes a day, boxes with a kangaroo.

Even childhood photos convince us: he was always funny. And he realized early on that this was his calling.

His life, according to Robert B. Wide's film, was generally cloudless, with his childhood in Brooklyn in the 1940s being particularly happy:

a large family, a fun house, safe yard to walk in, a movie theater around the corner. The future comedy writer was not an excellent student, he was not teased or bullied, he started selling jokes to newspapers while still at school, then became a stand-up comedian - at first he was terribly shy, but quickly overcame it.

A surprisingly smooth biography. Archival footage and photos alternate with talking heads of Woody Allen himself, his sister, ex-wives, actresses and actors (from Diane Keaton and Mia Farrow to Sean Penn, John Cusack, Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz), cameramen, directors, producers, film critics. At some point, a second interesting character appears - Woody Allen's typewriter, but soon it is forgotten. Then fragments from films are included, Woody Allen is on screen almost all the time, which means that director Robert B. Weide does not have to invent almost anything, relying entirely on the charm of the hero. Meanwhile, Robert B. Weide dreamed of making a film about Woody Allen for twenty-five years. Probably, he wanted to tell a story.

No, I didn't want to. "Woody Allen" is not even a screen adaptation of a Wikipedia article, but a screen adaptation of a mercilessly censored article. Almost all the scandals and conflicts have been removed from it. Just as little Allen was not bullied at school, so adult Woody did not bully women. The relationship looks like this: they met, made several films together, broke up. The muses did not cry and subsequently gave Robert B. Wide polite interviews in which they did not say a bad word about Woody Allen. It was impossible to bypass only the main catastrophe - when in 1992 Mia Farrow learned of Allen's affair with his 22-year-old stepdaughter. But this episode is presented mainly through the headlines of tabloids as an annoying stain planted by someone else on an impeccable reputation. And after it, Woody Allen remains sad, but fluffy. A biographer doesn't have to bury his head in his hero's dirty laundry, but he doesn't have to be a prude either - in Allen's case, that simply destroys any possibility of drama.

Moreover, Robert B. Wide also has absolutely nothing to say about Woody Allen's films. At first, you know, they were just funny, then, starting with "Annie Hall", the director wanted more depth, and in his later period he became as deep as he was funny - what kind of biographer Robert B. Wide is, he is a film scholar.

Watching any random Woody Allen movie will tell you more about Woody Allen than this documentary. The only thing Robert B. Wide has managed to do is tell a story about how to make the most colorless biography out of the most colorful life.

I didn't touch even a single bug