Woody Allen’s Bananas |
| Print | |
| Written by Kevin Johns |
| Thursday, 18 June 2009 19:00 |
|
As a teenager, Woody Allen (born Allen Stewart Konigsberg in 1935) was already working as a professional joke-writer for television programs such as The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show. By the early 1960s he was performing as a stand-up comedian in New York's Greenwich Village, where he developed the neurotic intellectual persona that would become his comedy staple. His first play, Don't Drink the Water, debuted on Broadway in 1966, and the followup, 1969's Play It Again Sam - featuring Allen and Diane Keaton - earned Tony nominations and ran for over 400 performances. After less than desirable experiences working on the films What's New Pussycat? (1965) as a writer and Casino Royale (1967) as a performer, Allen re-dubbed a Japanese action movie to comedic affect, What's Up, Tiger Lily?, before writing, directing and starring in the mockumentary Take the Money and Run in 1969. The film co-starred Louise Lasser, Allen's second wife, and it was the first of many films to feature one of Allen's romantic partners on screen (later additions include Diane Keaton and Mia Farrow). Largely slapstick, Take the Money is startlingly accomplished debut, and it set the blueprint for what Allen would do as a writer/director/performer for practically a film a year for the next forty years.
Some critics suggest the title Bananas is a nod to the Marx Brothers play/film The Cocoanuts (1925/1929), which seems reasonable, given that it is common knowledge that Allen is a huge Marx Bros. fan (in Everybody Says I Love You the characters attend a party where everyone in attendance is dressed a Groucho). The Marx Bros influence is certainly apparent in early Allen films like Bananas and Take the Money and Run. The shear anarchy of the loosely-plotted films, with their focus on moving from joke to joke at any cost, is quite different than the tightly controlled narratives of latter day Allen films like Match Point (2005) and Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona (2008). While Allen's witty banter has always shown touches of Groucho Marx, the use of prop humour in Bananas reveals that Harpo Marx was an influence as well. In a memorable early scene, Allen's character battles an office desk/exercise machine to hilarious results. The title, then, might also be a reference to the most revered of all prop gags: the man who slips on a banana peel! Ultimately, there isn't all that much to say about a film like Bananas. It is certainly funny enough to warrant a recommendation, but that can be said for most of Allen's films.
A similar approach can be taken to analyzing Allen's Bananas: it's just another Allen movie. He made 40 more afterwards, and because of that, there isn't any big statement that needs to be made about it. Bananas is like Infidels: just another album, just another movie. If you are a genius like Bob Dylan or Woody Allen, there will always be another work of art to follow up this one, so no one piece ever has to be definitive. It just has to be good, because if you put together a long enough string of good work, it becomes a masterpiece. It is the canon of work that becomes the masterpiece. It is the artist's very life that becomes the work of art. As a film viewer, I don't always want to watch the best movie I have ever seen. Sometimes you just want a good movie, and when I'm looking for a good movie, I always know that I can turn to Woody Allen. A banana won't be the best meal you have ever eaten and Bananas won't be the best comedy you have ever watched, but that doesn't mean both aren't damn enjoyable.
Bookmark
Email this
Comments (0)
 |
Allen's second effort was Bananas (1971), a comedy loosely based on Richard Powell's novel Don Quixote, U.S.A. Allen stars as Fielding Mellish, a blue collar office worker who finds himself indebted to a group of guerrilla revolutionaries after they save his life in a South American banana republic. It is a sort of fish-out-of-water story that finds its comedy by dropping the Allen persona into a military situation. Allen would repeat this format in several later films: in Sleeper (1973) the Allen character awakes in the future after being cryogenically frozen, Love and Death (1975) features the Allen character in Napoleonic era, etc.
It reminds me of a story regarding Allen's fellow early 1960s Greenwhich Village alumni Bob Dylan and the song "Blind Willie McTell," which he recorded during the sessions for 1983's Infidels album. Dylan played a cut of the album for a friend who'd heard him record "McTell." Dylan's friend was shocked to discover the song had been cut from the album, and told the musician he'd a recorded a masterpiece and by cutting it he'd destroyed the album. Dylan responded, "You know what? It's just an album. I've done twenty of them. I'll do more."
Subscribe to this comment's feed
