Talking with Robert Weide about Woody Allen
Filmmaker Robert Weide has produced terrific documentaries. His first film, The Marx Brothers in a Nutshell, was one of the highest rated programs in PBS history. He also produced and directed Straight Up, an Emmy winning documentary on WC Fields, and Swear to Tell the Truth, a documentary on Lenny Bruce which was nominated for an Oscar. His work on the award-winning series Curb Your Enthusiasm also earned him an Emmy. He stopped by the SiriusXM studios to talk with Ron Bennington about his newest documentary for PBS, “Woody Allen: A Documentary” which airs as part of the Masters Series Excerpts from that interview appear below.
Ron Bennington: The American Masters Series has run some great documentaries but now one of my all time favorites will premier Sunday November 19th Part 1, Monday November 20th Part 2 and that is on the elusive– one time elusive– Woody Allen. Robert Weide is in here with us. It’s amazing how open he was to everything in this, Robert.
Robert Weide:The big hurdle was getting him to agree to do this in the first place, and not for the usual reasons. It had nothing to do with control or final cut. The reason it was difficult was because he has the self deprecating streak, where he just kept saying, ‘who cares about me? Who is going to finance this, and who’s going to put it on? and who is going to watch it?’. I kept saying, let me worry about that. But once I got over the hurdle of getting him to agree to do it, he was amazingly open and amiable and forthcoming with me.
Ron Bennington: The other thing that amazes me about him, we used to hear these stories..he won’t do interviews. But then when the money would dry up if he didn’t do interviews– he did them. He only will work in NY, he won’t get on airplanes. But then when the New York money dried up…he will do whatever it takes to do a film.
Robert Weide: Well..you know what they used to say during the Nixon years, is follow the money. Films have become so expensive to make in New York. And his budgets are a fraction of what the average budget is. I remember having a conversation with him on the set in London and we were talking about creative control, and how Woody’s control to this day is such an anomaly. And I said to him, even Martin Scorsese had those notorious fights with Harvey Weinstein when he was doing Gangs of New York. And he said, ‘Ah that’s because Martin makes films that cost seventy, eighty million dollars. Mine cost fifteen, sixteen, seventeen million dollars.’ So that’s allowed him the freedom to do what he wants. So you’re right, he will go where the money is. If somebody in London or in Barcelona says, come here, make one of your movies, you’ll have total control, he’ll do it, but that is always the condition– that he gets to make his film, his way. You know, the people who finance his films don’t even read a finished script– that’s unheard of. The most he’ll say is, oh you know it’s about a couple of girls that go to Barcelona, they fall in and out of love, and have these adventures,” and that’s what he tells them and they’ll write a check because they don’t care what the movie is, they want to be in the Woody Allen business.
Ron Bennington: I saw him shooting on the street here in New York about ten years ago. And it looked like it was him, a cameraman, a sound man and two actors. You could have walked right up. There was no security around. I’ve seen tv commercials with bigger crews than he works with. And he’s willing to do all that because he wants to shoot his way, he wants to get these out fast, What keeps him racing like that? At one point in your documentary someone tells him, hey what about ever two years and he kind of brushes them off. Why does he need to work every day?
Robert Weide: There’s that footage of his mother in the documentary that he shot in 1986 and I included a clip, and she’s talking about when he was a little boy, about five or six, and she says “you were always running… running running all the time, in the house, in your room, outside ,at school, you never sat still.” And that sort of freaked her out, she admitted she didn’t know what to do with a son like that. And I think it just goes in his nature that far back. You know the other clue that we might have, is at the beginning of the documentary he talks about that moment when we’re all confronted with our mortality. Woody’s realization about his mortality happened when he was five and he realizes that he wasn’t going to be around forever. And he says in the film, that nothing was the same after that. And I think if you really got into the psychology of it, there’s an element of that– of his awareness that we’re here for a short time and he just wants to
cross as many things off his list while he can.
Ron Bennington: Woody had a streak. I don’t know anybody else who has put together fifteen, sixteen films in a row that were terrific. And what I love about your documentary, is, yea, I knew a lot about the early films from books, but there was so much in part two of this about those eighties and nineties films. If we weren’t comparing him to Annie Hall and Manhattan, we’d be like, these are some of the most brilliant films ever made. I think the thing that keeps some of those films from being shouted from the rooftops, is he’s competing against Woody Allen.
Robert Weide: That’s right. But you know some people were ready to write him off after Stardust Memories. Because that was the first sort of tarnish on his armor. Because he had that streak with those so-called early funny films that were just very popular films. Then Annie Hall sort of blew him into the next stratosphere. Then he tried Interiors which was a drama, and a lot of people wrote that off but they respected his willingness to try something different. Then Manhattan, which again, everybody loved, but then Stardust Memories where both critics and fans sort of turn against him. And we sort of end part one of the documentary with the question of what was going to happen to him. Because some people said, okay, the golden boy’s days are over, he’s out. But then part two you’ve got Zelig, you’ve got Hannah and Her Sisters, you’ve got Broadway Danny Rose, Purple Rose of Cairo, you’ve got Crimes and Misdemeanors. So much great stuff. Anybody who is that prolific, yea it’s been like 42 films in 42 years, there will be hits and misses. But when you add up how many great films, or really really good films there are, it’s pretty phenomenal.
Ron Bennington: Yea if you’re going to take his top ten list and put it against anybody else’s top ten list…
Robert Weide:…if they even have ten films..
Ron Bennington: And the cool thing is, I thought we were going to have to wait until he died before people started to realize it. I feel like we’re in the beginning stages now. The fact that you put out this documentary I think is going to mean a lot to a lot of people. So many times that we’re looking at a career, it is because we’ve had enough time, we’ve had twenty, thirty years. This career is still current.
Robert Weide: Although knowing Woody and how healthy he is, he still may be in mid-career. We might have Woody at the age of 105 still making a film a year. By the way I want to interject– one of the things that interested me about this film aside from just being a fan of Woody is, I just find his whole career arc interesting. The fact that at 15, he starts by sending in jokes to the newspapers, to the columnists, and people like Earl Wilson are picking him up and his jokes are being syndicated. How that leads to him writing comedy material for comedians of the day like Herb Shriner. And then that leads to him performing his own material as a stand up comic, because his managers sort of forced him into it, he did not want to perform but they made him perform, so now he’s a stand up comedian. And that led him to his first gig writing a film script for What’s New Pussycat, a film that did very well but he detested because he didn’t get to control it and direct it. That led to Take the Money and Run, where he had complete control. And how that’s led to this career of complete control for forty years. Just as a narrative, that career arc really interests me. He’s been working steadily since he was that fifteen year old kid writing jokes for the newspapers.
Ron Bennington: And it’s oddly kind of a Zelig thing, where he is in the middle of really famous situations. And at the same time, he gets some of the most beautiful talented women of all time. And all those people come back and are kind of crazy about him.
Robert Weide: People ask about all the nominations and awards that his actors get when he’s sort of famously hands-off and leaves them alone and how does a director who barely talks to his actors get these kinds of performances. You know, Woody, perhaps very modestly says that the key is in casting the right people. If you cast wonderful actors, and you leave them alone and don’t mess with them….as Woody says, “you just get out of the way and shut up.” You let them do what they do and you get great performances. And Leonard Maltin, in the documentary, has another theory. He thinks that actors are just so eager to work with him…that they’re so happy to be cast in a Woody Allen movie…that they just bring their best game to the set every day. And it is phenomenal. When you look at the number of actors and primarily actresses that have either been nominated for awards or have won them– Diane Weist won twice. His thing is, he’ll leave them alone but if they need the feedback he’s there to give it to them. But they just like having the kind of freedom on the set to do what they do.
Ron Bennington: Do you think that he understands that though? You brought up that he’s kind of rough on himself, but do you think that he knows his place at all in history in terms of handling actors and how they feel about him?
Robert Weide: I think he does. If not he has some indication by now because he’s seen the film. But I don’t think he quite gets how important it is to guys like you and me who grew up and saw Annie Hall and Manhattan, I mean these films went somehow straight to our marrow and those films would be on my short list of things that have made my life worthwhile.
Ron Bennington: I absolutely think I’m living here in the city from seeing those films as a kid.
Robert Weide: I made my first trip to New York in 1979, I was 19 or 20 and it was all about Annie Hall and Manhattan. First thing I did was I made a beeline for the Queensboro Bridge. I wanted to find that spot where he and Diane Keaton sat underneath the bridge as the sun came up, and I hunted down all those locations.
Ron Bennington: I think that he actually willed New York City back. At the time that he shot that, New York City wasn’t seen as nearly as romantic of a city as he made it out to be. But I think that he actually brought back a lot of people who wanted to live in a New York that was like a Woody Allen film.
Robert Weide: Yea, he made it sort of okay to love New York again. Remember that line in Manhattan in that scene under the bridge, Woody says, “I don’t care what anybody says, this town is a knockout.” And it’s true he kind of made it cool to love New York again.
Ron Bennington: And now I see him walking down the street and no one ever bothers him, but when he passes people, they all turn to watch him walk away. There is this reverence for him but I don’t see anyone approaching him.
Robert Weide: I’ve teased him about his famous disguise hat. He puts that hat on to be disguised but you think of it as a Woody Allen hat now. Yea, I think people know that he likes his privacy. And there is that shot in the documentary where we follow him walking down Park Avenue with the camera and people are minding their own business but as soon as his back is to them,you see them turning around and looking at him.
Ron Bennington: Well it’s a terrific documentary and I’ve got to tell you the truth, not one that I ever expected to see. I mean there was so many years that he didn’t do interviews and you only kind of read hearsay. To see him being okay with you being at his house, he’s in his bedroom, typing, you’re going through his stuff. It’s amazing how open he is.
Robert Weide: I’m hoping people walk away from it feeling like they spent a few hours with this guy.
Ron Bennington: Congratulations. The Vonnegut documentary…still working on it?
Robert Weide: Some time in the next decade, I promise.
Ron Bennington: Thank you so much Robert, we’ll see you the next time through.
================================
Follow Robert Weide on twitter @BobWeide.
You can also read our “Required Viewing: The Mandatory Woody Allen Collection” here.
You can watch the documentary on PBS, on demand, or online for free, below.
Woody Allen: A Documentary Part 1
Watch Woody Allen: A Documentary Part 1 on PBS. See more from AMERICAN MASTERS.
Woody Allen: A Documentary, Part 2
Watch Woody Allen: A Documentary Part 2 on PBS. See more from AMERICAN MASTERS.
