MovieChat Forums > Shadows and Fog (1992) Discussion > The variation within Woodys character?

The variation within Woodys character?

posted 17 years ago by DrMulholland
2 replies | jump to latest

"Van Goch!" Did you hear that? She said Van Goch. Like an Arab she spoke. One more remark about Bergman, and I'd have knocked her other contact lens out. - Woody Allen in Manhattan

I don't know enough to be incompetent. - Woody Allen in Shadows and Fog

On one hand we have Woody as a TV-critical, philosophical, university-teacher and appreciator of Russian literature and European art who always have something to say about Freud, Joyce or Bergman.

And yet on the other hand we have the crazy inventor (A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy), an ignorant citizen (Shadows and Fog), a small time crook (guess what film), a paranoid comedian (Anything Else), an unlucky thief (Take the Money and Run) and so on.

This irony within his own character makes me wonder if he has been stereotyped too much or that it's just a trick of his?

Obviously, he has copied himself many times but can't we talk about a variation within his character and if so how far is it stretchable?

--- Kasper, www.deeFilmRoll.com/ ---

[–] djensen1 16 years ago

Well, you've got the angry nebbish and the cowardly nebbish. Sometimes the angry nebbish shows cowardice. Sometimes the cowardly nebbish gets angry.

What more variation is there? Was Woody in Walking Tall?

[–] WarpedRecord 15 years ago

And thankfully, regardless of his anger or cowardliness, always the nebbish shows humor and insight. So many comic and philosophical gems here!