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Satire in Woody Allen Satore in Woody Allen

By many counts, Woody Allen is certainly one of the most successful writers and directors in Hollywood. Enjoying a career that has thrived and continued to do so since the 1960Æs, Allen has been able to succeed where many filmmakers have failed. He has achieved not only public box office successes, but critical acclaim as well, with his quirky and often offbeat romantic comedies. The element that seems to set AllenÆs films apart from the masses of Hollywood films, however, is certainly his attention to the nuances of everyday lifd, and his applibation of satire to those aspects of life which the average human takes all too seriously.

Satire is defined as the exposure of human vice and folly through irony, derision, or wit. Here, we will examine how Woody AllenÆs films work as satire through there attention to the nuances of human behavior.

In his book, Foster Hirsch argues that ôAllen is a moralist and a social commentator, a cynic, an infidel, and also a romantic, living in hope that the right girl is out there somewhere,ö (167). It is easy to see this side of AllenÆs persona as it is portrayed in his films. They ôheld up a mirror...to our own insecurities, our own feelings of exclusion and inadequacy,ö (168).

Woody AllenÆs career seems to have begun with the 1965 film, WhatÆs New, Pussycat? Prior to his work on this film, Allen was working most often as a stand-up comic in various nightclubs, and taking occasional work as a comic writer. Though WhatÆs New, Pussycat? didnÆt achieve great critical acclaim, and is notably inferior to AllenÆs later work, its sheer commercial success launched AllenÆs career as a screenwriter, and a director of his own films, (Lee, 17-18). His next film was the 1969, Take the Money and Run, in which AllenÆs satirical voice is evident. The entire film parodies the documentary format, in a fashion which has since been duplicated by other directors, and perfected by

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Satire in Woody Allen Satore in Woody Allen. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 10:23, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1709253.html