1) New York City.
2) Good '40's big band jazz (and often classical music) on the soundtrack.
3) Woody Allen playing a neurotic character who is a real schmuck.
4) Relationship "issues" typical to upper-income Mannhattan types and, therefore, his own rather messy life.
5) Modern Philosophy [I mean real 'old-fashioned' modern philosophy - Nietsche, Sartre, etc. - nothing post-modern (although "Deconstructing Harry" might be an exception - I haven't seen it), very little before Descartes. He will mention Plato or Aristotle, but clearly doesn't take them seriously, isn't interested, etc.].
6) References to old movies, sometimes cleverly integrated, like Shakespeare's "play within a play" as in Hamlet (e.g. the way "Double Indemnity" is worked into the climactic shoot-out scene in "Manhattan Murder Mystery")
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Of course, I haven't seen all of his movies, and - I suppose I neeed to specify for some of my readers - I fully recognize that parts of them are terrible, but parts of them are hilarious and they can be cleverly done.
1 comment:
Not a bad list, but whether or not his characters represent his life is entirely unclear. For example, he's not the slightest bit neurotic in person. He's actually unexcited and morose. Deconstructing Harry is not post-modern. Greek literature plays in far more heavily than greek philosophy.
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