Woody Allen Film Analysis

Essay by landgraf51College, UndergraduateB, April 2014

download word file, 3 pages 0.0

Seth R. Landgraf

FILM: 180

Dr. Hastings

Paper #1

Woody Allen is a well respected writer and director who is well known for his unconventional comedic works. One of Allen's most notable attributes when he is directing or writing is how he uses both formal and inappropriate behavior to contrast one another adding to the hilarity of his movies.(Lee, p. 19) This paper will reflect on Allen's films as well as scholarly publications to show that jokes are not bound by a single time period and can in fact still be funny today as well as in the future.

Context, time, place, or whatever else one might wish to consider has no effect on the hilarity of a joke if the joke is relatable to any decade to follow. Today, Woody Allen is still considered an outstanding writer and director, and his films are valued by many; which is partially tied to the fact that Allen is able to contrast situations almost everyone is able to relate too in some way, shape, or form.

For example, in Take the Money and Run, Woody Allen plays Virgil the leading role, while Virgil is attempting to rob a bank the teller is unable to read the note he gave to them.(Lee, p. 19) The reason this situation is still funny today is because people could actually envision something like that happening to a bank robber. Even in the future thousands of years down the road, the joke will still hold its ability to make people laugh since more likely than not, bank robbers will still exist to some extent.

In the film Sleeper we are greeted again with situations which are infact relatable to the average viewer. Although the situations take place in the future, they have key concepts that allow us...