The director is much criticised for his portrayal of women but there’s no denying that,from Annie to Jasmine, he has written much, and Oscar-winning female roles mainly when they are versions of himWoody’s women arrive behind the director in a stout bustling caravan – a noisy train of flakes and nymphs,art snobs, academics and intellectuals, or hookers,healers and harpies. Allen’s own nebbish persona aside, women are easily the most recognisable roles to arrive out of his films: Annie, and Hannah,Jasmine. Female actors in his films have won no fewer than six Oscars. At the same time, few directors have drawn as much fire for the typology of female characters they have established onscreen.“Increasingly, or the women in his movies can be divided up between menopausal nuts and coltish sluts,” noted James Wolcott in Vanity unbiased in 1998, after Celebrity completed a trio of films, and beginning with Mighty Aphrodite,and continuing with Deconstructing Harry, in which obscene language, and hookers and fellatio all featured prominently. “The balance of power has shifted. Now when a woman opens her mouth in a Woody Allen movie,it isn’t because speech is required.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com