The below is a small excerpt from an interview that Woody Allen granted exclusively to Greek magazine “K” on the occasion of “Coup de Chance” premiering at Venice.
At one point, the 87-year-old filmmaker launches into a barrage of self-criticism, he believes he’s never made a masterpiece in his career and he regrets it:
“I had all the advantages. I was making money, I had complete artistic freedom, and I could make exactly the movies I wanted, one after the other. I made some good ones, but no masterpieces. And because I didn’t make a masterpiece, I feel like I let myself down. Someone who had my opportunities should have made two or three masterpieces. Not just some good mid-fifties.”
Where to begin? This is coming from the man who basically invented the blueprint for romantic comedies with 1977’s “Annie Hall.” I’ll agree that he hasn’t made many flat-out masterpieces, but there have been plenty of top-tier works in his career.
Allen, who’s directed 50 films in his career, has had plenty of duds, especially in these last 25+ years, and there is the slight chance that “Coup de Chance” might be a “masterpiece,” but I doubt it. Still, he’s directed plenty of noteworthy films in his career.
Here’s just a sampling of his best films: “Annie Hall,” “Hannah and Her Sisters,” “Manhattan,” “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” “Zelig,” “Broadway Danny Rose,” “The Purple Rose of Cairo,” “Husbands and Wives,” and “Bullets Over Broadway.”
Now that Allen’s opened up this conversation, I believe that 1986’s “Hannah and Her Sisters” is his masterpiece. A dry, urbane and darkly comic-drama about romance in New York, filled with extreme anxiety and dostoyevskian wit. This film is DENSE and a high-wire balancing act of complicated emotions. Allen’s filmography should begin and end with ‘Hannah.’