I have spent alot of time talking about Woody Allen films on this blog and looking at his worldview. He has a hopeless, meaningless, nihilistic worldview that believes we are going to turn to dust and there is no afterlife. Even though he has this view he has taken the opportunity to look at the weaknesses of his own secular view. I salute him for doing that. That is why I have returned to his work over and over and presented my own Christian worldview as an alternative. Take a moment and read again a good article on Woody Allen below. There are some links below to some other posts about him.

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This interview came out in 2009.

Interview: Woody Allen on Whatever Works, The Meaning of Life (or Lack Thereof), and the Allure of Younger Women

The new Woody Allen film, Whatever Works — his 40th for those keeping count — signals a return for the filmmaker in more ways than one. For starters, it is his first film to shoot on location in New York since Melinda and Melinda in 2004, interrupting a half-decade European vacation during which the 73-year-old Allen has directed three films in London and one in Spain. It also marks the realization of a project he first conceived in the 1970s as a vehicle for Zero Mostel, then set aside following the actor’s untimely death. The result is a light comic burlesque — a minor key but eminently pleasurable Allen confection — starring Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm mastermind Larry David as Boris Yellnikoff, an atheistic, egotistical, misanthropic physics professor whose contempt for the entire human race is lessened by his chance meeting with the ditzy Southern belle (Evan Rachel Wood) he finds squatting underneath his backstairs.

Allen is running late on the sunny May afternoon, when I show up at his Upper East Side editing room, tucked away inconspicuously behind a door labeled “Manhattan Film Center” on the ground floor of an otherwise residential building. It’s here that Allen cuts all his films, screens them (and others) in a soundproof, green velour screening room, auditions actors for his upcoming projects (and there is always an upcoming project), and otherwise holds court. On the two previous occasions I have come here to interview him, the results have never been less than surprising, Allen holding forth with unexpected candor and ease about his films and about the cosmic matters that weigh heavy on his soul. And today is no exception, as Allen enters in his signature attire of pastel button-down, khaki trousers and well-worn brown lace-ups, apologizes for his lateness, and proceeds to talk at length about the meaning of life (or lack thereof), the trouble with actors, and the allure of younger women.

The title Whatever Works suggests a philosophy of life but also a work ethic. In other words, if you make a film a year, as you do, you can’t afford to sit around waiting for the muses to descend.

I’ve never been someone who’s waited for the muses, because my background is in television. When I came up, we used to write shows, and if you were writing for Gary Moore or Sid Caesar — whoever it was — you had to have a show. It was live. When you came in on a Monday morning, you had to think of something. You couldn’t wait for inspiration; you just had to do it. So I got used to that, and I can do it to this day. I can go into a room and — it doesn’t always come out good — but I can produce something. I do think it’s an ethic. It keeps you out of mischief. If you work, it keeps you distracted. It keeps you from thinking about yourself too much, about how terrible you are, about how great you are. It’s certainly humbling.

I’ve often used this comparison: With mental patients in an institution, they give them basket weaving, finger painting and things like that to do, because the very act of working with your hands is healthful and therapeutic. It’s the same thing with making a film, which is a handmade product. You have to write it, you have to go out and shoot it, then we come here and we put the film together and put the music in. For a period of time, you get two rewards: You get the reward of distraction — you don’t think about the outside world, and you’re faced with solvable problems, and if they’re not solvable, you don’t die because of it. And then, if it’s the right film, you get to live in a fake reality for a number of months. So if I’m making a picture like The Purple Rose of Cairo or Bullets Over Broadway or Everyone Says I Love You, for several months, I get to live with very beautiful women and very witty men and they have costumes, and the sets are beautiful. It’s a very pleasant way to waste your life.

It’s funny that you mention those three films in particular because, like them, Whatever Works seems like a fantasy. The characters and the story all have a heightened, exaggerated feel.

Right, it’s a cartoon tale. The mother, the father — everyone in the movie is cartoonlike.

I was also reminded of two of your more recent films, Match Point and Cassandra’s Dream, both of which also concern luck, chance and the randomness of life, even though Whatever Works is actually a script you wrote more than 30 years ago. When we spoke at the time of the release of Match Point, you said, “You’re always searching for control, and in the end, you’re at the mercy of the hoisted piano not falling on your head.” And here there is a scene in which a person falls from a window onto another person’s head!

The same obsessions I had when I first started, I have now. I’ve been in psychoanalysis, I’ve been successful, I’ve had ups, I’ve had downs. I’ve had some hit movies, movies that failed. But with everything that’s happened to me, all of my experiences, I’ve never been able to solve the real problems of life that have plagued every playwright since Euripides and Aristophanes. No progress has been made on the existential themes and the subject of interpersonal relations, which are still brutal and painful and fragile and very hard to make work, and which cause everybody an enormous amount of suffering and grief. Why are we here? What is the point of it all?

Take Camus’ question [in The Myth of Sisyphus] of whether or not to commit suicide. Now, even the most grim people come to rationalizations where, in Camus’ case, he feels that pushing the rock up the hill, the doing of it, is worth it and you don’t have to succeed. But I feel — in answer to the question of why should we not kill ourselves given a meaningless, godless existence — that it’s a pre-intellectual question, and that your body answers it for you. Your mind will never be able to give you a convincing justification for living your life, because from a logical point of view, if your life is indeed meaningless — which it is — and there’s nothing out there, what is the point of it? Well, the point of it is only that you’re too scared to terminate it because you’re hard-wired, it’s in your blood, to live and to want to live and to want to protect yourself. So, while I’m home babbling about how meaningless life is and how cruel and brutal and without any purpose, if there’s a fire in my house, I’ll go to extreme measures to save my life. And then when I’ve saved my life, I’ll say to myself, “Why did you bother to do that?”

Even by the standards of some of the antisocial, unlikable characters you’ve written in the past, including the ones you yourself played in Anything Else and Deconstructing Harry, Boris seems a step beyond.

You know, at one point I was going to call this film, when I first wrote it for Zero, The Worst Man in the World. I thought it would be a funny character — a guy who is the quintessence of misanthropy and who can’t fit in, doesn’t want to fit in, rejects everything, just isn’t someone who can deal with life or wants to deal with it. He doesn’t accept it: He finds the fact that he’s mortal to be unacceptable. He cannot agree to the rules of life. The characters I’ve played in those other movies were certainly in that direction but not as extreme as I wanted to make the character of Boris.

Did you, at any point in the past three decades, consider playing the role yourself?

No, because when I thought of it for Zero, I thought of it as a part for a fat man. I thought of him as a big, aggressive physicist, a Russian chess genius who had no time for “microbes” and “earthworms.” And I can’t do that. My source of comedy is more victim — I find myself frightened when I hear the noise in the other room, that sort of thing. This guy was grandiose. It was hard to think of people who could play him now, and then [casting director] Juliet Taylor mentioned Larry, whom I had worked with very briefly before and whom I knew from Curb Your Enthusiasm. But it seemed to me that he could do it, because on his television show he’s very authentic. He’s not an overacter or a fake posturer. Of course, he told me up and down the line how he couldn’t do it, how he’s not an actor and this and that, and then I knew he’d be great. Because it’s the ones like Diane Keaton, who tell you how bad they are, who always come through. It’s the ones who tell you how great they are who never come through.

People who can act are naturals. Over the years, I’ve met and worked with people who studied all over the place, and if they had natural talent, it was great. If they didn’t, the fact that they had studied didn’t mean anything. I’ve gotten guys off the street — literally off the street — who come in here and, when they speak, they’re un-self-conscious and authentic. Whereas, with a lot of professional actors, they come in to meet for a part and we’ll be chatting like we’re chatting now, and they’re just fine. Then, they read the part and they go into their acting mode, and everything about them suddenly becomes inauthentic. They feel they have to do something to the material or they’re not justifying their paycheck. So they start acting it, and you don’t want them to act it; you want them to just say it. If they’re supposed to be a salesman, you want them to be a salesman like you’d experience a salesman. But they don’t. They start playing a salesman.

The real revelation in the film, I think, is Evan Rachel Wood, who has been very strong in a number of movies but who hasn’t had an opportunity to play this sort of 1930s screwball ingenue.

I had never heard of her, and my wife said you should look at this girl Evan Rachel Wood, because I saw her in one or two movies and she’s just great. Then a few days after that, [production designer] Santo Loquasto was talking to me and he said the exact same thing. So I checked her out and saw that she was a remarkable actress — complicated and dark, really exceptional. I didn’t know if she could do comedy or not. I thought she could, and she agreed to do it, so I assumed she wouldn’t agree to do it if she didn’t think she could. And so she did it and she was incredibly good. I said to her, “It’s a Southern girl, you’re going to have to do a Southern accent,” and she wouldn’t do it for me, wouldn’t show me her Southern accent until we shot. Now, I can empathize with that. It’s risky, because if she couldn’t do it, I would have been in very serious trouble. But she did it, and she just did it great.

On the other hand, Ed Begley Jr. [who plays Wood’s father] had no idea he was going to be required to do a Southern accent. He came to New York, got into costume, came to the set. The first shot we shot in the movie was with him, and he had no idea. I said, “You know you’re going to have to play this with a Southern accent. You do do a Southern accent, right?” He said, “Well, I think I can.” I said, “Okay, because I assumed you knew that when you read it.” But he didn’t, and he just simply did it. So much for all this meticulous preparing.

So much for The Method.

I was with a Japanese lady yesterday, who was in town doing interviews because Vicky Cristina Barcelona is opening in Japan. She asked me what pictures I’ve liked [recently] and I mentioned Rachel Getting Married, which was a picture I liked very much. She said she had interviewed Jonathan Demme and he had said it was the first time he shot a picture without rehearsals, and of course everyone in it was great and it was a wonderful picture. I, on the other hand, have never done rehearsals. I just don’t think they’re necessary. And yet, there are directors — great directors, like Ingmar Bergman — who would rehearse and rehearse. I wouldn’t know what to do at a rehearsal. When I was in Paul Mazursky’s Scenes From a Mall, he did extensive rehearsing, and he’s a wonderful guy and a wonderful director, but I thought it was nuts at the time. I thought, “How do you have the patience for this?” But that’s how he works. I just never put a minute’s thought into it beforehand, to the point where an actor will come to the set not even knowing he’s got to do a Southern accent. And yes, I could have been very traumatized if he had said, “Oh, I can’t do a Southern accent. I just can’t do one. If you need British, fine, but I can’t do Southern.” So I’ve been lucky that way, that I haven’t run into a catastrophe. It’s the same thing if there’s a scene with a lot of physical action. I work it out with the cameraman and bring in the actor with no rehearsal and say, “Start over here and go over there and pick up a cigarette and then come over here,” and 99 percent of the time that’s exactly what they do and it looks fine. Once in a great while, someone will say, “I don’t know what I’m doing over there. I’d feel better walking over to the window.” And I always say, “So, walk to the window.”

The film suggests that Boris is redeemed, humanized in a way by his encounter with this much younger woman, and you yourself have said that you’ve found a happiness with your wife, Soon-Yi, that you never imagined you would find with a younger Korean woman who has no connection to the film industry.

In fiction, that was even a theme as far back as Manhattan, that in this presumably more innocent, younger person — before they get spoiled by the world — that one can find a certain happiness. Mine was very good luck, personally, that way, but that has always been an idea of mine going back quite far. Even Annie Hall, when you think of it, was kind of a naive girl from Chippewa Falls, who was young and came to New York and knew nothing and was a real hick, a rube, with all her colloquial expressions but with the thought that she would become a mature woman. At that time, she represented for me the same kind of freshness.

When we spoke last year, you were just about to come to Los Angeles to direct your first opera, Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, and you joked that you were going to skip town quickly before anyone had the chance to tar and feather you for it.

It turned out in the end to be quite a pleasant experience, because I was surrounded by gifted people. The cast was wonderful; I didn’t cast them, they gave me the cast. The conductor was wonderful. It was just a pleasure. And, of course, I was working with a piece of material that’s great. It was the first time I directed anything that wasn’t mine, and so I could devote myself strictly to directing. I didn’t have to write and constantly patch up bad writing. This is what I’m doing all the time in my own films. They’re always an original script, and they’re all full of mistakes. It’s not like it’s a Broadway show, where I take it out of town and iron the kinks out. With a movie, this is it, so I’m rewriting all the time and fixing and helping and adjusting. Here, Puccini has a little masterpiece both musically and in terms of the story, so all I had to do was mount it. Now, it’s a short opera, and I don’t think I could do Aida with the elephants.

Is there anything you can say about the film you are preparing to shoot this summer, other than that it takes place in London again and stars Naomi Watts?

You know the full cast, right? Anthony Hopkins, Freida Pinto, Josh Brolin, Antonio Banderas. The cast is great. It’s a comedy-drama, I can tell you that. It’s a comic film but comic in the way that either Vicky Cristina or Hannah and Her Sisters was. It’s not comic like Bananas. This is real, with a serious side to it but hopefully a reasonable amount of laughs. Hopefully.

Here is a complete list of all the posts I did on the film “Midnight in Paris”

In a friendly game of keep away, Barrett Jones demonstrates why he is a formidable opponent on the football field. The mission team he led in Nicaragua visited several schools to share the love of Christ with the children. Special to the Courier

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I have written about Barrett Jones several times before in 2011 and 2012 and today’s article in the 1-12-13 issue of the Saline Courier.

ECS graduate Barrett Jones, right, now an offensive lineman at Alabama, spent his spring break with teammate Hardie Buck lending a helping hand in earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

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This year like many years in the past I made the trip down to War Memorial to see the Salt Bowl between the Benton Panthers and the Bryant Hornets. Again this year over 20,000 people gathered to see this high school football game. Many doubted the crowd would be that big this year since the game was moved to the 4th week of the football season, but the naysayers were wrong. The Saline County shootout drew another huge crowd. That is what I call having a passion for football.

Football is a great game to learn life lessons from and many in Saline County have benefitted from the coaching they have received from many fine football coaches on the high school level that truly care about the lives of their young men. Maybe that is part of the reason we are so passionate about this game of football.

I heard Bryant’s Shane Broadway tell Benton’s Grant Merrill on the radio on Jan 7th he attended the recent Benton v. Bryant basketball game, but he just was not ready for basketball yet since he was still so into football mode. Many people across the country feel the same way.

I grew up in Memphis with a good friend of mine who was passionate about football. Actually he was a Notre Dame Fighting Irish fan. Once he got a driver license he took off at least once a year and drove to South Bend and attempted to buy a ticket outside the stadium for a football game to see his beloved team play. He has been able to see Notre Dame play in person every year since 1978. Now that is what I call having a passion for football.

Let me now tell you about my other longtime Notre Dame Fighting Irish friends. Tim, Pat and Jim Monahan are brothers, and have been running Monahan Inc of Arcola, Illinois for many years. They sell handles and broomcorn, and since at Little Rock Broom Works we need those items to make brooms, we have been a customer of theirs for many years.

Two of Tim’s sons have actually played football for Notre Dame. Both fit the “Rudy” description. Out of high school they received many offers to play at the small college level, but they chose to walk-on at Notre Dame. Tom Monahan got some playing time his senior year as a blocking back in 1986, and Mark Monahan did the same as a defensive back in 1995. Former Arkansas Coach Lou Holtz coached both players.

Why did they walk on at Notre Dame? Probably it had something to do with how far back the Monahan family goes with the Fighting Irish. These boys’ grandfather Tom Monahan played for Knute Rockne from 1928 to 1931.

The Monahan’s still have in their possession a letter dated August 2, 1929 from Rockne encouraging Monahan to put on 10 to 15 lbs. He went on to write, “I think you have the potentialities to make a good center with a little more experience, and you will get that this fall.” Unfortunately,  Rockne’s life was cut short at age 43 in a plane crash in 1931.

Lou Holtz gave Arkansas some great years as the Razorback Football Coach from 1977 to 1983. Actually I got to see Holtz coach several times at the tale end of that span and I have had season tickets to the football games since 1984. In fact, the 2011 season when the Hogs finished ranked #5 was the first time since 1977 that the Razorbacks finished in the top 5. The final poll at the end of the 1977 season had the Irish #1 and the Hogs #3. It took us 34 years to achieve that get back to that level.

Arkansas has had someone  involved in the national races though. Gus Malzahn who played football at Henderson State with Bryant’s head coach Paul Calley was the offensive coordinator at Auburn during their national championship run in 2010.

During this year’s National Championship game as a Razorback fan it was hard to pull for a SEC West competitor like Alabama, but I do have a connection through my family this year to Alabama. My father’s good friend Harry Smith has two grandsons playing for Alabama. Barrett Jones (#75) is the reigning Outland Trophy winner and his brother Harrison (#82) is a sophomore. Their younger brother Walker is a senior at Evangelical Christian School (ECS) where I graduated from high school, and he is also committed to play for the Tide next year.

So far the Jones brothers have 5 national championship rings between them. Furthermore, Harrison still has two years to play and Walker is just showing up on campus in August of 2013.

My son Wilson and I got to visit with Rex Jones at the halftime of the Arkansas- Alabama game in Fayetteville in September of 2012. Both of his sons were playing a great game that day as the Hogs got slammed 52-0. I am hopeful the Hogs are more competitive in 2013.

It is truly a small world after all. Several years ago my son Wilson met the Luciens at Fellowship Bible Church where we are members. They are a family that live  and serve as missionaries in Hatti,  but they do get to spend a couple of months each year back here in Arkansas. Recently Wilson and several of his friends went to a movie together and Lydia Lucien told Wilson that Barrett Jones has come the last two years to their village in Hatti to help with their mission projects.

Barrett Jones reminds me of Tim Tebow. Jones noted, “I don’t want to be known as a football player who happens to be a Christian, I want to be known as a Christian who happens to play football.”

The Baptist Press reported in April of 2012:
Jones organized and led a team of 31 of his friends and family members on a mission trip to Jinotega, Nicaragua, during his spring break, March 11-16.

The team participated in several nightly revival services at Shalom Baptist Church in Jinotega and visited three public schools and an orphanage. At each location, they gave their personal testimonies, presented the Gospel story and interacted with the children by playing sports and games and simply reflecting God’s love.

The 21-year-old Jones made his priorities in his testimony at the revival service at Shalom Baptist on March 13.

“Tonight, I want to talk to you a little bit about what I’m really passionate about,” he told the crowd, “and that’s not football — it’s Jesus Christ.”

We know that football is a great game, but making differences in people’s lives is even better. I will be pulling for Barrett in the big game of life, but as a Hog fan I hope my Razorbacks give his brothers a tougher battle than we have recently.

Everette Hatcher is a regular contributor to The Saline Courier. He is the fourth generation in his family to work in the broom manufacturing business. Everette and his wife Jill have four children and live in Shannon Hills.

Related posts:

Barrett Jones for Heisman? Part 4

October 18, 2012 – 6:25 am

The secret of Bama’s success is not their great running backs but their great offensive line. Sadly I saw my Hogs get beaten  52-0 to Bama and it seemed that the Tide liked running up the middle behind the center Barrett Jones, and I must say that  Jones is deserving of consideration of the Heisman Trophy. […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)

Link to this photo

Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron celebrates with offensive linesman Barrett Jones as the clock winds down. — Nuccio DiNuzzo, Chicago Tribune, Jan. 7, 2013

Barrett Jones of Alabama Crimson Tide (Part 1 of series “Christians in Athletics”)

September 24, 2011 – 8:21 am

Today I am starting a new series called “Christians in Athletics.”  Barrett Jones grew up under the ministry of Adrian Rogers at Bellevue. Below is a clip from the Memorial Service for Dr. Rogers.   Barrett Jones of Alabama Crimson Tide has spent time the last two years ministering to earthquake victims in Haiti. Actually […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)

Bama’s star lineman Barrett Jones puts ministry first

September 23, 2011 – 3:14 pm

Barrett Jones of Alabama Crimson Tide has spent time the last two years ministering to earthquake victims in Haiti. (Barrett grew up and went to ECS where I graduated and to Bellevue Baptist where I was a member while growing up. Adrian Rogers was the pastor from 1972 to 2004.) Actually I wrote about Barrett’s […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Tagged alabama crimson tide, Arkansas Razorbacks, Barrett Jones, college tradition, crimson tide, earthquake victims, ECS, mud hut | Edit | Comments (0)

Alabama head coach Nick Saban is dunked with Gatorade in the final seconds of the BCS National Championship college football game against Notre Dame Monday, Jan. 7, 2013, in Miami. Alabama won 42-14. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)