Posted on 12/22/2004 1:52:03 PM PST by schaketo
PARIS - In Woody Allen's America, Bordeaux or Burgundy wine and other things French are always in vogue. But he admits his European sensibility makes his films less popular back home.
Even with trans-Atlantic ties at a low ebb, the French are still seen as standard-bearers of class, elegance and, well, romance among Americans, he said, and the U.S. filmgoing public knows it.
"If you were doing a scene of seduction, and the man gets the woman in a candlelit restaurant, he would never order a California wine - because then everyone would laugh," Allen told reporters in Paris. "It will not be a Portuguese wine, it will just always be French."
"There's a mystique that Americans have about French wine," he said. "Despite any political conflicts America has with France, most Americans have enormous affection for thing French."
France's vocal opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq chilled relations between Paris and Washington, but Allen stopped short of any comment on the soured ties.
The bespectacled filmmaker was in Paris to promote his new film "Melinda and Melinda," which explores both tragedy and comedy through two separate and parallel lives of a young woman - each played by Radha Mitchell - that are the subject of a dinner conversation.
The film gave Allen the chance to dabble in tragedy - admittedly not his strong point. It is to be released next month in France and in the United States in March.
Allen said he liked Michael Moore's anti-Bush film "Fahrenheit 9/11" - which won top prize at the Cannes Film Festival this year - but insisted filmmakers face limits in changing political attitudes.
"I don't think that it made any real difference in the outcome of the election," Allen said of Moore's film. "It's no question that I was disappointed in the outcome of this election."
But "I don't think people see movies and say, 'Well, I'm going to go out there and now I'm going to vote for somebody different,'" Allen said.
Allen's films are wildly popular in countries like France, and he acknowledged that these days his penchant for European culture doesn't win him much favor in America.
"It's not surprising to me that all over, my films have some kind of European sensibility," he said. It "doesn't help their popularity in the United States - but it's unconscious."
If you take out the whining, self-pitying, envious loser Woody Allen plot and just leave in the incomparable Martin Landau, "Crimes and Misdemeanors" is quite watchable.
No Woody it is your weirdo pedophelia that makes you less popular back home. Also you aren't funny, so that doesn't help things much either.
Woody, you are totally out of touch! Do the French make it a habit to marry their stepdaughters too?
It took me a while but I finally got it!
I'll have to admit I never thought of Woody Allen as an arbiter of culture. Last time he seduced anyone it was over a glass of chocolate milk.
Sure thing, Woody. Sure.
Stupid little geeky twerp.
"If you were doing a scene of seduction, and the man gets the woman in a candlelit restaurant, he would never order a California wine - because then everyone would laugh,"
If you were doing ANY scene, and the man gets into a French car, everyone would laugh until they peed themselves.
Curse of the Jade Scorpion
Worldwide: $18,914,307
I don't think Hollywood cares where the money comes from.
"There's a mystique that Americans have about French wine," he said. "Despite any political conflicts America has with France, most Americans have enormous affection for thing French."
I'm surprised Woody has turned into such a geezer. I'm not so young myself but the quote above is surely the senior citizen appraisal of French wine.
Among today's wine lovers, French means uncertain quality and a stubborn refusal to change with the times. Sort of like Woody's work in the last couple of decades.
I just went tasting in Sonoma and the Silverado Trail in Napa a few weekends ago--the wine was incredible.
Have you been to Paso Robles yet?
"And I will not have to refer to my French fried potatoes as freedom fries and I will not have to freedom kiss my wife when all I want to do is French kiss her. So let's pull together now," he says.
$18M worldwide is still disasterous. Just the shooting cost $33M. Distribution prolly another $20 in the US alone. And the production only takes about 1/2 the gross. So you're looking at a $9M return on a $53M outlay, not even counting global distribution and marketing costs.
Wow...that list made me realize I hadn't seen a Woody Allen movie in a theater since 1989: Crimes and Misdemeanors. Hmmm...looks like that was the last OK movie he ever made, as well. And I haven't seen a video version of any of his films since 1995: Mighty Aphrodite. What can I say -- I liked his "earlier, funnier" stuff better.
Actually, France is seen increasingly like an old whore with one tooth left. Her more interesting days are long gone.
She used to be those things. Now the essence of France is body odor, snobbishness, anti-Americanism, and dead oldsters in August.
I'm not arguing your other points. Just the total gross is more accurate for the discussion at hand.
Merry Christmas.
>> I'm not arguing your other points. Just the total gross is more accurate for the discussion at hand. <<
Not really. Worldwide gross brings in all sorts of extra costs to a film; it has to be distributed, lisecnced and marketed in each country. The rule of thumb for a successful movie is B.O. Gross> production costs, so that's what I showed. But when you analyze further, the movie shows itself to be an even bigger money-loser than the rule of thumb suggests. (Mainly because although it was relatively cheap to produce, it was promoted as heavily as big-budget movies.)
And to you. Nice to freep you again!
I defer to your interest in the accounting procedures of the major studios. Most of the rest of us just want to know how much was spent on the movie and how much did it make. You said the movie made 7. It made 18. So I inferred that your list was just domestic and my intent was to point that out so folks would have a more accurate perspective.
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