Q: Is life, essentially, comic or tragic?

Emma Brockes Tuesday December 20, 2005

Guardian

Woody Allen has been playing himself for so many years now that one wonders if his personality might, at some stage, actually run out. He admits that when he is filming he grows tired of his image and, for the past few years, audiences have tired of it too. But when asked if he worries whether he might, one day, stop being funny he says, "Well, no. Because if I wake up, I'm going to be funny, because it's me. It's not that I put on a thing to do it; I wake up in the morning and I can write. I roll out of bed and I can write; I can write - that's what I do, that's me. So it would have to be a complete personality change for that to happen."

Allen at 70 looks little different to the young man who appeared in Play It Again, Sam in 1972. His agelessness is often remarked upon and it is curious; the pale, unlined face is soft-looking, like moleskin, and the eyes are wide, in the way of all creatures who spend too much time straining to see through the dark. On the evidence of our interview, Allen's public persona is a barely exaggerated version of his private self; he really does whine; he really does see the world as a tragic place; he really is amused, in a ghoulish way, by the suspension of disbelief that allows people to function in the face of their own mortality. You either like him for this or you don't; if you do (I do), then the shtick is enough to make even in the slightest of his films a joy; if you don't, he is simply horrid.

Even so, for the past decade, ever since the triumph of Bullets Over Broadway (it was nominated for eight Oscars and won one), Woody Allen films have been a little samey, have looked a little tired, which is why his new production, Match Point, benefits greatly from the fact that he is not in it. It is the first film he has shot in London and it is big and long and serious, something the audience is tipped off about early on when the lead character, played by Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, is filmed casually reading Crime and Punishment (Allen says the book "puts my movie to shame"). Although the title sounds like a made-for-TV movie, this is Allen as the sort of film-maker he has always admired, but rather defensively sent up. It tackles big, Greek themes, with a classical score, beautifully shot and shockingly concluded. The film revisits the age-old debate of character versus fate, faith versus self-determination and above all, luck; at what stage does a series of bad line calls constitute a destiny?

"I had an idea about wanting to do something about the role that luck plays in life," he says, "and that we're all terrified to face up to that. Everyone wants to think that they, you know, control their lives, or at least have some control. You like to think, you know, well, if I exercise and eat right and don't smoke, I'm going to ... But that doesn't do it. And no amount of planning can account for the big part that luck plays. I wanted to write a story that would illustrate that."

Is he lucky? Yes, he says; he must be, in some way, merely by virtue of the fact that he is successful.

"People are often not honest about it, but the truth of the matter is that you are very dependent on ... You know, when I started in show business, there were guys and girls who were as talented as me or more; and you know, one died in a plane crash. You know ... what can you ... you need luck. It's a very, very important part of your life, and you don't acknowledge that."

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