Note: I promised this yesterday and then must have clicked the wrong button as it has been sitting in my draft pile ever since.
Below is what is, for me, the ultimate Woody Allen movie scene. It's from Manhattan and it's a conversation between Isaac (as played by Woody) and Yale (as played by Michael Murphy).
The set up is complex. Both men have been considerably less than honourable in their dealings with women. But the immediately relevant detail you need to know to understand this scene is that Isaac has been in a relationship with Yale's ex-mistress and he has just learned that she and Yale saw one another secretly and now she is going back to Yale. Isaac goes to see his friend full of moral certainty. He has been wronged and he means call his friend on it. You can see the sense of conviction on his face as he walks to meet Yale in the opening moments.
It doesn't quite work out as he imagined:
What goes wrong?
The key moment is when Isaac points at the skeleton of the early hominid. "One day we're going to be like him," he says. No one actually says "So what!" but that is only because no one has to.
Isaac trots out a whole lot of moral arguments but none of them lead anywhere. They can't because he and Yale live in a world where there is no difference between moral argument and moral manipulation. They both feel their moral decisions are purely private and the business of nobody else.
But, and this is the crucial thing, they have an active interest in trying to sway other people's moral decisions. At the very least they have an interest in trying to stop other people from hurting them. Beyond that they have an interest in convincing others to get along with them and even to fall in love with them. They all use moral arguments relentlessly and with great virtuosity to achieve these ends.
But they accept no objective moral standards as applying to themselves. And thus the break down. All Isaac can do is try and shame Yale into surrendering. When he points at the skeleton it's because he hits the end of his ability to manipulate. He has nothing left.
When first I saw this movie we all thought Woody was making fun of Isaac and Yale. That he was saying, look at these empty people. As his subsequent life has demonstrated, it turns out that Woody really is Isaac. It's not a parody.
You can see that quite clearly in the movie Crimes and Misdemeanors mentioned in the comments Wednesday. Again, the lead character, Judah* Rosenthal as played by Martin Landau, is a virtuoso with moral arguments but, again, he can also talk himself into doing whatever he wants, up to and including having someone killed, because he accepts no objective standards as applying to himself. This time Judah talks himself not into an affair with a seventeen-year-old but into taking a hit out on a troublesome mistress.
He feels guilty for a while but ultimately he gets over it. And that is how it ends. See, Woody tells us, there really aren't any objective moral standards. Morality is whatever you can make work. Conscience is only the fear of getting caught. Once that fear is removed, there is nothing.
Nothing being the point. It's nihilism pure and simple.
* Woody's choice of the names Isaac and Judah can not be accidental here nor can it be an accident that Isaac's friend in Manhattan has the same name as an establishment university.
Below is what is, for me, the ultimate Woody Allen movie scene. It's from Manhattan and it's a conversation between Isaac (as played by Woody) and Yale (as played by Michael Murphy).
The set up is complex. Both men have been considerably less than honourable in their dealings with women. But the immediately relevant detail you need to know to understand this scene is that Isaac has been in a relationship with Yale's ex-mistress and he has just learned that she and Yale saw one another secretly and now she is going back to Yale. Isaac goes to see his friend full of moral certainty. He has been wronged and he means call his friend on it. You can see the sense of conviction on his face as he walks to meet Yale in the opening moments.
It doesn't quite work out as he imagined:
What goes wrong?
The key moment is when Isaac points at the skeleton of the early hominid. "One day we're going to be like him," he says. No one actually says "So what!" but that is only because no one has to.
Isaac trots out a whole lot of moral arguments but none of them lead anywhere. They can't because he and Yale live in a world where there is no difference between moral argument and moral manipulation. They both feel their moral decisions are purely private and the business of nobody else.
But, and this is the crucial thing, they have an active interest in trying to sway other people's moral decisions. At the very least they have an interest in trying to stop other people from hurting them. Beyond that they have an interest in convincing others to get along with them and even to fall in love with them. They all use moral arguments relentlessly and with great virtuosity to achieve these ends.
But they accept no objective moral standards as applying to themselves. And thus the break down. All Isaac can do is try and shame Yale into surrendering. When he points at the skeleton it's because he hits the end of his ability to manipulate. He has nothing left.
When first I saw this movie we all thought Woody was making fun of Isaac and Yale. That he was saying, look at these empty people. As his subsequent life has demonstrated, it turns out that Woody really is Isaac. It's not a parody.
You can see that quite clearly in the movie Crimes and Misdemeanors mentioned in the comments Wednesday. Again, the lead character, Judah* Rosenthal as played by Martin Landau, is a virtuoso with moral arguments but, again, he can also talk himself into doing whatever he wants, up to and including having someone killed, because he accepts no objective standards as applying to himself. This time Judah talks himself not into an affair with a seventeen-year-old but into taking a hit out on a troublesome mistress.
He feels guilty for a while but ultimately he gets over it. And that is how it ends. See, Woody tells us, there really aren't any objective moral standards. Morality is whatever you can make work. Conscience is only the fear of getting caught. Once that fear is removed, there is nothing.
Nothing being the point. It's nihilism pure and simple.
* Woody's choice of the names Isaac and Judah can not be accidental here nor can it be an accident that Isaac's friend in Manhattan has the same name as an establishment university.
I agree with you. Morality today is for the most part whatever people convince themselves is right based on what they happen to want or be of some short-term benefit to them, and what they can get away with. And conscience is the fear of getting caught--when Bill Clinton and the Catholic priests and bishops said they were sorry, they meant they were sorry they got caught. When it first came out, I too thought Manhattan was a parody and as you say, the subsequent events of Allen's life indicate that it was not. Not unrelated, that movie could not be made today--16 y.o. girl/40 y.o. man, would not fly at all. The objective moral standard has changed from what is "right" to what is "appropriate." There shouldn't be a difference but somehow there is. I think it has to do with morality as pragmatism.
ReplyDeleteI think that any moral system has to be pragmatic to some degree. To say that one ought to do something implies that one is able to do it: I ought to save someone from a burning building (the caveat is if I am able to). However, the new morality places pragmatism--to the nth degree--at the top of the list. Decide what you want or what is beneficial to you and do whatever it takes to get it. If something gets in the way, get rid of it, but don't ever lose sight of your goal or you're doomed, a failure, a washout, not serious about anything.
ReplyDeleteI feel like Woody Allen's comedies and dramas aren't that different from each other. His last movie was "Whatever Works," but sometimes the only thing that "works" is shooting Scarlett Johansson in the face.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen "Whatever Works" but I would agree that his comedies and dramas aren't that much different from one another. Even the comedies have some kind of moral theme or sub-plot.
ReplyDeleteBobinCT wrote:
ReplyDelete"I think that any moral system has to be pragmatic to some degree."
Yup. Although people have tried non-pragmatic morality.
Gaius said:
"I feel like Woody Allen's comedies and dramas aren't that different from each other."
He has really started to repeat himself lately. The similarities between Crimes and Misdemeanors and Match Point are quite stunning.
It must be quite awful to be Woody Allen though. If you really believed what he did at his point in life would be like that line from Old Man River: "Tired of living and scared of dying."
I should say that I think Broadway Danny Rose and Radio Days are both good movies. Manhattan is not bad if you can forget how eerily prescient it was in predicting Woody's own moral decline. If you can't, it's a very creepy experience.
I don't think I've seen any of Woody's recent movies. If he has started to repeat himself, then I guess I haven't missed anything. Although I would like to see Match Point to compare it to Crimes and Misdemeanors. Maybe its time for him to retire, I guess he can't come back to CT!
ReplyDeleteI thought Broadway Danny Rose and Radio Days were good movies, also Bullets Over Broadway (I laughed so hard at some of the lines it hurt). Annie Hall is kind of the iconic Woody Allen movie of my generation, maybe a parody of it. Manhattan is creepy to watch today irrespective of Woody's personal decline. Our sensibilities have changed so much regarding "age-appropriate" sexual relationships. But it does have great music.
There doesn't seem to be any point to non-pragmatic morality. I guess it depends on how one defines pragmatic in those contexts, it seems to me there always has to be some "greater good" that justifies whatever the system happens to be.