Wild Man Blues Review
by "Kevin W. Welch" (kwelch AT mailbag DOT com)February 10th, 1999
Wild Man Blues (1998)
Woody Allen has an interesting job: He makes movies which are, to say the least, interesting. That does not mean that he himself is an especially interesting person.
We see a lot of Woody Allen in Barbara Kopple's documentary about Allen's European jazz tour. Mostly, we see one of three things. There is a lot of footage of the concerts themselves; there is a limited amount of film of the crowds and their reaction; and there is an awful lot of Allen backstage, mostly with Soon Yi Previn.
The concert footage is entertaining up to a point. New Orleans jazz is niche music in America, but I'm willing to believe that it's more popular in Europe, where most forms of traditional American jazz and blues have been better received. Still, I'm not a fan and I honestly can't say how well Allen plays (his instrument is the relatively obscure clarinet). He certainly seems competent, and he should be, given the length of time he's been playing, but I simply have no reference. I also have to admit that by the end the film I'm fairly sick of New Orleans music. This is my fault, but I found the music, and the concerts rather monotonous.
Somewhere in the middle of the film, Wild Man Blues concentrates on the crowds that come out to see Allen's touring unit. They seem large and admiring. I also understand that, like New Orleans jazz, Allen is more popular over there. That's worth knowing; still, these scenes seemed a little too admiring, too hagiographic, too fannish.
Then there is the behind the scenes stuff that occupies most of the movie. Wild Man Blues is the diary of Woody Allen on the road. He is in every scene, mostly with Soon Yi Previn, and he is almost constantly talking. He's pretty much the way you would expect him to be--smart, complaining, a little overwhelmed by everything. The problem is that you almost expect him to launch into shtick, and he never quite does. He's never very funny; instead, he strikes you as stressed out.
The heart of the movie is Soon Yi Previn and Woody Allen, how they get along and what they say to each other. For having such a great difference in ages, they seem like an almost normal couple. If anything, Ms. Previn is the solid emotional anchor of the relationship, the one who makes sure that Allen doesn't fly apart. She reassures him some, and spends a lot of time explaining to him what other people think or what they feel, which seems to mean that Allen himself doesn't have a good grasp on the feelings of the people around him.
But this is about all we get to see of the two. There is remarkably little insight about Allen or his relationship with Ms. Previn here. We learn a few things--music is the love of his life (which is easy for him to say because he doesn't have to make a living doing it), he plays the music he does because that's what he listened to when he was growing up, and he makes the movies he make for similar reasons, because he liked foreign films when he was a kid. Nothing remarkable, really. For the rest, all we see is Allen talking nonstop, making trivial observations, complaining, worrying, just going about his daily life.
The problem is that the documentary style here-the informal camerawork, the behind-the-scenes approach, the interviews-gives the day-to-day stuff a weight that it really doesn't deserve. When you watch a movie like this for 103 minutes, you expect to learn a little about the subject, and you just don't get that. The point of this movie seems to be that you get to watch Woody Allen for an hour and a half.
The questions left unexplored are surprising. There is no sense of what the band members feel about all this. They are largely ciphers, as is Allen's sister, Lefty Aronson, who went along on the tour apparently as some kind of road manager. The movie never explains just why this tour happened. Was it the money? A celebrity vanity project? A chance for Allen to get out of the country and play in front of adoring audiences while picking up a couple of awards?
And I get no sense for why this movie was made. Let's face it; it wasn't for the music, because nobody would make a road diary film about a generic New Orleans band. The movie is about Woody Allen, and yet it really doesn't have much to say about its subject, more than just showing what Allen did for a few interesting weeks in Europe. Wild Man Blues doesn't take a critical enough look at Allen to yield any insights or new knowledge about the man. Given the generally admiring tone of the project (we are reminded many times of Allen's credentials) you wonder whether this was an attempt to rehabilitate the man's reputation, or simply the project of an overly enthusiastic fan.
The end of Wild Man Blues shows Allen with his parents, both of whom are still alive, remarkably. There are a couple of nice bits here--Allen's mother would have preferred that he had met a nice Jewish girl. He spent his adolescence living in his bedroom and she doesn't seem to remember anything special about his musical interests back then. She knew he was smart, but she seems surprised by his success. Still, she doesn't seem to have a handle on her son, either. There's really nothing here, either. Overall, Wild Man Blues is a pleasant but ultimately unnecessary documentary.
Kevin W. Welch
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