Writers of fiction strive to create compelling characters who feel real, and managing that almost always requires drawing on your own personality and experiences. Protagonists often end up as thinly-disguised stand ins for the author, and for someone like Woody Allen, who hasn’t gone a full calendar year without putting out a film since 1978 (between Annie Hall and Manhattan) 1981 (between Stardust Memories and A Midsummer’s Night Sex Comedy) it naturally happens quite often. In celebration of Woody Allen’s latest critical darling and legitimate box office hit, Midnight in Paris, our video editor, Oliver Noble has gone through thousands upon thousands of hours (approximately) of footage from past Woody Allen movies and put together this compilation of quasi-fictional stand ins for Woody Allen, showing what Oliver believes to be the central tenets of the Woody Allen persona, the character traits and idiosyncrasies that most often shine through. And Oliver has particularly keen insight into Woody Allen’s mind, being that he is also a Jewish man who has sexual thoughts about his daughter. In fact, we frequently engage in turgid discussions about categorical imperatives.
