Woody Allen is regarded alternately as a cinematic genius with a singular vision, and as a
deeply flawed jackass who can’t make a film without embedding it with his personal
neuroses and eccentricities. Both of these are probably fair assessments of the man. When
Allen, as Alvy Singer, stares into the camera for the opening monologue of Annie Hall and, for a
moment, we are deceived into believing it is the filmmaker and not the character we are hearing
from, we are practically asked to conflate Allen and Singer. Likewise, when the writer Harry Block
in Deconstructing Harry begins hallucinating visits from both past lovers and characters from his
novels, Allen tempts us to believe that he has the same difficulty with boundaries between life and
art. And while that may be true, it obscures the true achievement of Allen’s lifetime of work:
expertly incorporating myriad influences into his fanatical explorations of love, death, and creative
identity.

 

Full essay: http://www.propellermag.com/Fall2012/CraigAllen1Fall12.html