Photo credit: Courtesy of the author
Woody Allen is probably the most written about directors in the history of film and surely one of the most talked about. Alex Sheremet takes it a step further. In Reel To Real, he covers all of Allen’s films as works of art – dealing with characters, visuals, framing, music, narrative, and intellectual depths across each and every work and at the same time, making it is an accessible and practical guide to Woody Allen’s movies. The format is called DigiDialogue™ from Take2 Publishing.
“One of the reasons that I decided to do my books in this format,” he told Hollywood on the Potomac, “is that if a publisher is able to afford it they might have a second, third edition depending on whether or not the author has an interest in updating the work; but since I’ve always been out there and engaging with readers, I decided to have the book update perpetually. I know that Woody Allen is not slowing down when it comes to film making. He’s always going to have new material and I’m going to be there to make sure that the book continues to grow with the pace of not only Woody Allen’s output, but also with the conversations that are evolving around him. This way, whenever I update the book, these updates will sync automatically with the purchased copies.”
Alex Sheremet
The project began when Sheremet was approached to do a book on Woody Allen so he did a book of essays; about 400 or so. During the editing process, he realized there was so much on going material that he started adding and adding to it until it was turned into the DigiDialogue format. He was willing to take on a task of this magnitude because there hadn’t been a book written of this size on Woody Allen before – which he found surprising. According to Dan Schneider, noted critic, author and founder of Cosmoetica, “Woody Allen: Reel To Real is a seminal book in film criticism that eschews the lowest common denominator thumbs up/thumbs down approach to film criticism.”
Alex Sheremet
So what does he think about Allen? “As far as a film-maker is concerned, I think he’s definitely one of the greatest. I feel his work is extremely diverse. He’s done just so many different kinds of work across genres, across content, but besides that, the quality has also been fairly brilliant for somebody that produces as much work as he does. As far as the art goes, I would rank him with Bergman and basically all the greats.”
“Personally, he strikes me as being immature. It takes a certain level of immaturity to be unfaithful to his girlfriend and then to marry her adopted daughter. It takes a certain kind of callousness. Unfortunately, people with a lot of fame have a media machine behind them. They have lawyers. They have all sorts of stuff that keeps them in the clear far longer than somebody that would be in another class bracket. The chain of fortune definitely has its perks. I am thinking of possibly addressing the allegations in general in the future,” he added.
Woody Allen with Mariel Hemingway in “Manhattan”
If you were to describe Woody Allen in one or two words what would it be? “Diverse … he’s just a very, very diverse filmmaker, diverse interests, diverse abilities. There’s just not too many people with this sort of range.”
