Woody Allen – when Satchel (alias Ronan) was 12 years old

March 22, 2021 132 Comments


                             September 1999 By Philip Berk

Mia Farrow has been married to three of the most famous men of the century. Frank Sinatra, conductor Andre Previn, and Woody Allen. At her press conference last October, she talked about the first two with great affection but refused to even mention Woody’s name. Obviously she hasn’t forgiven him for walking out on her and running off (later marrying) her daughter Soon Yi. She even changed the name of their child. (Woody’s only off spring.) He was christened Satchel. He is now known as Seamus. Even though she has twelve children, two from Andre, the rest adopted, only Woody’s is a certified genius. I asked her about him. Is it true he’s only eleven years old and already int college?

“Yeah,” was her answer, he’s in college. He’s just a prodigy, a phenomenal child. He’s a great reader, a great thinker, and academically off the charts, right off the curve. It’s amazing. He wants to be a microbiologist or an astrophysicist in genetics. He wants to go into genetics and find a cure for cancer. He’s very idealistic and a very good child, a wonderful little boy.”

Now it was Woody’s turn.

Q: I UNDERSTAND THAT YOUR SON SATCHEL IS A GENIUS AND YOUR FATHER WILL BE A HUNDRED YEARS OLD THIS YEAR.

A: He will be a hundred not this December but next December. 

Q: HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT THE GENETICS OF THOSE TWO PEOPLE AND IN PARTICULAR YOUR SON. ARE THERE OTHER GENIUSES BESIDES YOURSELF IN YOUR FAMILY HISTORY?

A: Well, you have to remember this.  Mia is very smart and she comes from avery smart family. Her father (director John Farrow) was very bright and she herself is very, very bright so I contributed what I contributed and she contributed an awful lot to that.  She is a very, very bright woman, and also you get a little good luck along the way.  Evolution tends to move upward.  It tends to go up, so that is a great thing.  To me longevity is more important than genius because if you’re a genius and you die young or something, it doesn’t count for much,  so to me the luckiest thing in my life, I mean, I’m thrilled for my son, and I hope the fact that he is so bright leads him down a good road. That he is a genius is not necessarily a guarantee of anything. What is important is his character and how he utilizes that kind of gift. But with my parents, my mother will be ninety-five this year and my father will be a hundred next year.This to me is a piece of presumable good luck.  But again, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything for me, but it is a wonderful piece of luck to have. It is like I’m standing and all around me the bombs are hitting. I mean, my father and mother are very lucky.  My son is lucky.  I hope that I inherit some of this from both of them.

Q: SWEET AND LOWDOWN IS REALLY A TRIBUTE TO DJANGO REINHARDT. COULD YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM AND WHEN YOU FIRST BECAME AWARE OF HIM AND WHY YOU CHOSE HIM TO BE THE FOCUS?

A: Well, when I was about fifteen-years-old, I became interested in jazz. 

This was from hearing a jazz recording on radio. I had heard jazz intermittently before that but never in any concentrated way. I had heard a half-hour jazz concert at that time by Sidney Bechet from Paris and I became very interested in it and gradually my interest in jazz widened to include a great many musicians from the New Orleans idiom and inevitably that leads one to discovering Django Reinhardt because he was the one European musician who was at the minimum the equal of the greatest of the American jazz musicians. So as soon as I heard him,

I was a teenager still, it was an astonishing experience for me as it has been for millions of people. I became fascinated with him. 

Q: OF ALL THE FILMS YOU’VE MADE,THIS ONE RESONATES ON SUCH A PERSONAL LEVEL.    MUSIC AND JAZZ ARE SO IMPORTANT TO YOU. HOW DIFFERENT WAS IT MAKING A FILM LIKE THIS? WAS MUSIC ALWAYS ON THE SET?

A: Yes, the most pleasurable part of any movie for me is at the end when I

get to add the music, because I always make the film and then cut it, and then when it is done I go into my room with all my records — I still have all my long playing records — and I pick out the music and drop it in in spots and if something doesn’t work out, I take it out and try another one, and that is always the most pleasurable moment for me.  On this movie, since it was about music, it was a great pleasure. It was just a joy.

Q: THE NEW YORK POST ACCUSED YOU OF BORROWING TOO FREELY FROM FELLINI IN THIS MOVIE.  DO YOU HAVE ANY COMMENT?

A: You must remember, the Post doesn’t like me because I’m on a different end of the political spectrum than the Post, but it never would have occurred to me. I don’t know that Fellini ever did a jazz movie.  

Q: THEY MENTION LA STRADA?

A: I don’t see it.  I mean, I wanted to do a movie about Django Reinhardt and someone who idolized him, and I don’t see any connection whatsoever, but I feel if someone doesn’t like me, they can always find some reason to print something negative but it was not on my mind in any way whatsoever. I wanted to do a movie about a fictional jazz musician, and I don’t see that as connecting to any other movie that I know of or anyone.

Q: IN THIS STAGE OF YOUR CAREER YOU ARE HAPPILY MARRIED WITH A NEW BABY, HAS IT CHANGED YOUR APPROACH TO MOVIE MAKING?

A:  Not really.  Moviemaking is much less glamorous and much less controlled

than people think. When I finished SWEET AND LOWDOWN, I wanted to do a jazz story.  I had an idea for one and then when that was finished I just was sitting in a room and a funny story occurred to me about a bank robbery, and so I made that movie, and now I’ve finished that I’m thinking of the next movie and whatever idea comes to me is what I’ll make.  There is no real preconceived attitude toward it.  If a murder mystery occurs to me or a political picture or anything that is funny, or another jazz movie, whatever, that is what I would do.

Q: YOUR PERSONAL FEELINGS, YOUR PERSONAL HAPPINESS, YOUR PERSONAL EMOTIONS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT? 

A:Consciously not. It is possible that unconsciously when I’m feeling low or down for some reason, I try and do a funny movie because in some therapeutic way for six or eight months I’m working in an atmosphere every day that is funny and lively and full of jokes and full of good spirit. On the other hand if I’m feeling in a very up and happy mood, I might try and make a serious movie because the exhilaration and the happiness that I’m feeling gives me the confidence to make a movie in an area that I’m not as proficient in.

Q: WHAT CAN HE SAY ABOUT THE MOVIE YOU JUST DID WITH SHARON STONE?

A: Oh, well, there I just acted in somebody’s movie.That is a movie I haven’t seen and know very little about other than I came out to California for three weeks and acted in it. People think that I get inundated with offers to act in movies but I don’t and I never have, and so when someone offers me a job to act in a movie, I’ve always taken it.  When I was offered THE FRONT, when I was offered SCENES FROM A MALL, and now I was offered this part in PICKING UP THE PIECES and it was only three weeks work.I was happy and looking forward to doing it, and I did it.  I have no idea what the movie will be like when it comes out but it was fun to do.

Q: WAS IT A FUN WORKING AGAIN WITH SHARON STONE. HER FIRST ROLE WAS IN ONE OF YOUR EARLIER MOVIES STARDUST MEMORIES?

A: Well, it is fun to work with her.  She is  such a beautiful woman, but I worked very little with her in the movie, maybe two days. I worked more with other people, but with Sharon very, very briefly.

Q: YOU DIDN’T KISS HER IN THE FILM?

A: No, I killed her.  I did.  That was our relationship.

Q: HOW WILL HE CELEBRATE YOUR BIRTHDAY, HANNUKAH, AND THE MILLENNIUM?

A: In descending order.  My birthday was always for me very depressing because I just turned sixty-four and it seems to me just yesterday I was sixteen-years-old and writing for my first television show and people were saying, “You got to see this kid. He’s sixteen-years-old and he can write funny things.”  I always think of myself that way, but it is not so.  Next year I will qualify for Social Security and a half-price pass at the movies, so I always get depressed on my birthday.  Hanukkah and the Christmas season I never really celebrate.  I mean, I get presents for people close to me but inevitably I’m traveling at that time of year.  I’m always in Europe and generally going from country to country and, you know, I’ve experienced these holidays on the run in hotel rooms. So it hasn’t been a big tradition in my life.  The millennium is also to me, again, a little depressing because it is an awesome thought that we’re moving into 2000.  I remember, again as a child, speculating about, you think, my God that is off in the unimaginable future and you’ll never live to see it. It’s a mythological thing and then it’s here and you have to sign your checks 2000 on the top. So you can see that anything that gives me a sense of the passage of time and the awesomeness of the universal process always makes me depressed and forlorn. I can’t help it.

Q: HAS HIS PERCEPTION OF HUMOR CHANGED OVER THE YEARS

A: It’s always been the same. Even as a little child and I don’t say this in any bragging way or to be self-aggrandizing, I always had an appreciation of sophisticated material. Even as a little child, I was never a fan of the Three Stooges.  I was never really crazy about Laurel and Hardy.  You know, I never liked that kind of humor. I was much more interested in either The Marx Brothers or some of Ernst Lubitsch films, and to this day I feel the same way.  I generally appreciate sophisticated comedy the most and don’t have a very big tolerance, personal tolerance, for broad comedy. So my sense of humor hasn’t really changed at all.  It is the same. I still find Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw the best of all English comedies, and Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward the best, and the film of Preston Sturges (Unfaithfully Yours) with Rex Harrison and Linda Darnell the best comedy.  It is just my own personal taste and, of course, the Lubitsch films SHOP AROUND THE CORNER and TROUBLE IN PARADISE, those sort of elegant movies.  I’m not saying I can do them, but as a fan those are my favorites.

Q: BEING MARRIED TO SOON YI, IS HE FOND OF ASIAN FOOD?

A: Asian food?  I eat Asian food a lot.  Those of us who live in New York and who have grown up in New York have had a great tradition of eating mostly Chinese and then Japanese food.  I’m married to a Korean so over the last ten years I’ve been introduced to Korean food. But in Manhattan, in fact all the boroughs in New York City, there has always been a great, great tradition of Asian food and it is always been a great delicacy.

Q: DO YOU COOK?

A: I can’t cook. I took a few cooking lessons years ago. I wanted to become a good cook and I didn’t want to just be a mediocre cook, I wanted to be the kind of cook that if I was home by myself I could make French duck and a souffle; so I took some lessons. I was much younger. I mean, I was in my forties and at that time I was playing tennis three times a week, four times a week. I had always been athletic and that is why I stopped, I was so exhausted from trying to cook that it was worse than when I came home from the tennis. I played tennis for hours and I’d be fine, but cooking — cutting and paring and dicing things — I just couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t sustain it so I stopped.  

Q: SEEING YOU HERE REMINDS ME OF A QUOTE FROM ONE OF YOUR EARLY MOVIES SLEEPER WHERE YOU’RE ASKED HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE ASLEEP FOR TWO HUNDRED YEARS AND YOU ANSWER, “IT’S LIKE A WEEKEND IN BEVERLY HILLS.” YOU ARE NOW IN BEVERLY HILLS SO HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT IT AND WHAT DO YOU FEEL ABOUT HOLLYWOOD THESE DAYS?

A: Well, I’m here for a couple of days. They’re opening my film tonight and when you make a film the people that make the film, myself included, always have a tendency to hide after they make the film.  But the company that distributes it and puts up all the money says “Please, you know, we won’t make you do a million things but do a few things, please, because, you know,” so this was one of the things they asked me to do, to come out here and go to that, the premiere at the Academy so I will go. I probably won’t stay for the movie.  I mean, I’ll go there and say hello and then when the lights go down, I’ll probably leave and then come to the party afterwards because it would be very painful for me to sit through any of my movies, with an audience under those circumstances. That would be hard. It just would embarrass me. It is difficult. Some people might enjoy it, I don’t know.  But I’m trying to help as much as I can the people that pay for the movie within the limits of my limitations.  My wife however loves to

come here.  She loves it because she comes here and it gives her a chance to shop at a different venue and so, you know, it is a big treat for her to come to California. She loves it, and so if she likes it, that is also pleasurable for me.

ONE LOOKS AT YOUR CAREER IN THE CONTEXT OF THE AMERICAN FILM INDUSTRY, AND IT IS REALLY EXTRAORDINARY THE WAY THAT YOU WORK, THE CONTROL THAT YOU HAVE OVER YOUR WORK AND EVEN THOUGH YOUR FILMS HAVE NOT BEEN THESE BLOCKBUSTERS, YOU HAVE AN AUDIENCE THAT IS VERY LOYAL TO YOU. IS THIS THE IDEAL WAY FOR YOU TO WORK?

ARE YOU TOTALLY HAPPY WITH THIS?  WOULD YOU LIKE TO HAVE A BLOCKBUSTER?

A: Well, it’s  a very good question.  It is a very good way of working and I am very happy.  I would love  to have a film or any of my films  reach a wide public, but I would never do anything to make that happen. I would never sit home and think do not do this idea because it will not reach a big public or do

this idea because everyone will like it. I make the films that I want to make and I hope that one day I will get lucky and there will be a big audience.  This has not happened to me.  I’m now sixty-four-years-old. It has not happened to me. I’ve made almost 30 films, and I’ve had some hits bigger than others but very few of those, but as long as there is enough audience all over the world for it and nobody gets hurt too much financially, then I’m able to function and it makes me very happy. I’m one of the few film-makers that has this great luck to be able to make a film about any subject I like.  Nobody says don’t do it.  I could cast all famous stars or no stars at all and nobody says, please put a big star in it. So it is a great position to be in. I’ve often said this.  The only thing standing between me and greatness is me. There is no excuse for me not to be the greatest film-maker in the world because I can do whatever I want and the only reason that I’m not is because I can’t.  

Q: HOW DO YOU HANDLE NEGATIVE CRITICISM?

A: I don’t read it.  One of the defense mechanisms that I have is to be like an ostrich and it has worked very well for me.  It has certain drawbacks definitely. You pay a certain price for it, but it also has certain advantages and years and years ago, many years ago, I realized, if I just work,if I  don’t read about myself, don’t listen to people who want to say oh, he is such a genius or he is such an idiot, if I just work and forget about that. forget about how much money you make, forget about all that because none of  it is important. I’d be better off.  The only important thing is to try and do good work and in the long run reality will take care of itself.  If I make good films no matter what they say about them, they will be meaningful to people, and if I make poor films, they will deservedly fall away and be forgotten. So that is what I do. I really don’t ever read anything so I don’t ever know, and even when people say to me, friends will sometimes say,”We got such a wonderful thing written about this film in this magazine or this newspaper,” I never read it. I never do. I would prefer that they don’t tell me because all of these things, they’re superficial distractions from what is important.  What is important is the work, not what this person thinks of it or how much money it makes or how much money it doesn’t make. It’s been a very good discipline for me.

ARE YOU STILL PLAYING CLARINET ONE NIGHT A WEEK?

Yes, at the Carlyle Hotel in New York.  We’ve been there for a few years now.

A: ARE YOU EVER CONCERNED THAT AS A FILMMAKER YOU MIGHT BE REPEATING YOURSELF, AND HOW DO YOU AVOID THAT?

A: Well, sometimes I don’t avoid it.  I try to avoid it if I’m aware of it. I change what I’m writing or I change what I’m filming but, you know, I have many ideas.  I’ve just been very lucky that way.  I have not been one of those writers that is intimidated by a blank page. When I buy a packet of paper at the store, a big packet of paper, I feel like Picasso.  He would see a blank space and he had to fill it up.  I feel I can’t wait to fill them all up.  I have many ideas and I write them and usually I can remember when I’m duplicating myself and sometimes I don’t.  Sometimes I make a mistake and will duplicate something I’ve done before or some idea will be quite similar to something I’ve done in the past, and then I pay the price.

Q: WHERE DO YOU THINK CINEMA IS GOING IN THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE, IN THE NEXT CENTURY?

A: Very hard to know.  I think that there will always be a certain amount of people like in any profession , whether it’s dentists or teachers or film directors, those people will continue to make good movies, will continue to make interesting movies, personal movies and meaningful movies and the restof cinema will be where it always has been. There’s always been a mad race for earning money and commerciality, and that is what most of the movie business is.  It’s people who are trying to figure out how to make money and anticipate trends.  They try and cash in on what made money last year and they basically make up most of the cinema, but then there are those people that are sincere who will continue to function so you’ll get I think the same percentage of fine movies now and in the future as you got in the 20’s or 30’s or 40’s so the situation only changes cosmetically but not at its core.

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