Self-deprecating Jewish Humor: Ill Effects?

[robertoart]

Not that I know of. It was re- link in post 173.

[Pete C]

Oh. I thought Hugh paid to be deprecated by others.

[robertoart]

Oh. I thought Hugh paid to be deprecated by others.

Yes, but he was very self deprecating about it.

[Pete C]

“It isn’t race which makes a Jew, it’s life!” - Italo Svevo

[cih]

I use ironic self deprecation to appear confident - women hate me for it.

[Tim McG]

Lewis is a 80+ year-old professional shlmazel. Long may he reign!

That was awesome, FassTrack

“It isn’t race which makes a Jew, it’s life!” - Italo Svevo

In my experience [having been raised in a Jewish/Catholic neighborhood around the corner from the local synagogue], this is spot on.

[JSngry]

I use ironic self deprecation to appear confident - women hate me for it.

How do you know that they're not just acting like they hate it to make you want them all that much more?

[fasstrack]

Thank Jerry-and his multiple heart attacks amassed doing numerous pratfall sight gags. Stella Stevens said he had one before her eyes after climbing a steep stairway in a scene. So call the man an egotistical asshole (he once told a VV reporter he granted an interview 'if you make me look bad I will hurt you') but never say he's not a trouper.

[JSngry]

Although I think it's overstated by a good amount, I've actually agreed with the "Jerry Lewis is a genius" thing at root. The guy gets timing like very few others, and not just in terms of payoffs. His extended setups unfold impeccably on their own, and the sheer appearance of his props are always where they need to be to get the groove started, like how Morris Day and The Time hooked you in just by looking at them, before anybody even moved or made a sound. The gag started at first subconscious sight, even before your mind had time to process the information. Jerry Lewis is/was like that as well.

Is his humor "imbecilic"? Sure, and it's quite often not particularly "funny". But that's only if you think about it, and some things are better if you don't think about them, at least not right away.

[Valeria Victrix]

How about some respect for perhaps the greatest self deprecating Jewish comedian of them all - Woody Allen? His early stuff - I include his stand up, his immortal prose (Without Feathers, Side Effects and Getting Even) and his early films such as Bananas, Take The Money And Run (which has some of the most deliriously funny slapstick/sight gags I've ever seen), Sleeper are one all just stone cold gassers.

Edited August 14, 2012 by Valeria Victrix

[fasstrack]

You mean WithOUT Feathers.

[Valeria Victrix]

You mean WithOUT Feathers.

I do beg your pardon! Thanks for the heads up. I take it that you're a fan yourself? Any particular favourites?

[robertoart]

Old Jerry's got a real Mobster schtick going on in real life.

Yuk.

All Woody's early-ish films are cackfests. Apart from 'the usual', my favourite is Zelig. I also enjoyed The Front very much as well.

Edited August 14, 2012 by freelancer

[TedR]

Enjoyed all Woody's books and standup too. ("If it wasn't for that bullet in my pocket, that Bible would have gone right through me".) Through him I became a fan of S J Perlman and PG Woodhouse. I believe Woody was also an admirer of Bob Hope's movies.

[Pete C]

I believe Woody was also an admirer of Bob Hope's movies.

Yeah, some years ago either Sarris or Canby wrote a piece about how his timing and reactions are straight out of Hope. I think Hope's classic from Paleface (or Son of Paleface) where he orders a glass of milk, is about to be lynched, then says "in a dirty glass" and gets back pats from everybody anticipates Allen.

Edited August 14, 2012 by Pete C

[JSngry]

Anybody remember the SCTV episode where Allen decided to cast Hope in one of his films and then...things happened? Rick Moranis as Woody, Dave Thomas as Hope.

[fasstrack]

Any particular favorites? 'The earlier, FUNNY ones'. And Crimes and Misdemeanors. There's a book by Richard Shickele (sp?) Woody Allen on Film-or something close to that. The closing chapter is a long and revealing interview. He talks in depth of his love of Hope and how his character is basically Bob Hope, just not as good (speaking of self deprecation). He also expresses great admiration for Chaplin (the model for the Sleeper 'bot), (Buster) Keaton-though none fos Harold Lloyd.

[Larry Kart]

A capsule review by Dave Kehr of "Stardust Memories" that touches upon some of the many reasons I dislike Allen and most of his stuff:

"A drab, crowded, ugly film by Woody Allen. Meant to be a confessional in the style of 8 1/2, this 1980 feature is more or less a steady stream of bile: Allen plays a famous film director who hates his movies, hates his audiences, and hates himself. During a seminar at a Jersey shore resort, his life passes before his eyes; the scenes center on his bumbling relationships with what has become the standard Allen complement of three women: the dark (Charlotte Rampling), the fair (Marie-Christine Barrault), and the lesbian (Jessica Harper). Allen is working his camera more, though his visual coups mainly consist of more self-conscious ways of creating the claustrophobia that has always ruled his work. With its blunt, artless angst, the picture leaves you feeling depleted, squashed."

I particularly dislike "The Purple Rose of Cairo" and except for a few set pieces don't care much for the early movies (among Allen's chief flaws as a directer IMO is that he not only often sacrifices dramatic versimilitude for the momentary gag but that the gags also are typically verbal, and airlessly, "smartly" verbal at that). The only Allen film that got to me some was "Annie Hall," and that I think may have been because Dianne Keaton herself momentarily got to Allen -- penetrated his at once smug and fearful isolation -- though I suppose that's more or less the subject of the movie: how does a dick like Woody Allen react when that happens to him. That recent "Paris" movie made me want to thrown things at the screen.

[Pete C]

I particularly dislike "The Purple Rose of Cairo"

Yeah, but part of it was shot in the movie theater of my childhood, the Kent, at Coney Island Avenue & Avenue H. That should count for something. Still, I'll take The White Sheik any day.

[robertoart]

A capsule review by Dave Kehr of "Stardust Memories" that touches upon some of the many reasons I dislike Allen and most of his stuff:

"A drab, crowded, ugly film by Woody Allen. Meant to be a confessional in the style of 8 1/2, this 1980 feature is more or less a steady stream of bile: Allen plays a famous film director who hates his movies, hates his audiences, and hates himself. During a seminar at a Jersey shore resort, his life passes before his eyes; the scenes center on his bumbling relationships with what has become the standard Allen complement of three women: the dark (Charlotte Rampling), the fair (Marie-Christine Barrault), and the lesbian (Jessica Harper). Allen is working his camera more, though his visual coups mainly consist of more self-conscious ways of creating the claustrophobia that has always ruled his work. With its blunt, artless angst, the picture leaves you feeling depleted, squashed."

I particularly dislike "The Purple Rose of Cairo" and except for a few set pieces don't care much for the early movies (among Allen's chief flaws as a directer IMO is that he not only often sacrifices dramatic versimilitude for the momentary gag but that the gags also are typically verbal, and airlessly, "smartly" verbal at that). The only Allen film that got to me some was "Annie Hall," and that I think may have been because Dianne Keaton herself momentarily got to Allen -- penetrated his at once smug and fearful isolation -- though I suppose that's more or less the subject of the movie: how does a dick like Woody Allen react when that happens to him. That recent "Paris" movie made me want to thrown things at the screen.

That's what I like about the early films, they're just absurdist set-ups for situational humour. Kinda like if a more proactive and animated Chauncey Gardener from Being There pulled a bank heist. Or became an accidental revolutionary. I really disliked the Paris movie as well. It resembled to me the kind of Romantic bed-time story 'Woody Allen' might trot out to a seventeen year old Mariel Hemingway type. And I disliked it more because everyone else seemed to like it so much.

Edited August 14, 2012 by freelancer

[JSngry]

That recent "Paris" movie made me want to thrown things at the screen.

I've never been in the audience to see a Woody Allen film showing to a "black audience", and don't know if I would have ever had the opportunity to have done so.

But if there has been, I would like to experience it. I have the feeling that there's a Comedic Meditation On The Human Condition to be had that would easily equal anythiing that Allen could do his own self-depreciating self.

[fasstrack]

The Kent! I saw at least one Allen premiere there. Also a wacky comedy about, Scout's Honor, a Gentile in hiding disguised as a rabbi! I think Randy Newman had me and Pete in mind in Good Old Boys when he sang 'I saw Lester Maddox... on TV by a New York Jew'

[Larry Kart]

A capsule review by Dave Kehr of "Stardust Memories" that touches upon some of the many reasons I dislike Allen and most of his stuff:

"A drab, crowded, ugly film by Woody Allen. Meant to be a confessional in the style of 8 1/2, this 1980 feature is more or less a steady stream of bile: Allen plays a famous film director who hates his movies, hates his audiences, and hates himself. During a seminar at a Jersey shore resort, his life passes before his eyes; the scenes center on his bumbling relationships with what has become the standard Allen complement of three women: the dark (Charlotte Rampling), the fair (Marie-Christine Barrault), and the lesbian (Jessica Harper). Allen is working his camera more, though his visual coups mainly consist of more self-conscious ways of creating the claustrophobia that has always ruled his work. With its blunt, artless angst, the picture leaves you feeling depleted, squashed."

I particularly dislike "The Purple Rose of Cairo" and except for a few set pieces don't care much for the early movies (among Allen's chief flaws as a directer IMO is that he not only often sacrifices dramatic versimilitude for the momentary gag but that the gags also are typically verbal, and airlessly, "smartly" verbal at that). The only Allen film that got to me some was "Annie Hall," and that I think may have been because Dianne Keaton herself momentarily got to Allen -- penetrated his at once smug and fearful isolation -- though I suppose that's more or less the subject of the movie: how does a dick like Woody Allen react when that happens to him. That recent "Paris" movie made me want to thrown things at the screen.

That's what I like about the early films, they're just absurdist set-ups for situational humour. Kinda like if a more proactive and animated Chauncey Gardener from Being There pulled a bank heist. Or became an accidental revolutionary. I really disliked the Paris movie as well. It resembled to me the kind of Romantic bed-time story 'Woody Allen' might trot out to a seventeen year old Mariel Hemingway type. And I disliked it more because everyone else seemed to like it so much.

About "absurdist setups for situational humor," compare Allen here (I suggest) with W.C. Fields, where the absurd situations either arise from the absurdities of the charters' lives ("It's a Gift" especially) or take place with within acknowledged realms of near-total absurdity (e.g. "Never Give a Sucker an Even Break"). I can't help but feel that those who fall so hard for the gags in Allen's early films have as their basic point of comparison Mad Magazine parodies. Hey -- I laughed at/still laugh at some of those gags in the early Allen films too, but Allen's not a patch on, say Harvey Kurtzman/Will Elder or Kurtzman/Wally Wood.

[robertoart]

A capsule review by Dave Kehr of "Stardust Memories" that touches upon some of the many reasons I dislike Allen and most of his stuff:

"A drab, crowded, ugly film by Woody Allen. Meant to be a confessional in the style of 8 1/2, this 1980 feature is more or less a steady stream of bile: Allen plays a famous film director who hates his movies, hates his audiences, and hates himself. During a seminar at a Jersey shore resort, his life passes before his eyes; the scenes center on his bumbling relationships with what has become the standard Allen complement of three women: the dark (Charlotte Rampling), the fair (Marie-Christine Barrault), and the lesbian (Jessica Harper). Allen is working his camera more, though his visual coups mainly consist of more self-conscious ways of creating the claustrophobia that has always ruled his work. With its blunt, artless angst, the picture leaves you feeling depleted, squashed."

I particularly dislike "The Purple Rose of Cairo" and except for a few set pieces don't care much for the early movies (among Allen's chief flaws as a directer IMO is that he not only often sacrifices dramatic versimilitude for the momentary gag but that the gags also are typically verbal, and airlessly, "smartly" verbal at that). The only Allen film that got to me some was "Annie Hall," and that I think may have been because Dianne Keaton herself momentarily got to Allen -- penetrated his at once smug and fearful isolation -- though I suppose that's more or less the subject of the movie: how does a dick like Woody Allen react when that happens to him. That recent "Paris" movie made me want to thrown things at the screen.

That's what I like about the early films, they're just absurdist set-ups for situational humour. Kinda like if a more proactive and animated Chauncey Gardener from Being There pulled a bank heist. Or became an accidental revolutionary. I really disliked the Paris movie as well. It resembled to me the kind of Romantic bed-time story 'Woody Allen' might trot out to a seventeen year old Mariel Hemingway type. And I disliked it more because everyone else seemed to like it so much.

About "absurdist setups for situational humor," compare Allen here (I suggest) with W.C. Fields, where the absurd situations either arise from the absurdities of the charters' lives ("It's a Gift" especially) or take place with within acknowledged realms of near-total absurdity (e.g. "Never Give a Sucker an Even Break"). I can't help but feel that those who fall so hard for the gags in Allen's early films have as their basic point of comparison Mad Magazine parodies. Hey -- I laughed at/still laugh at some of those gags in the early Allen films too, but Allen's not a patch on, say Harvey Kurtzman/Will Elder or Kurtzman/Wally Wood.

Fair enough. I was young

[JSngry]

What's that Jerry Lewis movie where he's pouring milk out of a pitcher that's like four feet tall or some such? That's some funny shit just to think about it!