In daily life, Woody Allen is far from the delicate bundle of cerebral nerves he so often portrays in his films. He was a successful track runner in high school, and, according to Eric Lax’s biography, trained for several months to participate in the Golden Gloves. But, as with so many young pugilists, parental concern got in the way—his parents refused to sign the consent form to let him box.
On screen, however, Woody Allen remains Hollywood’s reigning nebbish. Jesse Eisenberg once seemed poised to take the title, but while he is sometimes nervous and introverted, his performance in The Social Network confirmed that he can harness the flashes of intensity seen in teenage films like The Squid and The Whale and Adventureland. Michael Cera, meanwhile, the second most prominent of the contenders, is a wholly different actor to Allen—while Allen is insecure and all-too-voluble, Cera is simply all-too-nice.
Allen’s unabashed delight in his insecurities and his hypochondriac concern with neuroses is the platform for much of his humor. He has honed the persona’s mannerisms to perfection, and the clip above provides a master class in just one: the Allen stammer. By the end of this staggeringly impressive 44-minute supercut, containing every single one of Allen’s verbal stumbles and foot-drags from all of his movies, you should have laughed, cried, and fallen into a stupor. Please enjoy responsibly.
via Huffington Post
Ilia Blinderman is a Montreal-based culture writer. Follow him at @iliablinderman
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Let’s set this to music. I think Donna Summer singing the long version of ‘Love To Love You Baby.’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5AztWseIdU
Nice idea, but this turned out to be annoying, not funny.