# Wild Man Blues (1998)

### reviewed by
James Sanford

Most documentaries that purport to show you the person behind a celebrity's image don't work, for the simple fact that most celebrities are so keenly aware of a camera's presence they're never truly "real" as long as the lights are on and the microphones are open. Director Barbara Kopple runs into this wall several times in the course of "Wild Man Blues," a documentary tracking writer/director/clarinetist Woody Allen on his swing through Europe with a New Orleans jazz band. After more than 30 years of being interviewed, Allen is too self-aware to let down his guard, and much of Kopple's footage shows us the lovable/irritating New York neurotic we've become accustomed to seeing in movies like "Hannah and Her Sisters" and "Annie Hall," dropping one-liners and stammering like crazy. But every once in a while Allen slips a bit, revealing a more sarcastic and slightly nastier person than we're used to, someone more along the lines of the bitter anti-hero he played in "Deconstructing Harry." In these moments, "Wild Man Blues" is genuinely fascinating; the rest of the time it's intermittently funny and observant, although in terms of revelations about its subject it can't hold a candle to D.A. Pennebaker's "Don't Look Back," a scathing portrait of a young Bob Dylan, or Alex Keshishian's mesmerizing exploration of the Madonna phenomenona, "Truth Or Dare." What will likely intrigue most viewers -- especially those who hunger for good gossip -- is the film's portrayal of Allen's relationship with his youthful wife and former ward whom he introduces as "the notorious Soon Yi Previn." Previn is anything but a groupie, freely admitting she's never seen "Annie Hall" or read any of Allen's writing. She does, however, have a favorite among his films, "Manhattan," in which Allen shares his bed with high school student Mariel Hemingway. To judge from the evidence Kopple presents, the Allen-Previn marriage is one of near-opposites, with Previn emphasizing practicality while Allen pursues artistic pie in the sky. When he tells her he's planning on presenting a challenging concert full of hardcore jazz and "esoteric tunes" to an audience he suspects of being sycophants, she warns him frankly "you don't want them to get up and leave, do you?". Previn also gently chastises Allen for only speaking to the bandleader during meetings and shutting the other musicians out; Kopple doesn't get much feedback from the band, although we do find out they're amused to learn that Allen actually does know everyone's name. Allen, long a bigger box office draw in Europe than he is in America, attracts fervent fans everywhere he goes and fills concert halls in Paris, Turin and London, although it's doubtful most of the patrons are there solely because of their appreciation for jazz anymore so than theatergoers lined up to see Madonna in "Speed-the-Plow" expecting to see a virtuoso performance. As a clarinetist Allen would probably rank as a modestly gifted amateur, although the conviction he brings to his playing comes through loud and clear. So does his impatience with the paparazzi, especially when they disrupt a quiet cruise through Venice with Previn. Through a pained grin Allen snarls to Previn of the photo-snappers, "they won't pay ten cents to see one of my movies, but passing in a gondola they love it." It's one of those rare, slightly shocking scenes in which Kopple's eye penetrates the comic mask and finds the not-so-cuddly guy inside. James Sanford

The review above was posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due to ASCII to HTML conversion.

Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews