WOODY ALLEN RETURNS TO CANNES

Likable, intellectually intriguing, but — in the end — forgettable — that would appear to be the consensus of critics about Woody Allen’s latest movie, Irrational Man, which had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday but is not competing for the festival’s Palme d’Or award. Critics have had a love/hate relationship with Allen’s films for years, and judging from Allen’s comments at a news conference following the press screening of the movie, he’d probably agree with most of their assessments. Asked whether he ever thinks about remaking one of his films, he replied, “I would shoot them all over if I could.” Back in the early days of film, he observed, someone like Charlie Chaplin could make a short film and if he didn’t like the way it turned out, he could shoot it all over again. Today, he indicated, production costs involved in reshooting scenes that didn’t work out as he had envisioned them would be prohibitive. “When I make a film, I never ever look at it again once I put it out, because … you can always see what you did wrong and how you can improve it and what’s terrible … after seeing [it] start to finish up there.” Allen also spoke candidly about another regret — his agreement, announced last January, to make a series of six half-hour dramas for Amazon Prime, set for release next year. “That was a catastrophic mistake for me,” he told the Cannes news conference. “I’m doing my best with it. I’m struggling with it at home, but, you know, I never should have gotten into it.” Allen has not worked regularly in television since he was a comedy writer for Sid Caesar more than 50 years ago, but things have changed since then. “I thought it was going to be easy,” he said of the Amazon series. “You know, you do a movie, it’s a big, long thing — but to do six half hours, I thought it would be a cinch … but it’s not. It’s very, very hard, and I just hope I don’t disappoint Amazon. I am struggling with it. I’m not good at it. … I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m floundering. I expect this to be a cosmic embarrassment when it comes out.” Earlier, during a television interview at the festival, Allen disclosed that he is also having difficulty with the (untitled) movie that he is currently working on. He indicated that he hopes to bring it to Cannes next year, but added, “I will not put it in competition, because I’m not too happy with it.” Irrational Man was also screened out of competition.