Woody Allen: Audience Tastes Are a Matter of Coarse

Director, working again in Big Apple, weighs in on his fair city and US at large
By Sarah Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 30, 2008 9:49 AM CDT
Woody Allen: Audience Tastes Are a Matter of Coarse
Woody Allen attends a press conference for his film ''Vicky Cristina Barcelona" in Barcelona, Spain, Sept. 20, 2008.    (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Mention Woody Allen and people think of the Big Apple. In an interview with Adam Moss in New York, the 72-year-old filmmaker talks about movies, psychoanalysis and, most of all, the city for which he's "always had an irrational love." Allen, who's made 39 films, grew up with a romanticized view of Manhattan. "I got my idea of New York from Hollywood," he says.

Allen acknowledged that New York has changed—it's less gritty and more exclusive. "We don’t miss the decay, but we do miss the middle class," he says. On movies, Allen points to a "period of coarsened public taste" to explain what's popular today. "It’s hard to believe that they could be dumber now than they were in my time," he says. (More Woody Allen stories.)

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