Appendix 2: About Woody Allen and the tragedy of the “middle-class coward”

I see now that I have definitely changed my tactics about writing my blog, and it has, at least momentarily, become a real blog instead of this “book”, as I used to think of it, with long chapters that are self contained but document an ongoing experience. And the best thing about this experience is that it has had an impact on every significant piece of “reading” I have done since then, and there is almost always something interesting and unexpected “falling out”. (In fact, I could never have imagined it to become such a success.) So I shall now continue writing these “footnotes” and call them “appendices” because most of it is tying up loose ends and answering open questions. Some of these footnotes will probably be as long as chapters themselves, and in the end the whole “appendix” will probably be longer than the “book”, and the new issues I was planning to investigate will certainly have to wait much longer than the new year.

At the moment one thing is driving out another. So I was quite keen on writing about why, in my opinion, “Hamlet” is still so significant – and make a stronger case about why I think that Benedict Cumberbatch is THE actor to play “Hamlet” at the moment - and I had the argument ready, and part of it was already written, but it got longer and longer. And this morning, one of these things that had been “brewing” for some time as well, obviously fell out. And I’ll handle this first so that I cannot forget about it.

(Warning: I realized that, just this time, not all of what I have written might be “good taste”, and I was thinking of publishing a “toned down” version. But as I was disrespectful only to myself and have written a lot of good things about other people – which I rather liked! – I saw no real reason to do that.)

As in most cases, it started in the cinema. I went to see the new Woody Allen film: “Irrational Man”. There was a long period in my life when I never went to see his films – although there was probably one a year as there is now – but the last five years or so I saw almost all of them. And it would be interesting to find out how I re-discovered them. I don’t even remember which film was the first that convinced me to “follow” them again. The only one I have on dvd is “You will meet a tall dark stranger”, and this is mostly because of Gemma Jones who is one of my favourite actresses. And I was totally thrilled by “Blue Jasmine” which is “pure” Woody Allen without what I thought to be his hallmark: the humour and the strange “twists” of plot - that you can never tell what will happen beforehand and have to make up your mind “anew” about what is happening all the time. (O, of course I have this one on dvd as well.) But, on the whole, I still don’t like his films so very much, though, in the last years, I regularly went to see them. And this duality, as such, I find quite interesting.

Seeing “Irrational Man” though was exactly the same experience I had with almost every other Woody Allen film. I didn’t really like it, but I sat there, watching with growing fascination, thinking: This isn’t just good, this is genius! This is just SO completely different from everything else you see about contemporary people and their problems, and how they think and feel about life … But this time I didn’t leave it there. I definitely wanted to know why. And now I do.

Digging it up started with a memory I had about Woody Allen and my sister from about 25 years ago. Not the sister I usually talk with about theatre, or Tolkien and whatever we are just reading, and who is eleven years younger than I am, but the one who is just one year younger, and who had a significant “part” in my experience about “The Shrew”. At the time we were playing one of these “psycho games” that were quite popular and where you have to answer questions about your sex life and intimate things – which people would only play, I suppose, as long as there is practically nothing to tell! – and there was one question I couldn’t answer: Which famous person would you like to meet?

It was one thing that bothered me at the time: that I couldn’t answer that question. Although I certainly had “heroes” then, as I have now. But I had never wanted to meet them. And that was what bothered me, and just now I understand why it is significant in this context. Because, in a way, all I ever wanted was to meet with different, more interesting people than the ones I knew! I suspect I didn’t realize then what is most obvious: that meeting somebody implies them meeting me, and that would be it! One of the things I am chiefly fascinated with are different worlds – fictional and non-fictional – people live in, mostly without realizing it. And I think I knew this already at the time: that all the people I would want to meet were from a DIFFERENT WORLD. But what exactly the difference was between these worlds wasn’t very clear to me. And it never became THAT clear before now when I finally “read” Woody Allen.

In this case I needed some help to find out, and I got it from my sister. That was because I remembered her answer to that question from the game when I left the cinema. Which was: Woody Allen. I remember that I found this quite intriguing at the time, and that I never came to understand it. I certainly asked her, and she probably couldn’t explain why. All of this presupposes that there must have been some kind of meaning I attributed to his films already then, and I know that I saw a few, as she did, but the only thing I remember was that I never really liked them. And of course I didn’t perceive Woody Allen as an attractive person, not even 25 years ago, which was why I found her answer so interesting.

I went to see her recently, and I told her about the film and asked her about her answer. She still didn’t know, which didn’t surprise me. (And I think she didn’t even remember.) But we agreed that we both find Woody Allen interesting because he is so brutally honest about people. That he is interested in what people really are about – not what THEY THINK they are about. And as my sister hasn’t been to the cinema much in the last twenty years, as far as I know, this experience must date back to the time when she discovered Woody Allen.

What is really interesting about my sister and me is that we literally grew up TOGETHER, which means much closer than with any other sibling, and what we really have in common is so close to nothing that I wouldn’t know how to find it. I think now that we were probably too close to “see” each other, so finding out something like this about her NOW is really intriguing. As I think I found out something significant which I have probably known for a long time but never realized. Compared to me she was really “grown up” at the time, which means that she knew about herself. Not explicitly, but she knew WHO SHE WAS. Whereas I didn’t even have an idea of how stupid and immature I was, let alone why! And I even think there might have been “chemistry” between her and Woody Allen because they have something significant in common. I realized that I - from my incredibly narrow-minded point of view! – have always thought of her as somebody who is easily influenced by others. And I took pride in the fact that I wasn’t. This is probably true about me and might not even be such a bad thing, but I was dead wrong about her. And now, 25 years later, I might have reached that level of maturity and “experience” on a complicated path that she already had at that age. And I think the reason is that she has always been completely impervious to received ideas and prejudices, to the point that she never even showed an interest in forming opinions of her own, especially not about things she had no experience with! And at the time I thought of that as being rather naïve and dull, but now, after I have come to despise thoroughly all these “talk shows” and “talk programs” where people constantly repeat the same opinions which make even less of a difference to anything than a fart, I finally came to appreciate people like my sister who knows exactly what to make of all these people, and doesn’t even have to say it or think about it. Because she has always known what is important to her, and where her own truth is.

And what has this to do with Woody Allen? The moment when all of this ”fell out” was this morning when I heard on the radio, quite out of context, that Woody Allen thought of himself as a “middle-class coward” (which is my translation of “Mittelklasse-Feigling”, maybe he said something else, but it doesn’t matter.) And this expression kind of nailed the world where I live in to the wall, so that I would be condemned to look at it for the rest of my life. Because the difference, for me, between the “two worlds”, is not a difference between rich and beautiful and classy or powerful people on the one hand, and the world of the powerless, unattractive and average. (Even though these issues are in no way unimportant, but they are shifty, and their meaning depends on what everybody MAKES of them in their own lives.) The real difference is between the world of the “middle-class cowards” – which Woody Allen certainly has a right to call himself, together with most people who are dealing with arts and literature and that kind of stuff, by the way, they just don’t know it! – and the world of the “heroes”. And what, absurdly, makes Woody Allen one of my “heroes” from this day onwards is exactly this: that he knew his own truth and took it out and used it in this way to make significant films “about himself” that are about so many other people as well. Because all of these people in his films are “middle-class cowards”, even though practically all of them are rich - though being the kind of people that never think of themselves as rich - and kind of classy, with significant carriers, living in “significant” places like New York. That is places where most people don’t live because they never had a choice but because they WANT to live there. (Unlike here, in the US being “middle-class” already means being SOMETHING!) And even though most of them are as different from me as can be, they are all “middle-class cowards” like myself. And this is because all of them grew up with the experience that everything they wanted was already there, and they never felt the need to make an effort to get at it. And this is the reason that, from a certain point onwards, “we” were all carrying on with our miserable lives which are not ABOUT OURSELVES, instead of doing things we really care about. Chasing our own truth …

But this is not even all. Because what is really so significant about these films is that they are dealing exactly with the relationship between both worlds. And this is also what makes them so disagreeable. Because they are not only about “middle-class cowards” as such – there might be lots of them that are quite content with their “middle” lifes, and have never aspired to, or even imagined, anything “higher” or “different”. They are about people like me: middle-class cowards who want to be heroes, or rather see themselves as heroes.

When I am thinking about the “Irrational Man” I might even go so far as to think of Woody Allen’s films as “classics” of world literature, like, for example, greek tragedy. Nobody cares about greek tragedy anymore, including myself, but “everybody” knows what it is about and why it was such a significant “invention”. (As I have experienced on the occasion of “The Crucible”: the principle of “catharsis” still works. I might even have experienced it for the first time.) But I think what Woody Allen is exploring is just as significant, more significant even, for our own time. Certainly a person like Abe Lucas isn’t tragic in the first place but rather ridiculous. Not harmlessly ridiculous, as we all have a right to be from time to time, I hope, but like in Molière where ridiculousness is some kind of sickness, and dangerous. Dangerous to himself in the first place, but, as in a social being, to other people as well. Especially in this case, where lying successfully about yourself can convince other people of the attractiveness of your lie, which then kind of spreads and contaminates their lives as well. But, even more important: the ridiculousness might deceive us about the fact that something genuinely “tragic” is going on here. Because it is total despair about not being able to live an “authentic” life that is driving Abe to the desperate conclusion of taking another person’s life. By this act, in his own estimation, he has CHANGED from a middle-class coward into a hero, and maybe this is even his own truth. But EVERYBODY ELSE can see how ridiculous, and pointless, and questionable this attempt is.

And here comes the bit about contemporary tragedy which is probably the hardest to swallow. At least it is for me. Because I still kind of hope that Woody Allen isn’t right about this! But I am afraid that he is because I have often experienced this myself: that a tragic ending can be a relief because it puts an end to the “tragic” ridiculousness of the middle-class coward. But Woody Allen doesn’t grant us this relief. Now I could, probably for the first time, answer what question I would ask a famous person if I met them. (Though, in real life, I would probably be too cowardly to do this.) But I would really like to ask him if he believes that heroes exist, in real life. Though even this might not be relevant because he himself probably believes in an alternative to “middle-class cowardice”. But I am almost convinced that he sees it as a PERMANENT CONDITION. That is, he doesn’t believe in the possibility that a middle-class coward might change into a hero. And – damn him! – for all I know about this subject, which is quite a lot, he is probably right. I am certain that there are heroes, on all “levels” of existence - just not as many as in mainstream films. There are almost certainly even people I know (or know about) that are heroes, but, even though I am quite certain in some cases, in fact you can never know. Because for me being a hero means to be honest about yourself, at least in the area to which your “heroship” applies, because this is the only way to succeed. And to SUCCEED in being who you really are. I don’t know why I am that merciless about this, but succeeding is the only proof for having been honest enough, and having tried HARD ENOUGH. Though, in this case: who is there to judge but yourself?

And, “for all this”, I know I still live under the illusion that I have kind of changed from a middle-class coward into a “heroine”, at least in my own estimation. Because, in my own estimation, I feel that, lately, I have been much more successful in doing what I really care about than a few years ago. But, as in Woody Allen!, there is no way you can tell if you are lying about yourself. Being happy and focused might be an indication, but stupid, self-deceiving people are probably the happiest people in the world – as “in” Woody Allen! Only when their “made-up” world is shattered do they realize that there is no way “out”. (Or, worst case?, not even then … I just saw “Carol” and of course remembered Cate Blanchet in “Blue Jasmine”. Couldn’t believe it how she has “grown” as an actress, still!!! But in “Carol” there is a way out, and, of course, this is such a relief. My christmas present this year!) And I think I am wondering now for … two years minus, I just checked the e-mail!, almost exactly five days, WHY this HASN’T happened …

One of the most obvious things – which definitely speaks against my own claim to being a “heroine” – is that there is usually PAIN (or at least sacrifice) involved. And I think this is the reason that people like – or even crave – pain and suffering: that only then they can be certain of having been “heroic”. Even in an every-day context when people tell you proudly that they have worked 64 hours a week (which might not even be seen as heroic anymore, but normal!). Or how they have hurt themselves working out.

Part of this “fix”, for me, has to do with the internet. I loved the statement from a German comedian, Mathias Tretter, who said that, with the internet, you can finally LOOK AWAY and are NOT compelled anymore to take in all the muck other people are shoveling in your direction. And I think he is right. Because you have to make a decision about “making the click”. And I appreciate this new opportunity of AVOIDING information very much, and this is why I still don’t have a smart phone. But this is only one side of the coin. The other one is that the internet provides such unlimited space for “middle-class cowards” to masturbate away all they want, and even be under the illusion that they are doing something “special” - not hanging on to the muck the uneducated masses are hooked on. Well, as I said, Woody Allen is probably right …

He, on the other hand, doesn’t think of himself as a hero, but for me he is one. Because he is so brave about his truth, and so incredibly perceptive of course. And this is THE ONE THING I am hanging on to, and for which I am doing “this”, because this is something that can ONLY be done by reading - and writing, of course! - of FICTIONAL text: finding out the truth about those questions you really NEED answers to. (And that means: ALL the questions about yourself, not only those religion or other ideologies might provide answers for.) I had a teacher at uni who argued that literature is some kind of “training exercise” for solving real life problems. I still consider this to be rather naïve, but there is something to it. And it is anything but trivial, if you really think about how close to impossible it is to get at the truth of anything that matters, especially people!, IN REAL LIFE. – So, this is why I think that what Woody Allen does is so relevant, and why he is a hero, whatever he himself might think about it. Anyway, for me he is the guy who succeeded in nailing both of “my” worlds in this way and, by this, in laying the foundations for a contemporary tragedy which actually WORKS. And I think this should be enough. Heroic deeds and heroes do not always coincide - which would bring me directly to “Hamlet”, which (I hope) my next blog will be about.

Appendix 1: A footnote on "Macbeth"

When I learned that there would be a new „Macbeth“ film coming to the cinemas in late October I probably refused to become excited about it. I went to the cinema without any expectations – or rather with the vague expectation that it would probably be some kind of “Hollywood like” adaptation, with larger than life pictures of beautiful Scottish landscapes and a lot of gory fighting in it. And was very surprised – and pleased! – to find it to be something completely different. At least I HOPE that the people who recommended it to the “Games of Thrones” crowd have caused a great deal of disappointment! (Though I might be underestimating “Games of Thrones” and the people who watch it, of course, as it happens with “worlds” I don’t like.)

So, first of all, I was pleased to see something different. Even though the film contains, of course, beautiful Scottish landscapes and gory fighting. Which isn’t something I don’t like, as such. I was more surprised how much I liked the film despite its containing much of what I DEFINITELY don’t like: especially actors just speaking their text without acting it - apart from looking gloomy, or tragic, or shocked. (And I mean: all of them!) I don’t even think they were “encouraged” to act, and exactly this kind of dealing with the text – hacked to pieces and just kind of smashed on the big screen beside a dramatic landscape, significant faces and a superb soundtrack - developed its own poetic value. It is a really beautiful film, more of a “poetic” and subjective version of the story than an “epic” one. The way the camera closes in on people, and the ideas about bringing inner content on screen and finding additional motivation for the main characters, chiefly Macbeth himself, makes it more about their “souls” and their suffering than about what I usually want to see “in Shakespeare”: what exactly happens, and why, and why these characters behave the way they do. And this appeared to me as an interesting idea because I haven’t seen the play being “used” in that way – except in another film version: “The Tragedy of Macbeth” from 2012, which is rather good as well but no longer available, so I don’t have it on dvd. And both films show (like the “Hamlet” film with Ethan Hawke) that this approach certainly works.

But even though I liked the film, a lot!, it didn’t really “catch”. I even saw it twice because I wasn’t sure why I had liked it, but the second time wasn’t any more conclusive. I reckon this is because of my own, developing, version of “Macbeth” which is blocking the access to other versions. But I had an enlightening experience shortly after that, when I saw “Steve Jobs”, a totally amazing film – with Michael Fassbender, of course! (If it is not Colin Firth, it is Michael Fassbender these days.) And I thought: THIS is what I want to see when I see him. This is why I consider him to be one of the most significant and special actors I know. (Did, by the way, for quite a long time before there were at least two films with him every year!) And, “something like this” would even be a much more interesting version of “Macbeth” because, for me, a contemporary version of this play would be about somebody who violates his moral integrity – and WHO he is, as a person - because of his carrier. “Fame and fortune”, or whatever it is that most people think they want, of course. And then finds out the hard way that it wasn’t worth it. (This is not what “Steve Jobs” is about, by the way, but this kind of contemporary character fits my idea of what is interesting about “Macbeth” much better. On the whole, I always find the “acting” much more interesting than the suffering – more interesting and rewarding for the actors themselves, I suppose.) There is one thing though I totally agreed with, and which would be in my version as well: the amount of blood at the beginning and the end of it, and in between! (And this would even be the greatest disadvantage of a contemporary version: that you cannot SEE the blood!) In general I am not that “blood-thirsty”, but in “Macbeth” the blood is really significant.

And I came to understand only by and by why I had liked the film so much. Not because of the great acting, which OBVIOUSLY isn’t there! (To say that Michael Fassbender is one of the most significant actors I know doesn’t mean that I haven’t seen even some incredibly bad acting by him (in “Jane Eyre”) and some insignificant acting (in “Macbeth”), and in both cases it was probably not “his fault”.) And it wasn’t even because of the beautiful landscapes and powerful “aesthetics”. It was because of the determination to tell the story in a different way – NOT to deal with what Shakespeare has written. And this is even one of the benefits of film adaptations, compared to theatre productions where the opportunities of “avoiding” the text – just taking out of it what you please and put it wherever you like – are limited. There is much more room for telling YOUR OWN story – and this means to tell a version which is probably significant for the times we live in. And what makes “Macbeth” significant for our time appears to be that we cannot deal with the question which – obviously? - is at the centre of the play: How can it happen that somebody who is considered to be a “good person” by the people who know him – even “kind”, if his wife is to be believed who probably knows him best! – anyway exactly the kind of person that deserves trust and promotion, can turn into a blood-thirsty tyrant? This is so OBVIOUSLY what I read when I am reading “Macbeth”, and the interesting thing is that in only one of the nine versions I have on dvd people appear to be bothered by that question. And this is the contemporary tv version of “Shakespeare Retold” with James McAvoy as (Joe) Macbeth. As this is the only version where I can see that people have read the same text I read myself it is my favourite version, even though it has only “scraps” of “Shakespeare” in it. The other two versions where the “authors” were obviously bothered by that question to a point that they found it necessary to write a different story, where Macbeth – and Lady Macbeth – appear less guilty, are the two contemporary ones from 2012 and 2015 I have cited above. And this I find extremely interesting.

I still don’t know why “Macbeth” is my absolute favourite play, and, consequently, must be one of my absolute favourite “stories” as well. (Which is great, by the way!) But maybe this film has brought me a step closer to understanding it. My first conscious step in that direction was when I understood about the concept of “equivocation”, and what the “weird sisters” might be about – another great feature in “Macbeth” ABSOLUTELY NOBODY, apart from the authors of “Shakespeare Retold” (again!), shows any real interest in! And exactly this principle of “equivocation” which we find EVERYWHERE in Shakespeare appears to be extremely difficult for “us” to deal with. Whereas it is something I obviously understand, and love. And which is probably why I absolutely love “House of Cards”, and why the only bit from Goethe’s “Faust” I remember (and love) is:

“Alles, was entsteht, ist wert, dass es zu Grunde geht.”

(Everything which comes into being is worthy(!) of being undone)

(And there is a contemporary “version” by somebody called Nam June Paik I love even more: “Wenn zu perfekt, liebe Gott böse.” (If (something gets) too perfect god (becomes) angry.)

I know I am not even close yet, but - as, by the way, in “Hamlet”, “Lear”, and “Othello” - in “Macbeth” Shakespeare must have written something about ourselves, our lies and our lives which we absolutely DON’T WANT to deal with. Maybe the way we use the word “tragedy” in a contemporary context is an indication, because a “tragedy” nowadays is something horrible that happens to INNOCENT people. Whereas “tragedy” for the Greeks, and probably the Elizabethans as well, was a story about somebody who becomes guilty and is spending the rest of his time on stage DEALING with the consequences. And as I have this absolute horror of doing even the tiniest little bit of harm to anybody – I suppose not because of an unusual amount of “human kindness” in me, but because I couldn’t face the consequences! – this cowardice might even be at the root of my fascination with tragedy … What I absolutely loved about “The Crucible”, and found most appaling at the same time, is that practically everything that happens originates in this single moment of a single person losing control. (And, what makes Arthur Miller even more of a genius about telling the truth about human matters: He knew that, if something like this ever happened to me, my “guilt” would be the least of my worries …)