Tag / woody allen

by whyididntwritetoday

Eighty percent of success is…

“Eighty percent of success is showing up”
– Woody Allen.

I think this is a very apt quote for a site called ‘whyididntwritetoday’.

Because if you don’t start writing or trying to write success won’t come anywhere near you.

Woody Allen started out writing jokes for people, and then decided that he’d be good at delivering the jokes himself.

So he started by getting bit-parts in TV shows that he wrote the jokes for.

But, because he wasn’t a big name, they used to give his funniest jokes to the stars of the show.

Woody didn’t like this.

So he decided to only go for parts where he could play the lead.

Which meant that he had his pick of the best lines, monologues and jokes.

Look at him now. It paid off.

by whyididntwritetoday

Lost in Manhattan

I didn’t write today because I went to the cinema. One of the things I like about independent picture houses is that they don’t just show the newest films – they often give an audience to some of the classics too.

This early evening showing was the old Woody Allen flick ‘Manhattan’. It’s nice to see that a film made as far back as 1979 can still hold a crowd (a near sellout) in its grip.

While I’m not sure if it’s quite as good as Allen’s most popular film ‘Annie Hall’ – it’s well worth a watch. As seems usual, Woody Allen plays a neurotic writer. In this one he’s dating a 17 year old (he’s 42!), but ends up leaving her for his best friend’s mistress.

allenstreep
(Yep, that’s a young Meryl Streep)

Shot in black and white – this film is, dialogue aside, a beautiful slideshow of artistic frames and sprawling shots of the city of New York.

I’ve been involved in film-making over the years, and have even been in feature length films – I can tell you that finding shots as good as the ones in ‘Manhattan’ is a pain-staking process.

Entertainment aside, I was pleased to see that a good chunk of the audience was made up of under-30s. People who wouldn’t even have been alive when the film came out. Not only that, but from what I could sense and hear, they’d all enjoyed it too.

It shows us that good style and good storytelling is timeless.

Fashion – whether it be in films or threads – tends to move in cycles, because the fundamentals of success don’t really change.

So, it’s important to soak these classics up and find inspiration along the way.