Woody on Rye: Jewishness in the Films and Plays of Woody Allen

Woody on Rye: Jewishness in the Films and Plays of Woody Allen

Woody on Rye: Jewishness in the Films and Plays of Woody Allen

Woody on Rye: Jewishness in the Films and Plays of Woody Allen

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Overview

Although Woody Allen’s films have received extensive attention from scholars and critics, no book has focused exclusively on Jewishness in his work, particularly that of the late 1990s and beyond. In this anthology, a distinguished group of contributors—whose work is richly contextualized in the fields of literature, philosophy, film, theater, and comedy—examine the schlemiel, Allen and women, the Jewish take on the “morality of murder,” Allen’s take on Hebrew scripture and Greek tragedy, his stage work, his cinematic treatment of food and dining, and what happens to “Jew York” when Woody takes his films out of New York City. Considered together, these essays delineate the intellectual, artistic, and moral development of one of cinema’s most durable and controversial directors.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781611684810
Publisher: Brandeis University Press
Publication date: 12/03/2013
Series: Brandeis Series in American Jewish History, Culture, and Life
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 275
File size: 611 KB

About the Author

VINCENT BROOK teaches at USC, UCLA, Cal State LA, and Pierce College. His most recent book is Land of Smoke and Mirrors: A Cultural History of Los Angeles. MARAT GRINBERG is associate professor of Russian and humanities at Reed College. He is the author of “I am to be read not from left to right, but in Jewish: from right to left”: The Poetics of Boris Slutsky.

Table of Contents

Introduction – Vincent Brook and Marat Grinberg • OVERVIEW • The Gospel According to Woody: From Annie Hall through To Rome with Love – Vincent Brook • COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS • The Birth of a Hebrew Tragedy: Cassandra’s Dream as a Morality Play in the Context of Crimes and Misdemeanors and Match Point – Marat Grinberg • A Jew Leaves New York: Woody Allen’s Gloomy British Angst – Curtis Maloley • SCHLEMIEL THEORY • Woody Allen’s Schlemiel: From Humble Beginnings to Abrupt End – Menachem Feuer • “Woody the Gentile”: Christian-Jewish Interplay in Allen’s Films from What’s New Pussycat? to Midnight in Paris – Joshua Louis Moss • “Now You See Him, Now You Don’t”: Woody Allen’s Vanishing Act in Scoop – Peter J. Bailey • WOMEN’S ISSUES • Woody’s Women: Jewish Domesticity and the Unredeemed Ghost of Hanukkah to Come – Giovanna P. Del Negro • Reconstructing Woody: Representations of Religious Jewish Women in Deconstructing Harry – Shaina Hammerman • “Toot, Toot, Tootsie! (Goodbye)”: Disposable Women in the Films of Woody Allen – Elliot Shapiro • CULTURAL STUDIES • Digesting Woody: Food and Foodways in the Movies of Woody Allen – Nathan Abrams • Schlemiel on Broadway: Woody Allen’s Jewish Identity in His Stage Plays from Don’t Drink the Water to Honeymoon Motel – James Fisher • Woody Allen: Filmography • Woody Allen: Play List • Index

What People are Saying About This

Murray Pomerance

“Reading through Woody on Rye I found myself engaged, stimulated, provoked, enticed, and intrigued by so many glimmering visions seen through so many sharp critical lenses. The book is rich with possibility and insight.”

Patricia B. Erens

“A collection of new voices chime in on the work of Woody Allen. Serious scholarship, with a dash of humor. A must for fans and film critics alike.”

Stephen J. Whitfield

“The arc of Woody Allen’s career has been dramatic — from writing gags and doing nightclub gigs, to making movies that are punctuated with death-of-God despair. Now recognized as an auteur, Allen has sometimes treated his Jewish heritage as an object of satire, but always as an inescapable social datum. The scholarly implications for both ethnic studies and film studies are traced in Woody on Rye, a rich and indispensable analysis of its subject.”

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