Counter-Currents
1,449 words
I remember a time — long ago, almost antediluvian — when a consumer could go on Amazon and simply purchase a Greg Johnson book. As an avid film enthusiast, one of my first Counter-Currents acquisitions was Trevor Lynch’s White Nationalist Guide to the Movies. The book’s perspective was fresh, and the elevation of vaguely Right-Wing themes or undertones in certain films was something that prompted me to go back and rewatch several of the movies examined.
Though I’ve only reviewed literature for Counter-Currents, my abysmal summer reading (a term borrowed from the age when school curriculums used to actually challenge students) has prompted me to review something that takes less time to complete. Initially, I thought of maybe doing my own interpretation of a film already loved by those on the Dissident Right (Drive, Nightcrawler, Falling Down, Fight Club, etc.), but after chancing across an old mid-wit favorite, I decided to go into the furthest depths of the beast’s belly and review what could perhaps be considered an archetype of anti-goy, anti-conservative messaging: Annie Hall.
My idea for this film review was to cite the movie as an early forerunner of Jews formally strolling from their positions behind the curtain and onto center stage. I figured I would let the movie roll as I typed; like I said, I needed a quick and easy project. With the thesis of this review in mind, my approach was beyond naïve; barely ten minutes into the film I had to pause it no less than a dozen times, frantically typing piles of evidence and talking points. I had clearly forgotten how over-the-top Woody Allen is in his Jewishness and the massive effect it has had on independent films, mainstream movies, and culture as a whole.
You can buy Trevor Lynch’s White Nationalist Guide to the Movies here
The first two minutes in, Allen is talking to the camera, making exclusively Jewish references. He cites a joke (not worth reiterating in full) about “Two elderly women at a Catskills Mountain resort”; for those not from the area, the Catskills Mountains and their associated resorts (a popular regional vacation destination for New York’s first-ever middle class in the 1920s-‘60s) were known as the “Jewish Alps.” He then references a second joke, attributing it to Jewish comedian Groucho Marx and Jewish cult leader Sigmund Freud: “I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me as a member.” This joke is a prelude to near-endless allusions to psychoanalysis, and it sets the tone for the film and its overt Jewishness throughout.
In the next scene we see Allen’s character, Alvy Singer, launching into a tirade to detail imaginary instances of anti-Semitism in his daily life. After asking a colleague “Did you eat yet?” he receives the response, “No, d’you?” The New York pronunciation of “Did you?” sounds way too similar to “Jew” for Alvy’s comfort. Next, a tumultuous trip to the record store is described: “There’s this big, tall, blond, crew-cutted guy and he’s looking at me in a funny way, and he’s smiling and he said, ‘Yes, we have a sale this week on Wagner.’ Wagner, Max, Wagner. So, I know what he’s really trying to tell me. Very significantly, Wagner,” implying that the Aryan-looking man is recommending Wagner to the twerpy Jew because Wagner was German and was supposedly played at the concentration camps . . . clearly for no other reason. By no means is Alvy’s paranoia condoned; it’s meant to be insecure and goofy, and as a result funny and chic, but still not wrong. This is reinforced in the next scene, when he takes Annie to go see The Sorrow and the Pity, a film his goy girlfriend rolls her eyes at but still goes to see, again. This is all in the first ten minutes. I was overwhelmed.
Annie’s distaste at watching “a four-hour documentary on Nazis” is a prelude to repeated snubs at the flyover-state goy life. The fact that she calls her grandmother her “Grammy” is made fun of, and of course darkly-yet-humorously juxtaposed with the more authentic background of being a Jew: “Your Grammy? What did you do, grow up in a Norman Rockwell painting? My Grammy never gave gifts, she was too busy getting raped by Cossacks.” The joke is on Annie, though: She’s subsumed by Jewish New York to the point of not being able to make love without drugs, and becoming incapable of thought without routine psychoanalysis. She engages in a love affair with one of her professors, and winds up as neurotic as Alvy.
The scene of their first encounter is buttressed by flashbacks to Alvy’s earlier marriages, the first to a woman named Allison Portchnik. On hearing her last name, he asks, “You’re like New York Jewish Left-Wing liberal intellectual Central Park West Brandeis University with the socialist summer camps and the father with the Ben Shahn drawings and the really strike-oriented kind of . . .” She dryly replies that she loves “being reduced to a cultural stereotype,” but Alvy gets to comfort her, as well as the film’s audience, when he settles the issue: “Right, I’m a bigot, but for the Left,” indicating it’s okay and alluding to a mindset that could now be vaguely compared to that of the dirtbag Left.
There’s an inflated sense of importance to being Jewish and from New York that recurs throughout the film. When Alvy and Annie visit her family’s hometown in Wisconsin, her Grammy is portrayed as a “classic Jew-hater,” as if little old Midwestern women would even be able to spot one in the first place. Later, Alvy says he’s “comparatively normal for a kid raised in Brooklyn,” as if his dysfunctional background is some sort of badge of honor. My grandfather was raised in a family of seven in a tiny tenement and rode to kindergarten on the back of a delivery truck, not far from where Alvy is said to be from, but I never remember him using his upbringing as a chip on his shoulder. Allen’s engorged Jewish New York ego isn’t completely without merit, however; after all, their impact on the country is so great it’s virtually immeasurable.
There are countless examples of oddly prophetic instances throughout the movie: Alvy’s father condoning a colored woman stealing simply because they’ve been “persecuted enough; she’s got a right to steal,” and Alvy’s Jewish actor friend having sex with 16-year-old twins, and several more. If I continued citing examples at this pace, the review might be as long as the script. Again, none of this is necessarily condoned in the film, but it’s presupposed and, in the process, made quirky and funny. The best example might be, “Don’t you see? The rest of the country looks upon New York like we’re Left-wing, Communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers. I think of us that way, sometimes. And I live here.”
I don’t want to sound too harsh; I admit to actually liking Annie Hall. It really is well-written and funny, and for the time of its release, must have been a breath of fresh air when compared to other movies of the era. The first time I saw it was during my college years (mid-2000s), and it blew the perverted dick-joke comedies — all written and made by Jews — I was accustomed to out of the water. But on closer examination, it’s not as high-brow as it wants to be seen as. Obscure historical, cultural, and academic references, though funny and interesting, don’t necessarily make a piece of content smart.
I spent some time thinking about how best to show the impact of a movie like this on modern culture, and it’s hard to nail down. It’s obscure, in the ether: It’s every Seth Rogan character referencing his Judaism regardless of its relevancy to the plot; it’s in Jews running Hollywood’s formulaic movie-making, but having virtually no representation among the current auteur-artists (Denis Villeneuve, Damien Chazelle, David Fincher, P. T. Anderson, Christopher Nolan, Wes Anderson, Martin Scorsese, Sofia Coppola, etc.), and so on.
One of my favorite examples might be the most obscure, but it perfectly illustrates the point. MTV’s show Ridiculousness presents Internet video clips of people getting hurt and doing wild things. It’s the retard-tier version of America’s Funniest Home Videos. The show is hosted by ex-professional skateboarder Rob Dyrdek, and each episode is co-hosted by a guest, one of whom was rapper Mac Miller. As he introduced himself to the audience and described his hip-hop origins, Miller casually mentioned the fact that he is Jewish. The live audience laughed; it was weird. Miller didn’t even remotely reference his Judaism in a joking matter, it was merely a tidbit on his background. The crowd knew better, though: Jews are funny, regardless of what they’re saying.
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24 comments
I have not seen this film, but I´ve seen his “SLEEPER” and “LOVE AND DEATH”, and I liked them, especially the film “Sleeper”, where Allen, in my opinion, in a satirical dystopia, successfully ridiculed the New Left in the USA at the turn of the 60s and 70s, all thjse Weathermen and the like.
I also like Sleeper a lot. I vaguely remember a line where he learns that steak and chocolate syrup are actually great for you.
I’ve seen most Woody Allen movies (who, however, has seen them all?), yet I rarely recall much of them later. I saw Annie Hall on videocassette in the early 80s, and I do recall just a few scenes: imagining Grammy imagining him as a Hasidic Jew (that got me laughing); him asking another character, who was putting on some kind of tin foil covering, if “we were going through plutonium”; that hilarious car scene (more funny at the time to me than it seems in retrospect) following where the Christopher Walken character had talked about deliberately crashing a car – Woody’s Jewish paranoia face was classic, as I recall: and that low class New Yorker shouting to passersby – “Hey, it’s Alvie Singgger! He’s on television!”. That scene with the actress from The Shining.
I just don’t recall much about the plot. That seems to be standard with me and Woody movies. Exceptions are Matchpoint and Blue Jasmine.
I consider Woody Allen one of my most watchable but non-favourite filmmakers, every film I’ve enjoyed (with the exception of Manhatten).
Film has some interesting intra-ethnic cultural warfare, particular the difference between New York and Los Angeles, both Jewish dominated enclaves, the former is sophisticated, the latter superficial e.g. New York cinemas show arthouse films by Ingmar Bergman, LA horrors like ”Messiah of Evil’ (which is actually a great Lovecraftian film). When he arrives in LA, Christmas music is playing, obviously Allen isn’t claiming LA/Hollywood is gentile, more likely its insincerity.
“most watchable but non-favourite filmmakers” is a good way to put it. His movies are a bit of a guilty pleasure for me.
Why do you not like Manhattan? I know a lot of people basically say it’s the same thing as Annie Hall, which is kind of true, but I think I might actually like it a bit more than AH. Curious on your thoughts between the two.
When I originally brought a boxset of his films, I originally hated AH, while liked the rest, which included Manhattan. Almost a decade later slowly building up my viewing of his filmography, further maturation, lessening of my visceral budding rejection of Jewry but increasing of my intellectual rejection and I’m sure other personal developments, I ended up loving AH on a rewatch, I eagerly went to watch MH and I just rejected it.
I can’t even give a proper explanation why as I’d have to rewatch, which I’d only do as part of a critique of his career, which itself would be related to an overall project of ‘Jews & Cinema’. However I just remembeing thinking its particular type of Jewish essence and preteniousness (I think subconsciously too that the film reminded of Frances Ha by a less talented overrated Jew) was too much and outweighed enjoyment.
Annie Hall did have some genuine laughs. The scene where Sgt. Zale gives a pathetic stand up audition for Alvy is hilarious. Allen’s best movie is Everything you always Wanted to Know about Sex, but were afraid to Ask. The last of the five vignettes being the funniest.
If given the choice between Allen and Mel Brooks it’s a no brainer. Mel’s never even gotten me to crack a smile.
I think you’re in the minority opinion with Brooks, but I couldn’t agree more. For one example, I loved Space Balls when I was a little kid but after rewatching it as an adult I couldn’t believe how childish and basically unfunny it was. The dialogue pacing and editing is also terrible, there’re these weird pauses after each joke, as if he’s giving you time to finish rolling around on the floor laughing uncontrollably. Every movie I’ve seen of his seems way too aware of itself as a comedy and that it’s supposed to be funny, regardless of actually doing so if that makes any sense.
Mel Brooks tries so hard that he stumbles upon gold once in a while, but most of his stuff is puerile, awkward, or cringingly dated. I sat through Blazing Saddles and hated it, finding it all of the above. Then Dom DeLuise showed up and for that one scene I nearly fell over laughing.
Woody Allen on the other hand never gets me laughing like that, but his sophistication and timing can keep the chuckles coming when he’s in the mood. But his neurotic Jew thing gets old fast. And his affair with Soon Yi should dampen all humor of his dealing with sex with young women. Was the magazine shop scene in Sleeper? He’s caught buying porno magazines and passes it off as a sociological experiment and claims he’s moving up to “advanced child molesting.” Funny to the NYC in crowd in 1974. Repulsive and sickening today.
The porn mag skit was in Bananas.
Brooks´s Producers (old version) was a good movie. The newer remake is not bad, but the the old movie was better. The new one has only humor (and beautiful Uma), but the old one had a lot of satire, sharp satire about everyone – Jews and Nazis, French, hippies, “folk” musicians, homosexuals, and, of course, the show business.
Thank you, Anthony. I enjoyed your review very much. Yes, Annie Hall should generate much discussion in our circles especially since it demonstrates how degeneracy and superficiality can’t be entirely glossed over by a high IQ, education, and humor, as the woody Allen urbanites try to do.
It also airs some dirty Jewish laundry, pointing out their neuroticism, and not in a very positive way.
You may also enjoy reading my take on the Catskills joke you mention above:
https://counter-currents.com/2019/08/the-woody-allen-fallacy/
His best two movies IMO are Crimes and Misdemeanors and Broadway Danny Rose, a beautiful Felini tribute if there ever was one.
I remember your article when it first posted. I remember liking “Stern reminded me of this joke because she taps into the contradictory – and in my opinion, childish – psychology of many non-whites on the Left: their animosity towards white people is inversely proportional to their exposure to white people” in particular.
Makes me wonder about minorities exposed to Jews in urban areas, always a topic that has fascinated me… every once in a blue moon a few of them wake up to what’s going on, though its incredibly rare. I think some of it was touched on in Defamation.
I haven’t seen Looking for Mr. Goodbar in a long time but that would be an interesting film to review. Keaton plays a waspy school teacher who goes around NY clubs at night sleeping with non waspy, swarthy characters until she is murdered
Keaton’s character is a Catholic girl, and her fornication is a rebellious act against her upbringing (her sister, played by Tuesday Weld, is even further gone in the seventies’ swinger orgy scene though it has an unhappy outcome). At one point she gets involved with an earnest Catholic seminarian-type (boy-next-door friend of the family whom her parents adore) who is intent on saving her. He turns out to have a weird funny side – a bit like Nick Fuentes and his gang of Catholic incels – there’s a joke with him about condoms (he fiddles awkwardly with one in front of Keaton and then breaks down smirking and giggling before leaving). More relevant to Woody Allen’s Jew NYC oeuvre is the flashback of Keaton when she lived at home and her (Archie Bunker-type) father wants to know if her date is driving a Mercedes-Benz because if so it means he’s a Jew. And her first serious relationship was with her University tutor who is a married Jew. She gives him a Christmas present and he blows up at her (not directly over the Christmas thing but that’s the context). He hasn’t got her anything for Christmas and indicates that he won’t and that he shan’t see her much over the holiday. I think Keaton is eventually murdered during the Christmas season after she has resolved to go clean of men and devote herself to teaching deaf children.
Camille Paglia praised this film for brutally showing the dangers and the toll of female “sexual liberation”.
I think the original novel (by a woman) and the movie based upon it are supposed to be nineteen seventies’ feminist diatribes on the awfulness of men in the singles dating scene – Keaton’s character is not a bad person (perhaps foolish in her openness and friendliness). The men she becomes intimate with are all strange or cool, self-absorbed misogynistic bad boys (Richard Gere) or psychotic self-loathing queers (Tom Berenger). She has decided to give up on men when she mistakenly picks up ‘one for the road’ and dies tragically. Of course, the alternative interpretation holds up, ‘the wages of sin is death’ , and E. Michael Jones may ironically approve as he does Halloween (1978).
Holy shit, never heard of this movie/just looked it up… seems like one enormous “toll paid” meme via a 1970s movie.
I love when Hollywood messaging reveals slivers of truth or accidently backfires. Toward the very back of this issue of Man’s World (p. 388), I have an article on this exact subject!
https://flipbooks.fleepit.com/f-31065-man_s_world_issue_seven
A film that I would love to find reviewed here is Allen’s “Crimes and Misdemeanors.” It’s a vastly better film than Annie Hall, and significantly more subtle but also more vicious in its goy-hatred. All the main characters are Jewish, but one, and she is killed. We know she is a goy because, in contrast to the sophisticated, literate Jews she is crass, unstable, and exploitative. Most revealingly, she discusses at one point her anticipation of an afterlife – a notion unknown to Judaism). The author of her murder (incredibly well portrayed by Martin Landau) gets off scot-free, while Woody Allen’s character (a highly principled Jewish guy, at least in the sense that he values integrity in his work over producing commercially successful product) ruminates on fairness once the fact of no consequences for the murder becomes apparent. But the message remains for those primed to receive it – there are and should be no consequences to a Jew for encompassing the murder of a goy, even when the circumstances that “necessitated” her murder (which would preserve the wealth and standing of Landau’s character) are a function of his selfishness, lies and depravity. It’s a brutal exposition on Jewish power and the disposable “non-human” quality if goys, and its right there, un hidden and un ashamed, in glorious technicolor. Literally, award winning.
I’ve considered writing about this film, but found it too blackpilling.
I don’t think goy-hatred is the point of this movie. Huston’s character might as well be Jewish, and the Landau character who gets the killer hired, is horribly tormented by guilt by the end of this movie. The Woody Allen character is from a totally different parallel plot and doesn’t even know about the murder. Overall the outlook of the film is very dark and nihilistic. Allen somewhat remade the film in “Match Point” with entirely non-Jewish characters.
Huston’s character is definitely not Jewish, and when the Landau and Allen characters meet at the end of the movie, the Landau character has shrugged off the guilt and goes on with his life. It is a pretty nihilistic movie.
Nihilistic it is. There is a rabbi character (Sam Watterson) who comes across as learned, peaceful, humble and sincere. Aside from the murdered woman he is the only person in the movie who is “punished” from above. In this movie the wages of sin is material happiness; of piety, suffering. It’s dark certainly. At the risk of being what Jim Goad has called a person “who sees Jews in his sandwiches” the choice by Alan to use the non-Jew as the burnt offering to Landau’s continuing earthly happiness is hard to ignore.
Forgot to mention that Woody’s Marshall McLuhen gag in Annie Hall was brilliant, especially when he breaks the 4th wall. For all our issues with him, he did have more than his share of inspired moments when in his prime. But the cringe is still there in a lot of his stuff from a dissident perspective.
This inspires me to one day write an article for CC: “The 10 Cringiest Woody Allen Moments” or something like that. We’ll see.
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