Rewrite Woody Allen's "why is life worth living?" speech from "Manhattan"

This is too much fun.

Well, all right, why is life worth living? That's a very good question. Well, there are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. Uh, like what? Okay. Um, for me... oh, I would say... what, my parents, to name one thing... and Joe Strummer, and... my friends Joe and Jon, and... Husker Du's recording of 'Eight Miles High'... Jamaican rocksteady, naturally... 'Night of the Shooting Stars'... , the Minutemen... those steep hills in Duluth... beers at Mickey's Bar in Madison, Wisconsin... Shellie's smile..."

ahem.

Perhaps you see where I am going with this.

"Well, all right, why is life worth living? That's a very good question. Well, there are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. Uh, like what? Okay. Um, for me... oh, I would say... what, The Velvet Undergound, to name one thing... and Sonic Boom, and... Psycho Candy, and... The Crystal's recording of Da Doo Ron Ron... Bobby Gillespie's trousers, naturally... 'Life In The Victorian Country House' by Mark Girouard... Julian Sands, Hilton Betelgeuse... the horn arrangements on Lazer Guided Melodies... Pizza Romana at La Porchetta... Julian Casablancas' ass..."

Har har har! Life is worth living after all!

"...and between them both, they licked the coffin clean."

(This is the kind of intelligent artistic debate we need!)

(I'm not in love just now...)

(note: I'm not in love but I'm using the guy I'm sleeping with anyway)

"Well, all right, why is life worth living? That's a very good question. Well, there are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. Uh, like what? Okay. Um, for me... oh, I would say... what, foreign movies, to name one thing... and my father, and... Quadrophenia, and... The Ronettes' 'Be My Baby'... italian girls, naturally... 'The Essential Calvin and Hobbes' by Bill Watterson... Robert Duvall in 'Apocalypse Now', The 'Mats... the end sequence of 'Cinema Paradiso'... the 1.50 egg creams at that candy store on A... and... now it gets depressing..."

gonna watch this tonight.
i'm in THAT sort of mood.

does it not have it's own thread??

"Well, all right, why is life worth living? That's a very good question. Well, there are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. Uh, like what? Okay. Um, for me... oh, I would say... what, Walt Whitman, to name one thing... and Lenny Bruce, and... Illmatic, and... The Clash's recording of "Jail Guitar Doors"... lolcats, naturally... 'The Sun Also Rises' by Hemingway... Phillip Seymour Hoffman, John Coltrane... the way Miles hits the first high note on "Sketches of Spain"... the Stuffed Poblano at Kerbey Lane... Niki's hips..."

ILE's secret Most Emo Thred.

oh, shit, I was actually planning on watching this later today, as well. Weird.

Well it's Sunday night isn't it? I like to think half the world's about to watch it.

hah

hoos otm, largely.

"Well, all right, why is life worth living? That's a very good question. Well, there are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. Uh, like what? Okay. Um, for me... oh, I would say... what, Kraftwerk, to name one thing... and Cary Grant, and... "Super Coming" by the Boredoms, and... Steely Dan... Bergman movies..."

8 1/2. Can I add that? And Orson Welles. And Jacques Tati.

"Well, all right, why is life worth living? That's a very good question. Well, there are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. Uh, like what? Okay. Um, for me... oh, I would say... what, John Barth, to name one thing... and Jesus, and..."The Crane Wife", and... the Pet Shop Boys' recording of "Where the Streets Have No Name"... whaling, naturally... "The Brothers Karamazov" by Dostoevsky...Clive Owen, M.I.A... the deep sounds rising up about eleven minutes into Rimsky Korsakov's "Russian Easter Overture"... the lamb tikka masala at Spiceroot..."

That grin on Orson Welles face in The Third Man.

i hate this thread

jimmy mod otm

"That one guy" hating things.

i can only handle this movie when i'm miserable

and then it's pretty much my fave ever!

BUNCH OF CULTURAL REFERENCES... ANNOYING NEW YORK REFERENCE... 17-YEAR-OLD CHICK I'M SCHEMING

ew, dude.

i don't think it's a good speech. but i do enjoy listing things i like.

in the context of the movie, maybe the point is that he doesn't know what he likes, much less wants, he just talks everything to death. So the listing is a bit ironic, innit?

"Well, all right, why is life worth living? That's a very good question. Well, there are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. Uh, like what? Okay. Um, for me... oh, I would say... what, James Joyce, to name one thing... and William Morris, and..."Love Will Tear Us Apart", and... Ella Fitzgerads recording of "Mack the Knive"... Woody Allen movies up to Crimes and Misdemeanors, naturally... "The Rings of Saturn" by W G Sebald...Peter Lorre, Caribou...the last minute or so of The Blacksmith by Planxty...my homemade coconut macaroons..."

None of the above. Artists overrate art as a reason to live.

Please explain this.

aimless otm

You explain it then.

would have thought people > art?

I'd rather live for sex and touch and tears and love and camaraderie than for any artist I can think of.

co-sign with aimless even though I feel bitter about it

(x-post)

Haha, me and Enrique agreeing for once!

yeah isaac kinda comes to the same conclusion at the end of this little monologue which leads him to take action for the first time. and it's too late because he is a blinkered douche. kinda the point guys!

maybe -- but not the point of the thread, which is emo+++

I haven't seen the movie in years, I was answering to Ned rather than criticizing it.

haha emo in finding itself the point of any given subject non-shockah

would have thought people > art?

-- That one guy that hit it and quit it, Monday, September 24, 2007 1:06 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

I'd rather live for sex and touch and tears and love and camaraderie than for any artist I can think of.

-- Tuomas, Monday, September 24, 2007 1:07 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Oh well sure, all those things are otm but I cannot personally underestimate the real joy I feel when art and music moves me in ways I don't really understand.

And sometimes, people don't say or do the right things, or at least the things you want them to say and do and sometimes art does. I don't think there's anything wrong in recognising that.

i know that when i'm over-relying on these things something's a bit wrong. when i was a teenager music was pretty much *everything*. it wasn't all bad but i was making up for other things that weren't there.

yeah i am just defending this monologue's use in the movie, not in this weird thread

Never understood the placement of Sentimental Education in this. I think Woody is fronting like he's highbrow, and prefers Madame Bovary like everyone else in the universe. "Shopping and adultery" >>> "shopping and minor archaic French politics."

xp

When I was a teenager girls were everything. And I would certainly have tried to impress them with shit about Joyce and, iirc, Kafka.

This reminds me of Jimmy Boyle's books. Now, obviously, doing sculpture wasn't the one thing that stopped him being a number one thug and as he found out, the realities of live can't be overcome by art alone but it certainly helped him see beyond his personal experiences and I think art has done that for me on many occasions.

I don't think I over-rely on them or I would kill myself if I never saw Picasso's ceramics again but it certainly makes for a nice afternoon.

quitney and j0hn d be on a nick hornby tip here

Sentimental Education is a rather more mature piece of work than Bovary though

low blow

xpost

If I knew anything about nick hornby I might be insulted but as it stands acrobat might as well have said "you dudes sound like Zwoilatz the Unfortunate"

Nick Hornby's main moral "... then I realized that listening to music and stuff was lame and we got married and were properly happy. THE END" He was the Judd Aptow of the '90s.

Maturity is counter-revolutionary!

Err ... well, yes, more mature and more finely wrought, and I actually sometimes wish it were still the standard for older men now to write grand S.E./Dance-to-the-Music-of-Time books about the milieus of their younger days (if only so we'd have more interesting cultural continuity), but ... well, basically Bovary has slightly more shopping

Hornby is disdainful of pop culture, though – or, rather, pop culture's ok as long as it affirms the Importance of Art.

well, basically Bovary has slightly more shopping

Somebody give this man tenure!!

(acrobat: if that's Hornby's point, then it's hardly what I'm saying - only that, y'know, the adolescent urge toward seeing art as the thing which can be elevated in importance above all matters human & social [not only adolescent though lol, I think Flaubert believed exactly that] is hardly the last stop on the line)

what he said

Flaubert's also tracing how adolescent virtues decay, and how adolescent virtues reveal themselves as rather ordinary longings when maturing.

"slightly more shopping" = high-level Marxist/materialist analysis

I jus read

None of the above. Artists overrate art as a reason to live.

-- Aimless, Monday, 24 September 2007 05:15 (9 hours ago) Bookmark Link

through

co-sign with aimless even though I feel bitter about it

-- J0hn D., Monday, 24 September 2007 14:07 (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

and my kneejerked.

there was this mad as a box review of that simon reynolds post punk book. it's main arguement was that the post punk period was only of any importance because of the Rock Against Racism movement and the damage this wrought to the National Front. it probably wasn't mad as a box. that's unfair. very unfair. i have not read Flaubert but i have read some nick hornby. this is proably bad, right? anyway, surely "art" can be solidarity as well as the other stuff? it can be communication and community cos "art" is made by people and consumed by people and er stuff. is that... adorno? i don't know. maybe this is just about Prefab Sprout. "somethings hurt more than cars and girls"... right?

i think that was that crazy trot ben watson, reviewing grimey simey.

'madame bovary' is part (start?) of (basically) art for art's sake, or that's how he went down in the UK. perfection in art -- formal perfection -- is all. and that mindset is adolescent or at least cosseted.

but there are other types of art, that maybe connect with life and lived experience more. but even still the idea that those things -- things 'about' life -- make life worth living seems to me almost a paradox?

Like The Beautiful South?

why not.

hmm i think i am misinterpreting a little. i think maybe "art" could be thought of like a tool, it's far better for doing somethings with than others. and if it makes you happy isn't that a reason to live? this kind of makes everything a hierachy, which seems wrong. like the smiths lp = 12 points of happy but getting amrried = 100 points or something. i am now thinking of that scene in children of men where clive owen meets his cousin with all the art and then um...

is adolescent pleasure really so bad? hmm i think i am still misinterpreting.

i think of needing reasons to live as a bad thing. like, if you're at the point where you need to count or name things that make life worth living -- not a good sign! and if all you can come up with is not so much art, as specific art-works, then YAAAOOOW. and i think woody is playing us in the film, or owning up that he's played himself and that what *really* matters is the teenage piece of ass he's somehow acquired.

but this thread doesn't carry that narrative function, as it were.

I dunno. It feels like there is a hidden suggestion that you dig and discover some more elemental truth about yourself as you get older. Which seems kind of scary and reductive from where I am sitting. Like I'd rather transformation rather than discovery, maybe. And just the possibility that art or whatever can actually be transformative rather than merely a placebo for your hormonal agonies is kind of cool. Maybe that's all it is, kinda cool.

woops that isn't a reply to quits last post

i agree with that, which is why i think making a list of art like woody does is lame. because famously art is not transformative for woody -- it was only transformative when he was young. there are a couple of exceptions, like the stupid 'swedish movies, naturally', like wtf, all of them? consecrating the ephemeral as capital-a Art, that's the thing i'm talking about.

consecrating the ephemeral as capital-a Art, that's the thing i'm talking about.

could you explain this a little more. the only woody fiolm i've seen all the way through is Radio Days oddly.

BUNCH OF CULTURAL REFERENCES... ANNOYING NEW YORK REFERENCE... 17-YEAR-OLD CHICK I'M SCHEMING

-- That one guy that hit it and quit it, Sunday, 23 September 2007 20:35 (Yesterday) Link

loool

I think art vs. people life is a false distinction, because obviously in real life you don't usually have to choose, but I do think it's sadder if it's only art that gives you the reason to live than if it's only people. It's like the classic scenario where your house is burning, and you have to choose whether you save a priceless painting or your cat.

Also, lets not forget that in many cases art is a collective experience: movies, gigs, dancing, etc. Often it's hard and pointless to make the distinction between "art experience" and "human connection".

The Only Thing Worth Living For ... http://youtube.com/watch?v=qWyBxrZLwtE

cats arent people, tuomas

Basically, I love art and when I feel low and people can't reach me - and obviously as quit it says if you're at the point where you need to count or name things that make life worth living -- not a good sign! - but when I am at that point then I do find that art (by which I mean music and film and architecture) does offer me a way back to feeling human again. Having recently watched my father pass away I have to say I found the ability of some art to do this for me extremely helpful.

He hated Woody Allen films incidentally. But loved trad jazz. So you see they could have found something in common through art!

you guys upthread are being ridiculous, the speech clearly lists a bunch of social/personal things along with art and whatnot

but hey obv life would be better if art and movies and music didn't exist and we all just sat around a big table enjoying each other's company

tuomas is totally otm; u guys are all weird for trying to separate out "art" from "people" or whatever

"whaling, naturally"

LOL

BUNCH OF CULTURAL REFERENCES... ANNOYING NEW YORK REFERENCE... 17-YEAR-OLD CHICK I'M SCHEMING

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Sunday, September 23, 2007 4:35 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I do still need to read Sentimental Education

I hate this thread.

Aimless IS otm, and that's the whole point of the scene. His listing his favorite artwork is just a parlor game, no more reasons to live that Mary's "Academy of the Overrated." It's exactly the same noise. So that's why when he gets to the point in his list where there's an actual person, he has an "OMG!" moment and goes running down the street.

Only he's STILL wrong, because his impulse is to go try to suck some more life out of someone who has everything ahead of her, instead of taking stock, admitting his soul-crushing vapidness, and swallowing a whole bottle of seconal.

Kids, I'm so glad you understand the pathos at the heart of Manhattan, but please stop reading it into everyone else partaking of my Madlib, thanks.

I suppose I did just say it's a parlor game, didn't I?

"partaking of my madlib"

lolcats, naturally.

"Well, all right, why is life worth living? That's a very good question. Well, there are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. Uh, like what? Okay. Um, for me... oh, I would say... what, Sifl & Ollie, to name one thing... and Bruce Haack, and... "Space Ritual", and... The Velvet Undergrounds's recording of "Sunday Morning"... Taco Bell, naturally... 'The Secret Doctrine' by H.P.Blavatsky... Charlize Theron, James Brown... the record-store scene in "A Clockwork Orange"...the sesame chicken at Chinese Buddha... that weird bump on my head..."

http://images.lowriderarte.com/drawings/0701_lrap_06_z+drawings+notorious_big.jpg
I want ya'll to play this at funerals in the hood.
Til all this black on black crime stop.
Some say the blind lead the blind.
But in the ghetto you never know,
When it's gon be yo time.
http://images.lowriderarte.com/drawings/0701_lrap_06_z+drawings+notorious_big.jpg
[Sons of Funk, Mo B. Dick, O'dell]
Sittin at the ghetto thinkin bout
All my homies passed away (uuunnnggghhh!)
Candy painted cadillacs and triple gold
That's how me and my boys rolled
How could it be?
Somebody took my boy from me
My best friend's gone
And I'm so all alone
I really miss my homies
Even though they gone away
I know you in a better place
And I hope to see ya soon someday
http://images.lowriderarte.com/drawings/0701_lrap_06_z+drawings+notorious_big.jpg
[Master P]
I used to hang with my boy even slang with my boy
Used to bang with my boy, goddam I miss my boy
We started out youngstas in the park throwin birds
In your hearse, damn it's sad to see my nigga in the dirt
The game got me workin, got me perkin, never jerkin
Still blowin dolja fo ya cause I know you up there workin
Ya little baby's cool and ya baby's mama straight
But today's a sad day to see the t-shirt with ya face
From the cradle to the grave, from the streets we used to fall
In the park you liked to ball, put yo name upon the wall
In the projects you's a legend on the street you was a star
But it's sad to see my homeboy ridin in that black car
A lotta soldiers done died, a lotta mothers done cried
You done took yo piece of the pie but you was too young to retire
Why soldiers ride for yo name leave it vain
Some Gs never change, damn they killed you for some change
Smile for my homie Kevin Miller my boy Randall
The ghetto persons that lost they loved ones to these ghetto scandals
http://images.lowriderarte.com/drawings/0701_lrap_06_z+drawings+notorious_big.jpg
Take a minute to smile for the dead (uuunnnggghhh!)
Smile for the dead (RIP 2Pac, Makaveli)
All my homies who done made it to the crossroads
(Biggie Smalls)
http://images.lowriderarte.com/drawings/0701_lrap_06_z+drawings+notorious_big.jpg
[Sons, Mo B. O'dell]
How could it be?
Somebody took my boy from me
(It's like I can't believe you gone)
My best friend's gone
(Sometimes I feel like I can't go on)
And I'm so all alone
(Everytime I see something you done left
I really miss my homies
(It just remind me, more and more of you, dawg)
Even though they gone away
(I just keep reminiscin)
I know you in a better place
(Cause I know you alright)
And I hope to see ya soon someday
(And I keep smilin, knowin I'm a see you in the crossroads]
http://images.lowriderarte.com/drawings/0701_lrap_06_z+drawings+notorious_big.jpg
[Pimp C]
We used to grip on the grain and flip them candy toys
But I'd give up all that bullshit if I could get back my boy
Off in the club smokin weed til 3, hollerin at the hoes
Spendin $4000 on me on gators and clothes
When I turned to rap, he had to chase the game
Nigga told me, "C, leave that dope, cause rappin is yo thang"
I ain't gone even lie, some nights I ride and cry
Wonderin why the real niggas always the ones to die
So I just smoke my weed and try to clear my mind
I wish that I had the power to turn back the hands of time
I wonder if there's a heaven up there for real Gs
For all the niggas in the game that be sellin keys
I keep my memories, try to keep my head stromg
But baby it's hard to be strong, when yo main homie gone
http://images.lowriderarte.com/drawings/0701_lrap_06_z+drawings+notorious_big.jpg
[Sons, Mo B. O'dell]
Even though you gone away
(Even though you gone, you ain't never gon be forgotten)
I know you in a better place
(Cause as long as I'm here
You gon live through me and other TRU playas)
I really miss my homies
Even though they gone away
I know you in a better place
And I hope to see ya soon someday
http://images.lowriderarte.com/drawings/0701_lrap_06_z+drawings+notorious_big.jpg
[Silkk]
I'm just sittin here dazed thinkin bout all the times we had
Thinkin the past, some was good and some was bad
Remember Dante?
It was a group of us, just a group of five
Now three dead, one in jail, it seem right now I'm the only one alive
To all my soldiers before me, may ya'll rest in peace
When He took three, took my soul, just the bodies
He at the crossroads guide us out to the rest of me
Wishin I could rewind time like demos
Me and you gettin girls, writin down numbers like memos
Makin million dollar bets, makin all our money stretch like limos
Even though I smile, it's sad, but they say gangstas can't cry
But if I close my eyes and visualize me together
Then I suddenly wanna smile
To see you laid down when it's yo time, when your time was up
You never seen your child, but he's here to remind us
Even though you was wrong, I never could belive that that was true
You was with me forever, you could check my rest in peace tattoos
See me and C and P forever gon be ridin and thuggin
Rest in peace to all the ones that didn't make it
And rest in peace to my brother
We gon miss you
http://images.lowriderarte.com/drawings/0701_lrap_06_z+drawings+notorious_big.jpg
(I love these fools)
I know you in a better place
(Every time I get on my knees)
And I hope to see ya soon someday
(I pray for you, I'm glad you in a better place
I hope I see ya soon, ain't no more killin
Ain't no more fights, and ain't no more tears)

Is this our only Manhattan thread? I just saw this film for the first time and want to read what you guys think, because I think I loved it.

its discussed on some of the other Woody Allen threads (of which there are too many, tbf) - this is widely regarded as one of the peaks of his career, after Annie Hall.

I still think its an amazing movie, but my perspective on it has shifted over the years, I kinda see it differently now then I did as a teenager/college kid

(by which I mean on initial viewings I thought the characters were all really engaging/charming/cool but watching it in later years I'm struck by how assholish and narcissistic everyone is, with the exception of Muriel Hemingway)

dialogue is still hilarious tho, great script, tons of jokes

Aye, I was laughing very heavily. Thanks btw. This was indeed my first ever Woody Allen movie; that virginity was lost tonight.

I thought it was very funny, wonderfully natural seeming (be that well-observed writing and/or great acting), beautiful to look at, clever and with great music. Yeah, I liked it a lot.

Doing this thread's rewrite is a lot harder than I expected though. I'm struggling immensely to fill in the blanks for my own self.

I did a genuine serious one, in the end:

"Well, all right, why is life worth living? That's a very good question. Well, there are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. Uh, like what? Okay. Um, for me... oh, I would say... what, Jack Kerouac, to name one thing... and Richey Edwards, and... the opening build of 'New Paths To Helicon, Pt. 1', and... Nirvana's recording of 'Where Did You Sleep Last Night?'... Japanese psychedelic music, naturally... 'American Psycho' by Bret Easton Ellis... Bill Murray, Keiji Haino... those incredible abstract colours by Rothko... the burgers at Ad Lib... Angela's hair..."

This is a great thread. I'll try to answer thoughtfully when this Michael Jackson thing is over.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, February 7, 2003 2:19 AM (6 years ago) Bookmark

the world awaits

"...liberal Democrats waking up and starting a progressive pahty..."

this speech is no "we need the eggs"

"and in such small pohtions!"

This is a great thread. I'll try to answer thoughtfully when this Michael Jackson thing is over.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 7 February 2003 02:19 (6 years ago) Bookmark

nanalyzing the scene

http://www.issuu.com/interiorsjournal/docs/interiors1212

I've always been mystified by "the crabs from Sam Wo's"...or whatever he says

such a Becker-Fagen line

I've always been mystified by "the crabs from Sam Wo's"...or whatever he says

― Iago Galdston, Tuesday, December 18, 2012 11:37 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

why?

years ago I wrote this short story about my Mother called "The Castrating Zionist"

I've always been mystified by "the crabs from Sam Wo's"...or whatever he says

― Iago Galdston, Tuesday, December 18, 2012 11:37 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

why?

the mussels are better

Richard Brody:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2011/11/the-crabs-at-sam-wos.html

but is Sam Wo's still open?

I never understood, did I have the name of the restaurant right? What is Sam Wo's anyway, a NYC restaurant? That's all, disregard

yes, it was. Long gone, apparently, tho one w/ same name in SF closed last year.