Back to The Front

"There is laughter because there is nothing to laugh at. Laughter, whether conciliatory or terrible, always occurs when some fear passes."

- The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception
Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno

In Wednesday's edition of the New York Times, Woody Allen was interviewed about his next movie, in which a woman finds help from a fortune teller. Rather than explaining the movie however, Woody Allen instead revealed some, if not typically Woody Allen, surprising facts about his work. In light of our screening and discussion of The Front, his comments only heighten suspicion as to the purpose of this film.
In The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception, Horkheimer and Adorno bemoan the fact that the prime sources of entertainment are in fact means to subdue the masses. Serious themes are watered down to provide cheap entertainment; Tolstoy is Hollywood-ified, and "…pleasure promotes the resignation which it ought help to forget." Is The Front satire or merely a snicker? Was Inside Out merely fodder for another Hollywood hit, or a way to make a pointed criticism? Adorno and Horkheimer note that in much of cheap entertainment and the "false society" that follows it, "to laugh at something is always to deride it."
Bernstein remarks that the only way that Inside Out could have been made, even in the 1970's, was as a comedy. Walter Bernstein explains that he and fellow blacklisted writers were no strangers to the "hilarity of doom." This is after all, Woody Allen's formula for comedy in most of his movies. If a situation can be awkward, it's bound to be- and only get worse. However, even as a fervent Woody Allen fan, I found myself a little startled at his answer when he was asked whether aging has changed his approach to making films:

"There’s no rhyme or reason to anything that I do. It’s whatever seems right at the time. I’ve never once in my life seen any film of mine after I put it out. Ever. I haven’t seen “Take the Money and Run” since 1968. I haven’t seen “Annie Hall” or “Manhattan” or any film I’ve made afterward. If I’m on the treadmill and I’m scooting through the channels, and I come across one of them, I go right past it instantly, because I feel it could only depress me. I would only feel, “Oh God, this is so awful, if I could only do that again.”
Does Woody Allen's trademark wistful inadequacy belittle the struggle that blacklisted writers had while only endearing him more to his audience? I hope not. Being bumbling and perverse is hilarious in illicit love affairs, but is it when addressing political oppression that wrecked lives? Perhaps Allen's self-consciousness about his movies expressed above reveals a certain sensitivity. However, whatever the motivation for The Front, it addresses an important part of American history, and raises vital questions about the purpose of humor. Woody won me back over when he commented:
"This sounds so bleak when I say it, but we need some delusions to keep us going. And the people who successfully delude themselves seem happier than the people who can’t."