Woody Allen is probably my favorite filmmaker. I haven’t seen all of his films, but I’m working on it. I have a four-times-life-size portrait of him on my wall which I created, right next to a matching one of Kurt Vonnegut. A few weeks ago, Deanna found one of his books at a thrift store and I bought it. It is called Side Effects. I have since picked up his two older collections of short stories, and he is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers.

Not that he’s particularly deep. In fact, if there’s anything he excels at, it’s lampooning particularly deep things.

For example, the first of his stories I read, called “Remembering Needleman”, is an obituary of a fictional character who is clearly meant to parody Martin Heidegger. The piece was originally published in The New Republic in July of 1976, about two months after Heidegger’s death. At about this time, Heidegger had rebounded from a combination of obscurity and infamy to be regarded as one of the two most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. Of course, this sort of philosophical fame usually leads to having a lot of malarky written about you, and since Heidegger was a fairly malarky-prone writer to begin with, this inevitable fate was particularly dire in his case.

And so Allen had a lot to work with. Most of the usual features of a self-important eulogy of Heidegger get some attention. For example, the apologism for Heidegger’s dubious politics and personal ethics, usually with reference to his ties to the Nazi party:

Needleman was not an easily understood man. His reticence was mistaken for coldness, but he was capable of great compassion, and after witnessing a particularly horrible mine disaster once, he could not finish a second helping of waffles.

…

Needleman had always been obsessed by the problem of evil and argued quite eloquently that true evil was only possible if its perpetrator was named Blackie or Pete. His own flirtation with National Socialism causes a scandal in academic circles, though despite everything from gymnastics to dance lessons, he could not master the goose step.

Nazism was for him merely a reaction against academic philosophy, a position he always attempted to impress on friends and then would grab at their faces with feigned excitement and say, “Aha! Got your nose.” It is easy to criticize his position on Hitler at first`, but one must take into account his own philosophical writings. He had rejected contemporary ontology and insisted that man existed prior to infinity though not with many options. He differentiated between existence and Existence, and knew one was preferable, but could never remember which.

…

Needleman was passionate about the halting of nuclear testing and flew to Los Alamos, where he and several students refused to remove themselves from the site of a scheduled atomic detonation. As minutes ticked off and it became apparent the test would proceed as planned, Needleman was heard to utter “Uh-oh,” and made a run for it. What the newspapers did not print was that he had not eaten all day.

For a couple of semesters while I was at SFU, I was the paid research assistant of a Humanities professor who was writing a book on Heidegger and Adorno, and I got to read all kinds of stuff like this. It’s too accurate to be a fluke: Woody Allen is clearly familiar with his philosophy and appreciates how ridiculous it often gets.

In particular, I appreciate his parodying of the notion that philosophers possess greater-than-average wisdom and/or integrity. Probably, this idea can be traced to Plato’s writings about Socrates, who is made out to be a sort of philosophical superhero, especially in the Apology, where he is portrayed as a philosophical martyr who died for truth. Allen actually goes on to parody this scene in “My Apology,” a dialogue in the same volume where he imagines what he would do if placed in Socrates’ position:

Simmias: The senate is furious over your ideas for a utopian state.

Allen: I guess I should never have suggested having a philosopher-king.

Simmias: Especially when you kept pointing to yourself and clearing your throat.

…

Agathon: I told everyone you would die bravely rather than renounce your principles.

…

Allen: Right…right…(Suddenly dropping all pretense of courage) Look, I’m going to level with you–I don’t want to go! I’m too young!

Agathon: But this is your chance to die for truth!

Allen: Don’t misunderstand me. I’m all for truth. On the other hand I have a lunch date in Sparta next week and I’d hate to miss it. It’s my turn to buy. You know those Spartans, they fight so easily.

Simmias: Is our wisest philosopher a coward?

Allen: I’m not a coward, and I’m not a hero. I’m somewhere in the middle.

Simmias: A cringing vermin.

Allen: That’s approximately the spot.

Agathon: But it was you who proved that death doesn’t exist.

Allen: Hey, listen–I’ve proved a lot of things. That’s how I pay my rent. Theories and little observations. A puckish remark now and then. Occasional maxims. It beats picking olives, but let’s not get carried away.

Again, I think this is pretty dead-on satire. It would be tempting to read it as an indictment of the modern age, but I think it works just as well at throwing into question how accurate Plato’s PR for Socrates might have been.

One thing that I was reminded of by all this is a recent discussion on a couple of philosophy blogs about whether moral philosophers are more or less ethical than everybody else. Opinions are divided, according to a poll of people in the industry.

I must say that this is a question I’ve asked myself a number of times, too. When I first decided to study philosophy, back in high school before I really knew what it was, I had pretty inflated opinions of the profession. I had the vague idea that knowing philosophical truths was the only way to be a good person. And I remember that, after having ignored my grade eleven math teacher for a whole afternoon in order to read the aforementioned Apology, I used have big arguments about integrity with my parents, and people started calling me pretentious a lot.

Then, once I actually studied philosophy for a while and got to know my professors, the cruel reality manifested itself. They resembled the protagonist from Allen’s Apology much more than Plato’s. But I’ll spare you the disillusioning details.

Anyway. This brings me to my favorite line from Allen’s faux-obituary of Sandor Needleman:

Authentic Being, reasoned Needleman, could only be achieved on weekends and even then it required the borrowing of a car.

———————-

If you’d like to read any of Woody Allen’s stuff online, the place to look is probably The New Yorker, where he published most of his stuff these days. One of my favorite of the pieces available is “Thus Ate Zarathustra,” a diet book written by Nietzsche:

The point here is that in life one is entitled to a side dish of either coleslaw or potato salad, and the choice must be made in terror, with the knowledge that not only is our time on earth limited but most kitchens close at ten.