Sounds From A Town I Love (2001)
Woody Allen
USA
3 Min.

 

Long before young directors started professing their love for their hometowns through segment films, we have had directors whose relationship with their city has been more than a mere proposal. I mean, what would Fellini be without Rome, Scorsese without New York or Truffaut without Paris? And how can one ever forget to add the love affair between Manhattan and Woody Allen to that list? Sounds From A Town I Love (2001) was made as a part of the New York Concert that was held following the 9/11 attacks and presents us snippets from phone conversations of random individuals walking on the streets of the city. When the Academy decides to hand the life time achievement to Allen, they might very well go with this clip for the introduction because Sounds, in a way, helps to sum up the whole career of Woody Allen and, in particular, his style of script writing. The throw-them-all-you’ve-got attitude that is so consistently manifest across his filmography and also within each film is very evident in this short too. Most of the one liners work, big time, and some don’t. The camera tracks, in a way that seals the authorship of the film, along with the actors who deliver these lines the same way that Woody the actor himself would have done. Extremely neurotic and utterly funny at once, these characters are all blasts from the past for anyone who has relished the director’s films. The neighbourhood, which is the raison d’etre of this short, is quite familiar to all of us now and only adds to the nostalgic trip. And that introduction message by the director, where he promises his fans that he would make up for it if they felt that this short film was bad, just goes to show how his relationship with his audience has changed post-Deconstructing Harry (1997)