Malcolm St. Clair Book

If you are a big Woody Allen fan, this is the book to read. It's very comprehensive...I actually had to skip through about half the book because I wasn't interested in learning about how Woody works on the set as a director...It was interesting to read about how he writes, where ideas come from and how they'll develop over time. I also liked learning about the actors he works with and his opinion of his own work and his "legacy." He never watches his movies after he's done making them...and MATCH POINT seems to be his favorite and considers it his best.

Here's some of my favorite quotes from him:
"...The work exists independent of all the talk about it. If the thing is good, it remains good despite the pro or con palaver about it. And if it's not good, it drifts away no matter how popular it may seem at the moment...Most work by most people, my own included, is bad because it's hard to do good work. So you have to assume going in that most of the work by filmmakers, authors, playwrights, painters is not first rate. Once in a while you come across an authentic talent or even a genius but it's rare. We're all saved because the public is not very demanding and a thing needn't be very good to succeed..."