Woody Allen

ln filmmaker Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry, the writer Harry Block is presented as extremely neurotic and narcissistic. Block uses his experiences as fodder for his work, no matter how embarrassing the result may be for the other people in his life. And while Allen exaggerates Block's narcissism for comic effect, the effect a new direction for Allen than a concentrated reprise of a theme present throughout his career.

For instance, a film producer in Stardust Memories, Allen's sourest portrait of artists before many, articulates a particularly cynical view of cinematic art after a screening of a film-in-progress by Stardust Memories' main character, Sandy Bates. The producer says of Bates, "His insights are shallow and morbid. I've seen it all before. it off as art" appears sufficiently often in Allen's films to seem an unresolved personal issue.

In Manhattan, the ex-wife of a television writer and aspiring novelist offers a denigratory take on the artistic enterprise that is similar to the producer's in Stardust Memories. Her book documenting the collapse of her marriage punctures her ex-husband's artistic pretensions by revealing that he "longed to be an artist but balked he elevated to tragic heights when, in fact, it was mere narcissism."

It is also significant that in Allen's films, the less artistic the characters, the more likely their narrative is to result in a happy ending. Thus, the filmmaker in Crimes and Misdemeanors, the novelist in Husbands and Wives, and the screenwriter in Celebrity all wind up desolate and solitary, largely because of gratifying resolution Allen has scripted, primarily due to altruistic devotion to his utterly talentless nightclub performers.