THE FIRST INDUCTEES, attempt #1
Shakespeare
Beethoven
The Beatles
Steven Spielberg
Woody Allen
"Things, or People, We all Admit are Great, but Which are in Fact Actually Underrated. Or, more simply: Hall of Underrated Geniuses."
In 1939, when they opened the Hall of Fame (the Baseball one, the others need a qualifying adjective), they inducted five players. Immortals among the immortals, these five stood above the rest -- and though I guess some could definitely quibble with the five they took (Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Matthewson, and Walter Johnson), and certainly Pete Alexander might not have been the happiest guy in Cooperstown on that hot July (?) day in 1939, it seems to me the choice has stood the test of time.
Will the Big Five of the Hall of Underrated Geniuses prove the same?
I tend to doubt it. First let's look at those who didn't make it.
Just some of those who didn't make the cut and could legitimately complain are:
Picasso
Rembrandt
Mozart
Leonardo
Michelangelo
Philip Roth
Tolstoy
Herman Melville
Quentin Tarantino
In fact, it's VERY hard to leave Mozart out of the top 5. After all, did Mozart ever make anything even remotely as bad as 'Curse of the Jade Scorpion'? Or 'Always'? In fact, if Shakespeare is Babe Ruth here, then Beethoven is Walter Johnson, which makes Mozart Matty.
Changing the Big five.
THE FIRST INDUCTEES, attempt #2
Shakespeare
Beethoven
The Beatles
Mozart
Woody Allen
We'll let in Spielberg and probably someone else next year, but for now --
"Really? Woody? Under-rated? On the basis of what?"
1) His standup from the 60s. Great stuff. Not necessarily ground-breaking, but brilliantly funny. "I shot a moose."
2) The first stretch of comedies: Take the Money and Run, Bananas, Sleeper, Love and Death.
3) The double play of Annie Hall and Manhattan, novels on film which taken together are about as good an evocation of a time and place and milieu - New York, 1970s, intellectual - as I think can be found in cinema, and since it happens to be a time and place and milieu that means a lot to me...
4) The brilliant stretch of 'littler' films from the 80s -- highlighted by the twin gems of Zelig and Purple Rose
5) The later New York novels on film: Hannah and Her Sisters and Husbands and Wives, and to some extent Crimes and Misdemeanors (which I know many prefer to the others but which to me doesn't quite crack his pantheon of his films, probably because of the heavy handedness of that damn eye doctor character.) (Someone could write a good essay on the use of Sam Waterston in Woody's films.)
So is all of that totally undermined by the general inconsistency since the split with Farrow? (Notwithstanding good moments in some films like the recent one with Penelope Cruz, or even nearly complete amusements like Bullets over Broadway, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Sweet and Lowdown, and Match Point...)
That's the question, and that gets to the heart of the issue in terms of what we mean by underrated. If there are people out there walking around who think 'Curse of the Jade Scorpion' or 'Celebrity' or 'Shadows and Fog' or that frantic one with Tracey Ullman are just hilarious and brilliant and what a genius that Woody Allen is, well, then, no, we can't really call the guy among the most underrated artists of all time. But I think there are a lot more people who think 'Annie Hall' and 'Manhattan' and stop there -- and to them I would say, there's a lot more to look at.
Still, in balance, I think Woody doesn't quite fill the Honus Wagner spot. Given the longevity, I'd say he's more like Cy Young -- knocking on the door this year, likely to come in next.
But that brings up another, who I think may be just the guy:
Alfred Hitchcock.
Let's look again at the criteria:
Is he great?
Do we all pretty much all agree he's great?
When you look at his work, are you likely to have that feeling of, man, this guy was even better than I remember?
Other than the big ones, are his less well known works really really good, and possibly classics too?
That last one is where I think Hitch wins it.
Compare him to Woody.
For the sake of argument, let's say Hitch's two best are Vertigo and North by Northwest. That cancels out Annie Hall and Manhattan.
After that, I'd give you Psycho, Rear Window, the 39 Steps, Notorious, and the Birds. And not only haven't I broken a sweat, but I've just named 5 films which you could find many people to say are his absolute best -- and maybe among the best, most entertaining films of all time.
Throw in The Lady Vanishes, Strangers on a Train, Rebecca, and Shadow of a Doubt, and you're up to 11 films. I think we're reaching the point where I, at least, start to think, "man, he was good. He doesn't get enough credit."
Which makes him inductee #5. Sorry, Woody.
THE FIRST INDUCTEES, attempt #3
Shakespeare
Beethoven
The Beatles
Mozart
Hitchcock
