Woody Allen: A Biography

I read this because I had NO background information on Woody Allen and thought this would be a fun way to get to know him. Consequently, I am knee-deep in Woody Allen movies. I had never been exposed to him before and learned a great deal by reading this book. For the beginner, it's a nice way to be introduced.

This is a very fair, even-handed look at the life of Woody Allen and his films. It is NOT critical of him, as several of the negative reviewers below seem to suggest. The author writes with candor and doesn't censor himself. Those are qualities I expect from a biography. Why read a bigraphy if you don't expect to come across a few warts? I've been a fan of Woody's for over 25 years. I like him. And, I like this book.

I enjoyed this book very much. I liked the author's tone, which was neither worshipful nor condemning. I thought his examination of the films was pretty interesting. His idea that Allen really owes more to Fellini than to Bergman sounded pretty convincing to me.Face it, any book on Woody Allen becomes instantly obsolescent, because by the time it gets on the shelves, Allen has made at least one more movie that might move his career in a new direction.I thought this book did a fine job of showing the many changes in Allen's career, from stand-up and TV (stuff that I really wasn't aware of - like Allen subbing for Johnny Carson) to movies and how the movies changed. Baxter's assessments of the many movies seemed mostly on the mark to me.The definitive work on Woody Allen will only be written after he is dead and thus can no longer make any movies, but until that sad day, I think this book will do very nicely.

For the most part, I found this book well written and informative, although typos occur quite frequently in the hardcover edition. After a brief background on Allen's childhood, the author titles the chapters after the titles of Allen's films; a beneficial format, because it allows the reader to watch the movie before they read the chapter if they elect to do so.The author has interesting arguments about why Allen acted the way he did in certain situations, but it is important to note that it doesn't appear that Mr. Baxter actually spoke with Allen during his research for this book. This is not the Gospel on Allen, but it is an interesting body none the less.

If you are a big woody allen fan,like myself.you would see it gave good imfo.even though the author seems to lack research and made him come out as sort of a cold man .woody as an artist still overcomes and wins the readers liking towards him by his work.this book dwells more on his work as apose to the man himself ,explaining his onscreen charecter better than the off screen charecter but there are great storys in on the movies of allen ,and tells how he got the ideas for them.all in all though it is still an enjoyable read i recomend it for any allen fan.....whos only regret is that thier not someone else