This book contains several essays about Woody Allen and his work. The second chapter – entitled “Will the Real Little Man Please Stand Up?” – discusses the question of the real Woody Allen versus the onscreen Woody Allen. Pogel argues that more and more critics are treating Woody Allen separately from his creation. Allen even argues that point, and in interviews, he does not appear as the man from the movies. Thus, Pogel pursues that any understanding of Woody Allen based on his films would be incomplete and unconvincing.

Pogel runs through Allen’s private, rigid daily routine, juxtaposing it to the scatter-brained characters that he writes and portrays in his films. The author paints him in the most normal actions and emphasizes the simplicity rather than the exaggerated character associated with Woody Allen. Pogel comments on Woody Allen as a writer, a comedian, a filmmaker, and a businessman drifting away from the everyday man that she initially depicts.

Still, as the chapter continues, Pogel begins to draw similarities between Allen and his “little-man” characters. The discussion at the end of the first section of this chapter comments on Allen’s feelings about politics, being Jewish, and romance, using small references to their infusion into his films. However, Pogel continues to resist the temptation to equate Woody Allen with his onscreen persona. Quotes of Allen’s comments on those subjects are taken from interviews rather than films, although his films do bring up the same opinions to some degree.

The second part of the chapter draws a line between Allen and his characters citing the ambiguities that surround Woody Allen’s personal life, particularly his childhood. The author ponders why Allen would withhold private details, suggesting that Allen may want the audience to consider the broader implications of the film rather than focus on the film as a personal introspection. The chapter goes on to detail Allen’s childhood and written and stand-up comedy career, never mentioning the similarities to his film persona.

This source opposes the idea that the filmmaker Woody Allen is the Woody Allen character in his films, and despite its sound arguments, the essay can also be seen as the extent to which one must avoid the connections between Allen and his onscreen persona to uphold this perspective in this debate.

This collection of essays on Woody Allen contains one particularly relevant essay, entitled “Woody Allen: The Relationship between the Persona and its Author” (Marie-Phoenix Rivet). This essay considers the creation of the persona that Woody Allen wrote for many of his films and portrayed in many of his films. The writer quotes Allen, who describes the emergence of this persona as unintentional and molded by Woody Allen’s physical appearance. Allen’s comedy and his comic persona place him in the ranks with the comic stars of the silent film era, including Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, and Allen even admits to his persona’s modeling after these past, great, successful characters/filmmakers. The influences of their films are also evident in Allen’s own film gags. The connection between Woody Allen and Charlie Chaplin even reaches to their filmmaking styles, artistic temperaments, the level of control that they possessed over their films, their negative world view, and the split between two fictional characters – one onscreen, one off-screen.

The essay shifts from describing Allen’s film influences to his cultural influences on his persona. His Jewish origins and his contemporary American life identify his character, and although Allen says that his Jewish origins are simply part of his subconscious, the writer argues that Allen manipulates this element of the persona purposely, which is often portrayed negatively in his films.

The third issue that the writer brings up in this essay about the Woody Allen persona is the reflection of Allen’s personal life on his films. Although Allen denies this self-referential aspect of his films, the many resemblances and the creation and portrayal by Woody Allen are difficult for the writer to deny, and the writer emphasizes that a major part of the persona is precisely egotism. Elements of the narrative style, such as the direct address to the camera in Annie Hall, creates the illusion that the writer, director, and actor is the character that he plays. He hires friends; he invokes psychoanalysis, of which he has been under for thirty-five years; and he shares the persona’s ambivalence to fame.

The writer describes the major facets of the persona and then analyzes the audience’s relationship to the persona, describing it as a mixture of identification and rejection. Ultimately, the writer concludes that the persona is so influential and ingrained that audiences continue to seek Woody Allen in them and do so successfully, whether or not the real Woody Allen was actually or meant to be put into the work at all.

This book analyzes Woody Allen’s films based on philosophical theories and trends, and the second chapter is entitled “A Therapeutic Autobiography: Annie Hall (1977).” This chapter is a particularly useful analysis of the scenes in the film that have specific, directed commentaries about Woody Allen’s views on life, love, values, and responsibility.

The beginning of this chapter brings up the important point that Woody Allen rejects the idea that Annie Hall is autobiographical. Allen claims that all his films have a few true facts in them, but presumably that is the limit. Although Lee acknowledges this point, the chapter continues to remark on the continuity within Woody Allen’s film repertoire and refers to Allen’s private life within the commentary on the film and the philosophical ideas. The elements of philosophy are attributed to Woody Allen himself, presumably because he co-wrote the film, but throughout the chapter, the sense that these are part of Woody Allen’s philosophy is always present. Lee even comments on the name “Alvy” sounding much like the beginning of “Allen” with the ending of “Woody” and how Diane Keaton’s real last name is Hall. Lee refers to other Woody Allen films to support the philosophical ideas and explain some offhand comments in these movies. For example, Lee explains Rob’s calling Alvy “Max” by referring to the film Hannah and her Sisters and Woody Allen’s admiration of Ingmar Bergman, who worked frequently with actor Max von Sydow.

The explanation of the chapter's title is made clear in the onset of the chapter as Lee describes the film as a series of psychotherapy sessions, in which Alvy tries to explain all his actions and free him of confusion or guilt.  This idea is linked to the basis of some autobiographical documentaries, according to Jim Lane's book.  This theory is that filmmakers make personal films to attempt to impose order, understanding, and rationality on their lives.

This discussion of Annie Hall describes the film thoroughly, and the continuity that the writer draws between the life of Woody Allen, a philosophy on life that emerges in other Woody Allen films, and the events in Annie Hall supports the argument that the image of film Woody Allen is almost inextricable from the real Woody Allen.

Jim Lane’s book on the autobiographical documentary briefly mentions Woody Allen as Lane discusses the move from literary to cinematic autobiography. However, this source is mainly used as a reference to the development of the film autobiography in America, its techniques, and the issues with producing these kinds of films.

The first chapter is particularly helpful in a discussion of Woody Allen’s autobiographical elements. This chapter is concerned with the historical connections between the written autobiography and those on film. Lane discusses the film history that preceded and influenced autobiographical film, and these movements in film in the 1950s and 1960s are also strong influences on Woody Allen, whose films arrive around the time of the autobiographical films discussed by Lane (around the 1960s-1970s and further into the 1990s). Lane writes about the avant-garde of the 1960s documentaries and how these filmmakers sought a more personal take on their society, their lives, and the events in the world. He also discusses the influence of European films, which brought reflexivity to the autobiographical documentary. This technique is particularly relevant to Woody Allen’s Annie Hall, as Allen constantly acknowledges the camera and comments on the fantasy world that can be created by filmmaking.

In this same chapter, Lane discusses the motivations of the autobiographical documentarian, writing that they seek to expand their personal perception into a broader cultural or social frame. This motivation is often applied to Woody Allen’s work in other sources, particularly stating that the topics of his films and the underlying themes comment on the society at large.

The film techniques mentioned in another chapter of Lane’s book are also used in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall. These include the aforementioned film reflexivity, direct address to the camera, strong narrative voice, and open or loose endings.

This project is a collection of sources that discuss the idea of Woody Allen as one of Hollywood's most auteurist of filmmakers, because his films, particularly Annie Hall (1977), are autobiographical, based on his personal philosophy on life, and have a recognizable style. The recognizable Woody Allen style and persona is exemplified in the Academy Award-winning Annie Hall (1977), in which Woody Allen writes, directs, and stars. The sources cover information about autobiographical documentary, whose techniques are used in Allen's films; timely written articles about Woody Allen before and after he became a filmmaker; essays that discuss Allen's career and other similarities between his personal life and films; and writing that discusses both sides of the argument for and against the autobiographical quality of Annie Hall. With all of these sources and the quotes from Woody Allen himself, one must admit the amount of self-reflection Allen uses, but the extent to which film events are impressed upon Allen's private life may be exaggerated. The final sources gauge the reception and reaction to Woody Allen's work - how his persona and style have seeped into the consciousness of his audiences and created an image and brand name (which was created and has endured whether or not one can conclusively say that it is factual) out of the real Woody Allen.