He got started by following a suggestion that he write jokes for newspapers. This naturally progressed to writing jokes for comedians. He said it was easy and he could come up with fifty jokes a day.
He did what was natural and what came easily. This makes me think about how often we artists make things difficult for ourselves. We think, if it's easy, it must not be that great. But our talents come easily (that's what a talent is), so it makes sense to start by doing what comes easily. Just get it out there. Allen, to this day, is disappointed in all his films. But falling short of his own unrealistically high expectations doesn't stop him from making film after film, following the impulses that come naturally to him. If he's not completely confident that his work is up to his own par, he is confident that he should be doing his work, and so does it to the best of his ability (which happens to be great).
On the other hand, what he is most known for—filmmaking—is a direction he had not originally considered. He started by writing brilliant humor that came easily (using the talents that others around him had observed) and progressed into doing things that were harder for him to imagine, but which grew out of his initial endeavors and other people's confidence in his obvious strengths.
The second observation I came away with has to do with his branding of his art. With his wild hair and his black-rimmed glasses, Allen gave his audience an image to latch onto. His dry one-liners and wry, fatalistic observations about life and love quickly became part of his product as did his artistic sensibilities, which are too numerous to mention here. But, despite branding himself with a consistent character, he constantly throws the audience a curve ball and reinvents himself. He does what he wants to do.
This reminds me of someone like Bob Dylan, who adopts a very specific character early on: a kind of Woody Guthrie persona. But as soon as the audience latches onto it, he brings out electric instruments. He doesn't really change his artistic voice. He just makes sure the audience doesn't lose that voice in some stereotype. He complicates the story. He hooks the audience, but controls things, making his art more and more provocative as the audience grows with him.
In some ways, the conflict for the audience of Dylan's going electric and Allen making Stardust Memories or Interiors is more myth than reality. By stirring things up, the artists make sure that their art is their art, their fans are their fans, and thus ensure the artists' long-term survival. It's the same thing that Joni Mitchell did when releasing Mingus. But people don't really feel that much angst or agony from artists pushing the envelope. It's only laziness they regret losing: they'd rather have instant, easy gratification than do a little work and get more out of it.
So my second observation is that Allen, like the Beatles with their mop tops, or like Bob Newhart with his stammer, created a persona. But Allen and his audience never became a slave to it, because, like the other examples, the brand wasn't the impetus. Talent is the real starting place. The branding just bores a pathway into the audience's minds. Other motifs and elements of style that repeatedly show up in Allen's films—the importance of his take on existentialism, just for one—are also part of his persona, but these are deeper and more complicated. He hooks us with his Chaplin or Marx-like persona (something we already understand) and then when he's got our attention, he gives us quite a lot more to think about and enjoy. His product explains why a philosopher like Bergson could write a book on humor and end up crafting a treatise on art.
For a visual artist, like me, these observations suggest something of a possible formula:
1) Find my voice by doing what comes naturally and easily. Like Allen with his one-liners at the beginning of his career.
2) Materialize some easily recognizable, signature aspects of my style—the equivalent of Allen's goofiness, wild hair, and glasses (it sounds like he didn't even need the glasses when he started wearing them). These signature elements could be simple points-of-departure, like Henry Moore's three motifs (negative shape, mother and child, and reclining figure). These are not my talent; they are more like cues, or hooks—something to wrap the talent in.
3) Then saturate the audience with both my work and my brand as the documentary portrayed Allen doing. Again, my style consists of both easy-to-recognize stylistic points of departure, and deeper, personal themes and processes that run through all the work.
4) Next, let my activity take me in unexpected places and don't be afraid to go there. My natural talent suggests that this can work.
5) Finally, surprise the audience by keeping a consistent brand but changing it up and confronting the viewer with work that challenges them to see my style in a more sophisticated or complicated way. All the while, keeping my product intact with themes and sensibilities that run through the oeuvre—themes and sensibilities that run through all my work because that's who I am.
In short, Allen presents an example of an artist who knows who he really is, picks a stage name and outward appearance to package himself in, and yet is always searching for answers to the question, "who am I?"
"Who, what, how, where, and why am I?" Questions he poses for all of us.
What an interesting way to think of one's voice: confident, but searching.
