Ay, nuestro Woody...

Our old clarinetist was gifted a guitar by Madrid authorities, but he approached it with a certain weariness, reflecting the resigned demeanor one might display towards individuals considered alien to the world of cinema in previous eras. Allen, our Allen, was perceived as a leftist, a proponent of the European variety, as we understood it.

We were convinced his films mirrored New York society, that of an intellectual middle class, stylish, with time and money to spend evenings at Elaine's. We never imagined the male character would invariably speak while remaining silent, and only owing to the presence of a woman of Diane Keaton's caliber and grace could he become visible and iconic.

We also saw it as natural for a barely pubescent girl, akin to Mariel Hemingway, to fall helplessly in love with the neurotic adult, and to grieve the prospect of flying solo. We believed we saw a social message that only highlighted the romantic, failing to comprehend that his earlier works more closely resembled the enchanting romantic comedies that had shaped him, rather than a socially engaged cinema.

We would not have tolerated being told his films conformed more to the enchanting melodramas he had grown up with, than to a cinema committed to its cause; for we believed, we believed the jazz that illustrated his stories was a deliberate intellectual choice, the very music he listened to on the radio as a boy. But we shaped the character to fit our historical needs.

We wanted Woody to be the tailor-made man for our country, our own, who was opening up to democracy, even if he was repeatedly told he was not an intellectual, we considered him one. His admirers are demanding and blind. Even his most profound films responded to sentimentality and inherent human obsessions, rather than a relationship with society.