Woody Allen: ‘There are traumas in life that weaken us. Thats what has happened to me’

Dont be fooled by Caf Societys tourist-bait take on Tinseltown. Dont get blinded by its goggle-eyes at the glimpse of bling. It may look lush, but a good 60% of that rose-tint is jaundice. The movie biz, says someone, is boring, nasty, dog-eat-dog. Hollywood, remarks Allens narrator, is a town run on ego plain and simple,

But then, he says today, cheerfully spooling out the doominess, where isnt? Im sure every business is full of phonies and people that dont return phone calls and play the big shot. Im sure it exists on Wall Street and in London and Rome, but Hollywood always gets the rap because there its so obvious. Youre dealing with one diva after another.

He doesnt think other towns are more fuelled by, say, sex or money or art? He twiddles his hearing aid to check hes heard right. Sex is the ultimate end. The ambition is so that they can fulfil their sexual drives; thats what everybody is going for. This is what animals are. People are in a kind of meaningless jumble to recreate, and nobody knows why. The same woman who says, People are terrible, life is awful, its sad, its short, nasty and meaningless still wants to have a couple of children. It defies any intellect. Its strictly emotional.

Like all Allens work, Cafe Society is consumed by how we cope with mortality. Its director famously said hed like to achieve immortality through not dying, rather than his movies; his film has a Jewish gangster becoming Catholic on death row in search of consolation (just as Woody failed to in Hannah and her Sisters). Isnt this the worlds most urgent issue, I ask. If people could only accept death was the end, the likes of Isis would have more of a recruitment problem.

I couldnt speak for all suicide bombers, he says mildly, fishing out the remote control for his hearing aid again, which forever makes you think he is trying to unlock a car. But without a firm faith in an afterlife, many of them would not do those things. They do believe when they blow themselves up that theres going to be positive payoff. That it isnt simply going to be what it is, though some of them might be willing to do it anyhow, to consider it a noble sacrifice for a noble cause. Theyre misguided, in my opinion. He smiles. But they dont agree with me.

What would he die for? Only his family, he thinks. Had he been 15 years older, he wouldnt have felt compelled to actively serve in the war. I cant see myself in a ditch somewhere in the rain at night fighting in a jungle off the coast of Japan. I dont think Id hold up very well. I get annoyed when the air conditioning doesnt work.

Has he noticed any recent rise in antisemitism? Well, not personally, he says, sitting up a bit. But friends have. It doesnt surprise me. Its in the nature of people to have someone to scapegoat. If there were no Jews in the world they would take it out on blacks. If no blacks, theyd move over to Catholics. No Catholics? Something else. Finally, if everyone is exactly the same, the left-handed people would start killing the right-handed people. You just need an other [on whom] to vent your hostility and frustration.

He shrugs. Hopefully, the wave will ebb and people will realise thats not the problem and focus more on what the problems are. But the world is full of intolerance and prejudice. Freud said there would always be antisemitism because people are a sorry lot. And they are a sorry lot. He twinkles through the specs, left eye a little awry these days, like a Woody Allen action doll thats been dropped. Hes tiny. Some stars are shorter than you expect; he seems, literally, still inside the TV.

Allen has long been resigned to lifes deep bleakness. He is the wise-cracking nihilist, jokes provoked by the need not to leap. Yet some cynicism seems to be distilling. While previous films left characters wrestling guilt, this last one metes out justice with a wallop. When he talks about the world being full of terrified people walking round suffering tremendously, it carries more charge than the old patter.

I suggest hes getting tougher as he gets older. He chuckles and says the opposite is true. I dont believe in the Nietzschean notion that what doesnt destroy you makes you stronger. You see these soldiers come back with PTSD; theyve been to war and seen death and experienced these existential crises one after the other. There are traumas in life that weaken us for the future. And thats whats happened to me. The various slings and arrows of life have not strengthened me. I think Im weaker. I think there are things I couldnt take now that I would have been able to take when I was younger.

It was in 1992 that everything changed. Allen left Mia Farrow for her adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, then 21 Farrow found out after discovering intimate photos. Then followed a custody battle for their three children, Moses, Dylan and Ronan, then the claim of molestation of Dylan, aged seven. Credible evidence wasnt found and the charge was not pursued. Yet the media trial continues. At Cannes came the grenade of Ronans Hollywood Reporter piece, attacking the festival for its celebration, stars for collaboration and the press for perceived cowardice. The next day, reporters raised it. Allens response remained the same: he hadnt read the piece, the law had been plain, and he had said all he was going to.

Last week, he reiterates his position. I have no interest in all of that. I find that all tabloid stupidity. That situation had been thoroughly, thoroughly investigated up and down the line by New York social services in a 14-month investigation. It had been investigated by Yale and conclusions were clear and I have no interest in that whole situation. I get harassed all the time on it. But it doesnt affect me and I just have no interest in it.

He sounds weary, sad, flat. Hes not used the word harassed in relation to the case before; today he uses it twice, the second time directing me to an article rebutting Ronan (probably the best thing written on this since the whole harassment started mature and not vitriolic and decent). Which suggests that he may read some press, and that he is affected by it.

The opposite would be impossible. Even dismissed allegations can smear a career. And while he and Moses are now reconciled, Allen is estranged from Dylan and Ronan, despite a judge rejecting the application that his adoptive parenthood of the former two be revoked (meanwhile Mia has hinted Ronan is actually Frank Sinatras son). Has the whole thing altered his view of the world? No, no, he chuckles. It confirmed all my misanthropic feelings.

Allens strategy, then, is to throw up his hands and stop his ears. He may have an iPhone, but its strictly for calls, jazz and the weather app. And this determined detachment would help explain why, as the web rakes over the details, 24 years on, Allen remains remarkably frank, even blithe, discussing his private life.

Of his wife and the daughters (Bechet, 17 and Manzie, 16) they adopted soon after their wedding in 1997, he speaks often, fondly and oddly off-message. Of parenting, he tells me: You can count on them until adolescence. Youre king in the house and youre much needed and much loved and depended on. Once they start to come into their adulthood they start to field their oats, then, all of a sudden, its a different story.

Relationships, he says, again unguarded, are not my strong point in life. Ive always been dependent on the generosity of the woman; nothing I could do ever seduced them. That was the case with Diane Keaton, with whom he is still close: She had come to the conclusion she liked me. It was always the other person who decided.

He happily chats about how nice meals often end in spousal rows, but says that it is because of Soon-Yi that the man once defined by his psychoanalysis hasnt seen a shrink in years. I dont have to any more. Im functioning OK. Im in a happy marriage. I havent needed that support.

Do others come to him for advice? He reels at the idea. I dont have that many friends. I lead a very isolated life. I come home and Im with my family. I go to dinner with a few friends and, every once in a while, theyll ask for advice, but its never existential.

And, after dinner, he heads home, turns on the TV for 20 minutes and Im asleep. Never a comedy he has never seen anything in the same genre as his Amazon show and if not news, baseball, which always interests me much more than any kind of show. But the New York teams have struck out this season, so he has resorted to the Olympics, with moderate rewards.

I dont find it that thrilling to watch people swim up and back across a pool. I need a more complex sport something that has got a different narrative to it than just a sudden burst of speed or a quick jump. And I watch any sports. I can watch timber sports two guys sawing down a tree in a contest.

Thats one of the few he has yet to try: the young Woody was surprisingly sporty and his loss of athletic ability is his chief regret about ageing. Ive been very lucky. Im in good health at least I think I am. Dementia hasnt set in yet to any noticeable degree. Everything is fine, but Im always consumed with sorrow that I cant get out on a baseball field and play it the way I could. That, for me, is the most poignant.

Id like to race against Usain Bolt, he adds wistfully. But Im not sure how well Id do. I was always a very fast runner. But its possible that while Im still running, he would be doing his post-race interview.

Late-stage Woody Allen, then, is a man who gets through by playing ball, even if the sport is stacked against him. By disregarding the results and declining to dwell. Youre probably happier in life if you can forget things, he advises.

Any yet, there may be a coda. Allen doesnt permit himself the indulgence of nostalgia, but, sometimes, when Im alone, I think maybe it would be a nice life to stop making movies and write maybe an autobiography. It might be pleasant to relive his childhood, like he does when he reminisces with his sister, Letty.

Yet writing a memoir would also require resurfacing less happy events, right? Putting them on paper. Well, yes. I would have to go through the many regrets in my life and the many turbulences. But thats OK. Its conflict and excitement. It would be nice to write that out.

Caf Society opens in the UK on 2 September and Crisis in Six Scenes begins on Amazon Prime on 30 September.