The Films of Woody Allen is the first full-length study of Woody Allen the artist as opposed to the celebrity and personality and argues that Allen is a major artistic force. On the cutting edge of contemporary critical and cultural consciousness, Allen challenges our notions of authorship, narrative, perspective, character, theme, ideology, gender and sexuality. A student and admirer of the classic Hollywood cinema, Allen combines this appreciation for American directors with a developed sensitivity to experimental European directors such as Fellini, De Sica and Bergman. Probably the most widely recognized aspect of his work involves his films that experiment with narrative, plot and psychology. In the films dating from the early seventies, Allen develops into one of America's great innovative directors as he takes his brilliant comic impulses seriously. His technical, literary, visual and linguistic innovations introduce intensity and complexity to his humour. Instead of continuing on the path of zany comedy, he carefully creates films that form an original union of the serious and comic.