Woody Allen

In a new documentary film about Woody Allen, someone says (may have been him) that he achieved everything he wanted to in his life: he wanted to write gags for comics, he became a successful stand-up comedian, he acted in films, usually his own, he became a famous film director/scriptwriter, he married late successfully (not so successfully sometimes) and has two wonderful kids. The one thing that eluded him was a box-office success, he said. No sooner had he said it than he achieved that too with "Midnight in Paris" which brought in millions of dollars.
The main obsession he has, it seems, is with death. He said something like he didn't fear it but didn't want to be there when it happened. He was always a good joker about serious things. Maybe that was his way of facing up to them. He has a lot to say about God, especially about his non-existance. But even that he makes jokes about.
I think he's one of those people who was brought up in a rigorous religious way so that his Jewish-ness and its effect on him is always there, as it were peeping around a corner at him even when he's engaged in dismissing it and God with it. I have known Catholics who say they were lapsed Catholics, yet when it came to the crunch, taking communion, going to funerals etc they can't seem to shake off the influence of the church. I don't think Woody has completely shaken off his Jewish religiousness: it's always there watching him as he goes about the business of denouncing it.
Some of his films are just good stories with jokes: they aren't about serious topics or issues or have moral themes. But some deal with the one serious topic that concerns him: death and earthly justice. In both "Crimes and Misdemeanours" and "Match Point" a man, the main character, kills someone or gets someone to kill someone and gets away with it. Not just gets away with it but lives "the good life" afterwards. Indeed, lives a better life afterwards. I don't know if this is telling us something important but it does tell us that Woody Allen is a pessimist and an atheist. But a peculiar form of atheist: one that has no moral values.
So, is he saying that you cannot have moral values if you are an atheist; moral values only come from religious values - which he doesn't have? A peculiar form of existentialism, maybe.
I think he's a great film maker because he is a cinema stylist. He's up there with Ozu I believe.