Woody Allen Introduces "Love Letter to New York in the Movies:" 2002 Oscars

we have more than the usual reasons to love New York lately she's been battered she's grieving and she fills her Island with resilience and pride and the movies have always loved New York it's the naked city of eight million stories and one of her long string of admirers is with us tonight a New York landmark a movie icon a filmmaker whose heart has never strayed too far from the heart of the city this artist more than anyone else has created a vision of New York that the world has joyously shared and it is his love for New York that brings him here tonight ladies and gentlemen it is my pleasure and my honor to introduce mr. Woody Allen thank you very much that makes up for the strip search let me tell you why I'm here exactly about four weeks ago I was sitting home in my apartment in New York and the phone rang and a voice on the other end said this is the Motion Picture Academy Arts & Sciences and I panicked immediately because I thought that they wanted their Oscars back because I've won a few Oscars over the years and I thought they you know that they were calling to get them back and I panicked because the the pawn shop has been out of business for ages you know and I have no way of retrieving anything and they said no this was not it that and I couldn't figure it out because my movie the curse of the Jade scorpion was not nominated for anything this year nothing no category and then it suddenly hit me maybe they're calling to apologize you know and I remembered during the course of the year I had been walking on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and a homeless man came up to me and asked me if I would buy him lunch and I didn't buy a munch but I gave him fifty cents and I thought maybe certain members of the Academy had witnessed this and they were going to give me a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award because that's what goes through your mind you know I thought maybe that or a Thalberg or something you know because you start calculating you know I'm 66 years old a third of my life is over now and I you know start to think maybe they want to honor me but they said no they said that here's what the story is in view of the terrible events that have occurred in New York over the last year the Academy wanted to show support and make a nice gesture and put together a little film paying tribute to movies that had been shot in New York over the years and they wanted someone to introduce it and I said you know God you can do much better than me you know you won't want to get Martin Scorsese or Mike Nichols or Spike Lee or shouldn t lament I kept naming names you know and then I said look I've given you 15 names of guys who are more talented than I am and and smarter and classier and they said yes but they were not available so I you know for New York City you know I'll do anything I got my tux I came out here it's a great great movie town ever since I was a little kid movies that I grew up on in New York movies that were shot there it's been a great romantic and exciting backdrop for movies in New York and and it's a great place to come and work and make your movies because it's still a thrilling and very very exciting city in a couple of weeks I'm going to be starting another movie in the streets of New York I'm going to be filming a romantic movie about a foot fetishist interesting movie the Goten the guy's a foot fetishist and he falls in love with a beautiful Harvard professor she's absolutely beautiful and she's brilliant and and she writes his paper on existential philosophy and he becomes sexually aroused by her footnotes you know and I begin to sit a few weeks in Manhattan so I plead with you to please come make the films there is it remains a great great city the film that you're about to see now the clips will lovingly put together by a terrific New York filmmaker Nora Ephron and you can roll this any time you want

Channel: Oscars

Views: 678,672

Rating: 4.8832684 out of 5

Keywords: Oscars, 74th, Academy, Awards, Woody, Allen, Love, Letter, to, New, York, in, the, Movies, Whoopi, Goldberg.

Id: rpwF6fbLFw4

Length: 5min 31sec (331 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 01 2012