Is it comedy? Or tragedy? Allen’s career straddles both

NEW YORK — Woody Allen’s recent films have mostly been critical and box-office disappointments, and his latest film, “Melinda and Melinda,” opened Wednesday to lukewarm reviews. But the 69-year-old filmmaker claims not to suffer from highs and lows.

“I’m not crushed if a film of mine does no business or is not well-received,” Allen says in an interview. He even jokes about the empty seats at the cineplex.

“I have a small audience,” he says, laughing and attributing that to his being a comedy writer whose work can be suffused with melancholy. “And I’ve always had a small audience. I know how to keep ‘em out.”

To him, a movie is a success if he can shepherd what was in his mind to the screen. “If I have an idea at home, and I think it’s a good idea, and I execute it -- I write it, and then I film it and edit it and put it out -- and I executed my idea, and I say, ‘Yes, this is what I had in my living room or my bedroom’ ... then I feel successful about it,” he says.

“But that’s a much rarer experience for me,” Allen says. “Usually I ruin them.”

He keeps making movies “only because it’s what I do” -- he doesn’t know what he would do otherwise. He also makes them inexpensively (and quickly).

“It serves me therapeutically when I do it. I like writing. It keeps my mind off grim subjects,” he says. “It’s therapeutic in the same way a patient in an institution is given finger paints.”