Woody Allen has arrived at the Venice Film Festival in the lead up to the premiere of his 50th film, Coup de Chance. In a planned press conference and various interviews with select press, Allen talked about a range of topics.

Also at the press conference were the film’s stars Lou de Laâge and Valerie Lemercier, as well as cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. The Guardian had good coverage.

On making a film in New York:

“If some guy steps out of the shadow and says, ‘We’ll finance your film in New York’ and obeys all my restrictions — if some foolish person agrees to that, then I will make the film in New York.”

On the luck in his life:

“I had two loving parents and good friends. I have a wonderful wife and marriage, two children. In a few months I’ll be 88 years old; I’ve never been in a hospital, I’ve never had anything terrible happen to me.

“When I started making films, people chose to emphasis all the things I did well … they were very generous to me. I’ve had nothing but good fortune, and I hope it holds out. Of course, it’s early this afternoon.”

Allen spoke to Variety. He still has ideas.

“I have so many ideas for films that I would be tempted to do it, if it was easy to finance. But beyond that, I don’t know if I have the same verve to go out and spend a lot of time raising money.”

Coup de chance started as a story about Americans in Paris.

“I thought they would be Americans living in Paris. And then afterwards I thought to myself, you know, much of the cast is going to be French. Why don’t I just make the film in French? I got a chance to live in Paris for months and the cast turned out to be wonderful. You can tell good acting and bad acting. If you see a Japanese film, for example, you can tell who’s good and who’s not good, and the same in another language. So it wasn’t that complicated.”

On Paris:

“I’m in love with cities the way directors would fall in love with leading ladies. I just love cities and I’ve romanticized New York for years. If you see New York by Spike Lee or by Martin Scorsese, mine is very different from theirs. And the same in Paris, I see Paris through rose-colored glasses. And it helps because when you’re doing a murder story, the reason one enjoys the Hitchcock films so much is because there’s a lightness to them, a romantic feeling. They’re not grim and ugly where you see people getting murdered. In a film like “Shadow of a Doubt,” you don’t see anything at all, and yet the whole picture is gripping from start to finish. So to show Paris and Parisian characters in a charming way and make it a murder story is what interested me.”

He was asked about Catherine Deneuve.

“She’s one of the great French actresses in history. She was not right for anything in this movie, but if she had been, it would have been an honor for me to offer it to her.”

It’s interesting how far and wide his quotes have already gotten in the press. There is still so much interest in everything Woody Allen does.

Theres even some footage of Woody Allen thanks to Associated Press

A very unflattering preview image on this one.

More coverage of Woody Allen’s Coup de Chance to come. Especially as the film premieres and the reviews come in.