Academic Allen

Death and God-hitherto undiscussed-and how the latter's theme of the power of the author over the reality of the fictional world is developed in such later masterworks as Annie Hall and Purple Rose of Cairo, McCann locates the source of Alien's problems (both artistic and personal) in the writer-director's increasingly obsessive desire for control, which began in his days as a stand-up comic when he consciously invented his schlemiel character in order to distance himself in the minds of the public from his real-life persona (he actually enjoyed a relatively stable middle-class childhood), with the hope that audiences would become comfortable with this "Woody Alien" and not want to look farther (Alien was successful in this).