This great book is an in-depth study that analyzes a recurring theme of Allen’s movies, plays and short stories: his characters’ desire to escape, in various forms and to different degrees, the world they come from to find refuge in another. This new world can be sociocultural, mental or fictional. Dirk Clara explores the characteristics and resemblances of these worlds and the dangers for Allen’s characters in passing from one world to another. In the process, the author discusses the themes of the Jewish Mama and the so-called Waspish woman, the influence of Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint on Allen’s oeuvre, the particular originality of the director's mise en scène in his most ambitious movies and the way he lures us into believing that many of his stories are autobiographical. 'Dirk Clara's study is fundamental to understand not only Woody Allen's cinema, but also Woody himself, his greatness and his weakness, his sexual fantasy and his dreamed women. The author clearly shows that, regardless of what could be said or written about Woody Allen recently and his alleged relationship with women, we must avoid judging the filmmaker based on his films only.' Alain Saint-Saëns