By Eric Lax. Knopf, 416 pp, $38, hardcover

Sometimes it's hard to reconcile the Woody Allen who sent a giant breast rampaging across the countryside in Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* But Were Afraid to Ask with that other Woody who reveres The Seventh Seal. Think of Alvy Singer's line in Annie Hall, "Don't knock masturbation. It's sex with someone I love," plus the infamous lobster-herding and sneezing-into-cocaine scenes. Then consider the more recent Match Point's shocking act of violence committed to the strains of an aria from Verdi's Othello.

"There's something immature, something second-rate in terms of satisfaction when comedy is compared to drama," Allen told Eric Lax in 1972, while filming the comedy Sleeper. The tug of war had begun: audiences liked him dressed as sperm–or at least funny–while Allen wanted to get serious.

That's one fascinating corner of Conversations With Woody Allen: His Films, the Movies, and Moviemaking. Lax snagged 36 years of access to the notoriously elusive ("I'm not anti-social; I'm just not social"), workaholic ("The fun is working…no success can alleviate my genetic gloom") auteur.

There are references to a certain family scandal, but Lax is no pit bull. Instead, we get enough insights into casting (scheduling kept Jack Nicholson from Michael Caine's role in Hannah and Her Sisters); early Annie Hall (a murder mystery, later becoming Manhattan Murder Mystery); writing (Crimes and Misdemeanors was written on bits of wadded-up hotel stationery in Europe); and cinematography talk to absorb even noncineastes.

What emerges from the conversations is an artist fond of diminishing his talents ("I'm a very lazy filmmaker") who has an astonishing capacity for work. It's kind of like the egg joke in Annie Hall–where Alvy says whatever we're doing may be crazy, but we "keep goin' through it, because, uh, most of us need the eggs". Considering Match Point's success, you hope Allen keeps needing the eggs.