Anhedonia, It Had to Be Jew , A Rollercoaster Named Desire, Me and My Goy - all were possible film titles for one of Woody Allen’s definitive masterpieces. Annie Hall would become the 1977 Best Picture (beating out Star Wars ) and, eventually, the American Film Institute’s 31st best American Movie of all time. But it might not have become either if they hadn’t found a title where people knew all the words (for the record ,anhedonia means the inability to take pleasure in things). Billed instead as Annie Hall and tag-lined a “neurotic romance,” the film captures something about love in a modern setting that ran true the 70s culture that produced it.
Credited as being a turning point in actor, director
and writer Woody Allen’s career, Annie Hall
is more than just some good laughs. Its comedy
to tackle serious subjects, and many moviegoers have the tantalizing suspicion
of it having autobiographical roots. According to Allen, they are a
bit off base." “The stuff that people insist is autobiographical is
almost invariably not. It's so exaggerated that it's virtually meaningless to
the people upon whom these little nuances are based. People got it into their
heads that
Annie Hall
was
autobiographical, and I couldn't convince them it wasn't.” True, Annie
was
co-star Diane Keaton’s nickname, and Hall
was
her maiden name, she and Allen
had
had a romantic relationship, and the
clothes she wore in the film
were
own (though, if the costume designer had had their way, they wouldn’t have
been! They had proclaimed Keaton’s fashion sense- which would inspire a
fashion craze, as “too weird.”). But, in fact,
Annie Hall
started out life as a screenplay for a murder mystery
with the would-be lounge singer as only a minor role- a big leap from real
life. Once in production, a lot of improvising happened as well , including Woody
Allen sneezing into cocaine, and finding the character Alvy’s childhood home in
Brooklyn after spying a house with a roller coaster built over it during
a location scouting trip. Perhaps most poignantly though, the ending scene was
a last minute addition
many unusual visual storytelling tactics- including a cartoon segment, talking directly the audience and a literal walk down memory lane-
Annie Hall
tells the story of Alvy Singer and love in New York City. Though we
see sections of story about his previous girlfriends and wives, at different
times, the story centers on one love in particular- that of Annie. Annie is a
WASP in from the midwest, trying to make it as a lounge singer and in her and
Alvy we finally have love interests too quirky and nonfunctional to envy.
Just because they are a pair of odd ducks though doesn’t make it hard to
watch. On the contrary, perhaps their flaws give us hope that all weirdos will
find a way and even if they don’t, well, it's still good entertainment.
i should really watch this! thanks for sharing :)
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