The award-winning Woody Allen classic turns 43 in April, but how is it received nowadays, in the post-#MeToo world?
Any young feminist today might feel inclined to associate Woody Allen with the tainted
Any young feminist today might feel inclined to associate Woody Allen with the tainted history with his family. They may view him as a powerful Hollywoodian figure, whose power weighed heavier than the severity of the allegations against him. But, before all of this, there was a Woody Allen who was associated with challenging the status-quo of American cinema.
One of his most acclaimed hits, Annie Hall, turns 43 this month.
The film’s opening scene features Alvy Singer (played by Allen) speaking to the camera, launching into a soliloquy before the story begins. Perhaps this is an attempt to portray Singer as a comedian, but the word that comes to mind is “narcissist”.
Throughout the film, Singer is either complaining or explaining something in a patronising manner. In the midst of an argument with Annie (played by Diane Keaton), Alvy responds: “Hey, don’t knock masturbation! It’s sex with someone I love.”
Keaton’s Annie is charming. Her nervous flirtation is endearing. When she tells a story, she sounds innocent, almost childlike. She is supposed to be “a different kind of girl” — someone who dresses differently, enjoys smoking marijuana before sex, and has had lovers before she met Alvy.
Keaton’s Annie is charming. Her nervous flirtation is endearing. When she tells a story, she sounds innocent, almost childlike. She is supposed to be “a different kind of girl” — someone who dresses differently, enjoys smoking marijuana before sex, and has had lovers before she met Alvy.
But even when she challenges Alvy, it comes either as a set up for one of his bad jokes or as her explaining herself to him.
When she is late for a date, he says: “You are in a bad mood, you must be getting your period,” to which Annie responds: “Every time anything out of the ordinary happens you think that I’m getting my period.” Her response is not a protest, it is an extension of his joke.
This is not a love story between equals. Annie exists for Woody Allen and Alvy Singer, respectively. Any opportunity she gives him to be romantic, he responds with a bad joke. When Annie offers him a glass of chocolate milk, he replies: “What am I, your son?”, and she laughs it off.
Some elements of the film’s structure add to the narrative creatively. The subtitles when Alvy and Annie first meet, of what they are saying versus what is actually meant, is bold and humorous.
Present Annie observing past Annie, and cartoon Alvy is well put together in a way that doesn’t disrupt the tone of the film; if anything, it contributes to its peculiarity. The talking heads seem unremarkable 43 years later, when Ricky Gervais has made better use of it.
Annie Hall was an instant success when first released, taking home four Oscars out of five nominations. In 1977, Penelope Gilliatt wrote that the film is “a love story told with piercing sweetness and grief, for all its funniness”. This could still be true. Gilliatt calls Alvy “the hero” who is both “intelligent” and “debonair”. His intelligence is incontestable, but now his confidence can be seen as conceited, and he is only a hero to himself.
Allen spent the 70s in a wave of hits, some of them hitting 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. In the past decade, his projects have been mostly unremarkable. It may be a sign of the times, or it may be that a storyteller needs to be able to read a room — and the room is 2020.
His latest project, A Rainy Day In New York, counted on young stars such as Selena Gomez, Elle Fanning, and Timothée Chalamet. Allen’s personal scandal resurfacing post-MeToo compelled Chalamet to donate his salary made in the film to three charities, and Gomez to make a generous donation to Time’s Up. Amazon Studios was set to release the film and pulled back, prompting Allen to sue the studio for $68 million, alleging failure to meet contractual obligations. He calls the reasoning behind the film’s suspension a “25-year-old, baseless allegation”.
Indeed, Allen tries to portray himself as someone who speaks the truth. Whatever bothers him is supposed to secretly bother us too. Yet, he remains completely oblivious to other people’s point of view; in the 70s, when the thoughts of white men were exclusive to big screens, his thoughts may have been peculiar and interesting. Now, they offer nothing new.
In 1979, Allen made Manhattan, which constantly competes with Annie Hall and Midnight in Paris (2011) for his best work. If those are Allen at his best, the only making of his that is truly outstanding is Ronan Farrow.
Cover photo credits: By Aurora via Flickr
Bella is our sub-editor and writer, she doesn't use social media but you can send her good thoughts!