[This long-form analysis of Woody Allen’s HANNAH AND HER SISTERS appears in Alex Sheremet’s “Woody Allen: Reel to Real.” You can also watch our conversation reviewing the film here.]
Although the popularity of Hannah and Her Sisters made Woody Allen doubt the quality of his own film, it remains one of those rare accomplishments that is both truly great, and well-loved — two things that are in fact quite different, for the latter is based on attachments and on whims, which cannot be argued, while the former involves reason, evidence, and objectivity in its claims, which can therefore be evaluated. I do not like (much less ‘love’) the film, for reasons immaterial to it and therefore uninteresting to anyone who wants to know something of the art-work, itself. Yet I still wish for it to be seen; know that it needs to be seen, until its meditations and its wisdom are the viewer’s, and so that future film-makers can use it as a stepping-stone for great characters, complex interactions, subtle ironies, poetic inversions, and ‘twists’ that seem to be mere plot devices, yet say, in fact, much about the characters themselves, and what they have or have not learned. I’d go recommend it, but its enduring popularity already takes care of that. Instead, I’d like to discuss why the film works, for reasons beyond mere love or mass appeal, so that similar things could be observed and championed in Woody’s other films, including those still being wrongly overlooked.
In some ways, Hannah and Her Sisters revisits the same tropes of Interiors, with a seemingly talented artist, Hannah (Mia Farrow), a ‘sore loser’ and drug user, Holly (Dianne Wiest), and a half-lost woman, Lee (Barbara Hershey), who, perhaps out of envy or resentment, starts an affair with Hannah’s husband, Elliot (Michael Caine). In fact, the film begins with Elliot mesmerized by Lee during a Thanksgiving party, an interesting twist that immediately puts the viewer into the mind of a romantic, subverted by the fact that he’s essentially a creep. As the dinner progresses, Holly asks for money, Lee wonders about Elliot’s feelings, and the three sisters gab while their aging parents sing Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered on the piano — one of the film’s key songs, which turns into a trope whose import only comes later. As Hannah is complimented all around, one gets the feeling that she is both meek and self-congratulatory, for such moments are well-acted enough that one doesn’t know whether she’s puffing herself up at the expense of her sisters, or merely being matter-of-fact. Lee goes back to her apartment with her boyfriend, Frederick (Max von Sydow), an overbearing, misanthropic older artist, while Hannah’s former husband, Mickey (Woody Allen), a television producer, makes his first appearance as a stressed hypochondriac. He’s subjected to endless medical tests due to his constant worrying, at one point even fantasizing about his own impending death due to a non-existent tumor. This, then, is the film’s make-up, for the main characters’ issues are all played against Mickey’s, whose silliness highlights the silliness of their own self-inflicted problems, even as they evade or obfuscate, and downright magnify them as being ‘deeper’ than they really are. Yes, it is a borrowing from earlier films like Annie Hall, but goes beyond it as it approaches similar subjects — death, love, and other human relationships — more deeply, probing, as it does, far more than ‘mere’ romance.
Holly is shown at her catering job with her friend, as they both flirt with David (Sam Waterston), an architect. They subtly compete with one another (or so it seems), trying to impress the man during a drive, as Holly regrets ‘missing’ her opportunity with him. It’s all the more damning that this is told from Holly’s perspective, as the viewer must cast doubt on her interpretation of events and the bad-mouthing of her friend in language reminiscent of what she’d use with Hannah, implying such things are a pattern with her. Meanwhile, Elliot follows Lee, and feigns surprise when he catches her on the way to an AA meeting, another interesting detail given how well-adjusted she seems, at least at first, yet makes sense in light of her immature behavior in the future. In a great shot that only shows Elliot’s face in between the aisles, thus forcing the viewer to deduce Lee’s own emotive response, he buys her a copy of E.E. Cummings’s works, and her parents’ song plays in the background as she reads a poem in her apartment. Meanwhile, Mickey remembers the time when he was said to be infertile, and Hannah — in another ‘con’ side of the evidence, as to her motives and personality — requesting to be impregnated by Mickey’s best friend, Norman, despite Mickey’s own feelings. She is subtly flippant about this, nudging each on their shoulders, giving ‘empathy’ and the like, but without, it might be argued, any real sincerity. It is, in short, the manipulative behavior of a real human being, and acted out with the knowledge that others might pick up on such.
Later on, Lee and Elliot run into each other and admit their love for each other, just as Hannah runs home to intercede in a fight between her parents — a nice little parallel, for it finally paints Hannah as a positive force in the face of Lee’s own immaturity. Moreover, her parents’ history of infidelity (alongside the mother’s possible drinking problem) nicely echoes not only Lee’s own issues, but also Lee’s various betrayals. Like Frederick, her mother is also quite overbearing, whining about “mediocrity” and the like, while being full of bitterness and resentments, not ever really showing any personal depth herself that could justify her sense of superiority, subtly tying Lee’s choice of mate with what appears to have been a troubled childhood, vis-à-vis her parents’ chronic immaturity. Thus, there are patterns that repeat themselves not only between the sisters, for they’ve been wired the same, but also their parents, and the choices they’ve made well into old age.
In one of the film’s most beautiful sequences, Hannah looks about their old photos, carrying an internal monologue — the only one of hers that we hear in the film as the ‘pure’ Hannah — about her parents’ lack of wisdom, forgiving them, and clearly not bearing any sort of ill will. It’s not only a beautiful scene, but a revealing one, for while we’re riddled with possible evidence of Hannah’s manipulativeness elsewhere, her internal voice, here, shows someone who is balanced and realistic, good, and warm, which is the only time the viewer sees Hannah alone with her own thoughts, and can thus take them as definitive. The parents reminisce about their children’s childhoods, and the background piano — in a nice little touch — reveals itself to be her father’s playing. The fight is officially over, and one gets the sense that this has happened many times before, and will only continue to happen ‘till death do us part,’ even as they’ve been synchronized by music, for now. Yet the piano presses on, as Lee walks along the pier, alone, looking as thoughtful as Hannah only seconds before, implying that the sisters’ connection, no matter how faulted, is perhaps deeper than their interactions show.
Mickey is finally at the doctor’s office after his CT scan and imagines being told about an inoperable tumor. Yet he in fact has nothing, and runs out of the room in joy, only to quit his job due to the realization that he will die, “not today, not tomorrow, but eventually.” Feeling the need for ‘answers,’ a la Stardust Memories, he seeks out different religions, starting with Catholicism. Meanwhile, Elliot and Lee consummate their affair, which Frederick soon discovers. They end their relationship as Elliot paces about in a guilty daze. This poetically cuts into Mickey philosophizing about how “little” people know, mirroring Elliot’s sudden anomie, then a flashback to Mickey’s solitary, horrific date with Holly a year or two before, who snorts cocaine all night, and takes him to a terrible rock show. They split up, angry at each other, as Elliot and Hannah have a fight over his distance and “antsiness,” as Hannah is thus seen to mirror Holly for the first time. Meanwhile, Hannah hears of Holly’s singing audition, discourages her, and gives some good advice that Holly interprets as “cutting her down,” only for her to admit her own insecurities later on.
After meeting with a priest, Mickey picks up some Catholic doodads and visits his Jewish parents. The conversation that ensues is one of the best, deepest, and funniest parts of the film:
Mother: What! Oh my God!
Mickey: I don’t understand. I thought that you’d be happy?
Father: How could we be happy?
Mickey: Well, because I never thought of God in my life, and now I’m giving it serious thought.
Father: So Catholicism? Why not your own people?
Mickey: Because… I got off on the wrong foot with my own thing, you know, but I need a dramatic change in my life.
Father: You’re gonna believe in Jesus Christ?
Mickey: I know it sounds funny, but I’m gonna try.
Father: But why? We raised you as a Jew.
Mickey: So, just ’cause I was born that way… I’m old enough to make a mature decision.
Father: But why Jesus Christ? Why, for instance, shouldn’t you become a Buddhist?
Mickey: That’s totally alien to me! Look, you’re getting on in years. Aren’t you afraid of dying?
Father: Why should I be afraid?
Mickey: ’Cause you won’t exist!
Father: So?
Mickey: That thought doesn’t terrify you?
Father: Who thinks about such nonsense? Now I’m alive, when I’m dead, I’ll be dead.
Mickey: I don’t understand. Aren’t you frightened?
Father: Of what? I’ll be unconscious.
Mickey: I know, but never to exist again?
Father: How do you know?
Mickey: Well, it certainly doesn’t look promising…
Father: Who knows what I’ll be? I’ll either be unconscious, or I won’t. If not, I’ll deal with it then. I’m not gonna worry now about what’s gonna be when I’m unconscious.
Mickey: Mom, come out!
Mother: Of course there’s a God, you idiot. You don’t believe in God?
Mickey: But if there’s a God, why is there so much evil in the world? Just on a simplistic level, why were there Nazis?
Mother: Tell him, Max.
Father: How the hell do I know why there were Nazis? I don’t know how the can opener works!
Although wrapped up in comedy, the dialogue is quite revealing, with the father’s matter-of-fact retorts among some of the very best and most concise ever penned on the topic. In short, Mickey is wrong, and his father is right: why should someone punish himself with unanswerable questions when they only lead to depression and confusion? Why be terrified of death, when life is the present condition, and must be gotten through before all else? Yet Mickey does not recognize this, and creates the same kind of problems — albeit more dramatically — as the other characters do, all the while feeling himself ‘justified’ in this or that mode of thinking. Sure, the others are dishonest and manipulative, and Mickey is not, but their basic issues stem from personal immaturity, which is his own problem, too. The difference is that Mickey wraps it up in highfalutin language about God, evil, human suffering, and other existential concerns, as if his own issues are somehow incomparable or more sophisticated. They are not. One can talk oneself into depression as easily as infidelity, for the root problem is the same, with Mickey serving as a semi-comic mirror for the rest of the film’s drama.
After picking up his Catholic materials, Mickey goes home and lays them out on his table: a cross, the Bible, a picture of Jesus, and a loaf of Wonder Bread and mayonnaise on top — a nice little jab not only at religion, but at the man, himself, who’s only deepening his own anxieties. The three sisters meet up for lunch, with Holly coming in to self-pityingly announce that she did not get the part she auditioned for. As the lunch goes on, Holly asks for more money so she could write, while Hannah encourages her to try something more “productive,” such as a publicity job. Yes, she is hurting her dreams, but one wonders, too, if there’s not some truth to Hannah’s comments, for Holly has been jumping from thing to thing for years now without much success, and only self-harm. The camera stays on Lee for most of the conversation, however, as Holly’s ever-more panicked accusations force Lee’s guilt up from below, and she explodes.
Time passes, and Elliot confides in his psychoanalyst about his affair, as he is unable to break it off, and says quite wisely: “For all of my education and accomplishments and so-called wisdom, I can’t fathom my own heart.” It is a trope that appears and reappears in so many Woody films, interviews, and prose works, and after much refinement, really comes to the fore here, and reveals more of Hannah’s wonderful scripting. Mickey, seemingly done with Catholicism, tries to become a Hare Krishna to no avail, while the family gathers for another Thanksgiving party, as Hannah is upset over Holly’s new play, which is seemingly based on Hannah’s interactions with her husband. Holly, in turn, complains of Hannah’s utter dearth of needs, and her desire to “not bother” people — a fact that rings true to the viewer, and possibly to Hannah as well, as she seems to grow in self-doubt. Meanwhile, Lee breaks it off with Elliot, and after a brief fight, Hannah tells Elliot that she feels “lost.” Yet he seems to have made a clean emotional break, himself, and they kiss, thus rekindling their marriage.
Later, Mickey runs into Holly and they strike up a conversation, and learns of Holly’s new play (the last one now being discarded), which she comes over and reads. Mickey marvels at her writing, singling out the climax, where a schizophrenic ex-wife jumps out of the bushes and stabs an “architect” and his new girlfriend. They go out for lunch, and Mickey tells her why he “dropped out” of life: his depression, his suicide attempt only a month before, and its after-effects. Alone in his apartment, he had a rifle pointed to his head, it went off accidentally, and Mickey ran out into the street, wandering about until he went into a movie theater to watch a Marx Brothers film. He realized, then, that although the answers he seeks are impossible, there is still a way to enjoy life while it lasts, and seems to have come to the decision to do so. A year later, during another Thanksgiving party, the sisters praise Holly’s developing writing talent, while Elliot, in another internal monologue, sees Lee, who is now married, and admits, in a wonderful poetic moment, that their affair grows “more and more hazy” over time, and that he loves Hannah more than he realized. The father plays piano, while Holly tells Mickey, now her new husband, that she’s pregnant, despite Mickey’s supposed infertility. The film ends with a kiss, but one wonders if there’s something more than what is seen. I’d argue yes, for the reasons below.
All three sisters have issues with one another, for, as Nick Davis writes, it is the “molecular, push-and-pull connections” that are the story’s focus.[1] But even if one were to argue that there is no main character, it’s really Hannah that’s at the center of it all, or at least seems to be, for Hannah is either a great, well-disciplined and otherwise lucky person, whom her sisters can look up to, or a cold manipulative bitch, depending on how the evidence is interpreted. It’s partly this ambiguity that makes the film so rich, for it is impossible to say with certainty what Hannah is, except that she most likely experiences a change at film’s end. Lee is ‘lost’ and immature, but not self-pitying or self-destructive — save for an early episode of alcoholism, which seems resolved — and uses Elliot as her solid ground, in the same way, perhaps, that she’d once used alcohol to fuel her longing, or Frederick as a kind of anchor. Her new marriage seems to do her a great deal of good, as she’s clearly happy, but we still don’t know what she’s doing for herself, only that her romantic life is now in order. Yet her romantic life with Frederick was acceptable for a while, too, wherein she had no identity but his, and lived off of his money. Does she, for instance, merely jump between relationships in order to stave off loneliness? Yes, her ‘lost’ quality has been replaced with radiance, but it is impossible to tell how long it’ll last, or that her ending is definitively happy; only that the film’s end is happy, which is different but often confused. Holly, too, is similarly lost, albeit in a deeper way, with drugs, slip-shod interests, and a kind of ‘hopping’ quality reminiscent of Joey in Interiors, as well as Joey’s bitterness and anger.
There are also two very interesting details in the ending. The first is how Mickey runs into her at the record shop, and the comment he makes: “I have a nagging sensation I should have kept walking, and not begun this conversation.” Yes, Hannah and Her Sisters is its own film, but this is precisely the kind of comment — down to the very wording — the ‘Woody’ persona uses whenever he is about to get into something against his better judgment, which more or less always means the wrong woman. He says this to Rain in Husbands and Wives; he also repeats such sentiments in Manhattan, Stardust Memories, and elsewhere (the key word being “trouble”), and the fact that it’s now used for a supposedly happy ending is, if nothing else, interesting.
The second detail is in Holly’s writing, itself. As she reads her first script to Mickey, he comments on how “fabulous” it is, and isolates one scene — the climax — as an example of great writing. But in fact, it’s simply melodramatic, not literary or particularly deep, with a fairly common ‘trope’ ending that borders on cliché. This has been glossed over by most, yet strikes me as a problem, at least for Holly’s future. If her new-found stability is partly due to her supposed talent, then what happens if it is ever revealed that, in the end, this talent is merely illusory? Yes, to her credit, the sisters comment that she’s “really developed” as a writer over the course of a year, but we see no recent examples to judge, merely a change in character, and thus one might still reasonably wonder. I’d not argue that the film’s ending is unhappy, by any means, but it is certainly less ‘tidy’ and definite than Woody Allen himself has said, or some of Allen’s worst critics have pointed out, given all of these uncertainties.
The film’s use of music is also reminiscent of Manhattan — not in the song choices, which are quite different, but in the way that they both prop up and undermine the film’s very illusions. It is, alongside Stardust Memories, Allen’s most complex use of music thus far, with certain composers being linked to specific characters (Puccini and David; Mickey and Count Basie; Bach and the Elliot/Lee arc), and the use of classical, which would only grow with stature in his later films.[2] Yet it is really the various manifestations of Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered that stand out most for their emotive and narrative drive. On the one hand, Elliot is in love (or thinks he is), as are Hannah’s parents, who sing the song at the first Thanksgiving dinner. Yes, the song’s simplicity captures these emotions — and the title, itself, can be seen as a comment on so much of the film’s behaviors — yet Elliot is also clearly ill-suited for Lee, and his love quite immature, while Hannah’s parents seem to stick around only for the misery they can inflict upon one another. The song’s many reprisals, then, have a complex effect, with its purity being undermined by the reality it’s so often paired with, even as, at film’s end, the idea is that Hannah’s parents have gotten over their issues (not likely), and that Elliot has finally ‘seen the light,’ also not likely, for a man in his forties capable of acting like a perpetual fifteen year-old probably has much deeper issues to fix.
Perhaps the facts don’t truly matter, then, as much as the perceptions do; a comment that seems to run through parts of Interiors, as well. Renata may have been the ‘most talented’ of the three sisters, but we don’t know this; what matters is that she is perceived as such, and the psychological effects this has on virtually all the other characters. The same thing, then, can be said of Hannah, yet it’s interesting to note how different the reactions to both films are. At its core, Interiors is a really complex drama about three sisters, as is Hannah and Her Sisters, and while the specifics of that film’s wisdom may be different, the wisdom itself is not, for it sheds light on characters and the how, what, and why of their travails, is poetically filmed, more dense (Hannah is twenty minutes longer), less ‘enjoyable’, but almost just as good. So, is it fair to deride one, yet embrace the other? As noted, I don’t particularly enjoy Hannah, myself, but nonetheless recognize its sheer greatness, and can say, without a doubt, that it ought to be watched and fully understood, not only by artists ‘in search of,’ but ordinary people, too, who can benefit by its wisdom, as well as the artistry it imparts. It is one of Woody’s most accessible films — Edward Howard calls it his “warmest”[3] — and while I still don’t know why I can’t ‘love’ it, I also know it doesn’t really matter, as others can do that in my stead. One’s job as a critic is to offer insights and assess a work’s quality, not love or hate it, which are separate and immaterial, providing, as they do, some excuse to savage Interiors, yet embrace a fairly similar film, quality-wise, almost on a whim. Yet I hope that the more Hannah and Her Sisters gets watched, the more common ground can be seen with more neglected yet equally good films, both in Woody’s canon, and beyond.
[1] Davis, Nick. Review of Hannah and Her Sisters. Nick’s Flick Picks. http://www.nicksflickpicks.com/hannahss.html 8/2003. Accessed 4/10/2014.
[2] Harvey. Pgs. 64-69.
[3] Howard, Ed. “9/27: Hannah and Her Sisters; Vinyl.” Only the Cinema. http://seul-le-cinema.blogspot.co.il/2007/09/927-hannah-and-her-sisters-hotel.html 9/27/2007. Accessed 4/1/0/2014.
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More from Alex Sheremet: INTERIORS (1978): Woody Allen’s Most Underrated Film?, ANALYSIS: Mark Tennant’s “Clothesline” (2018) Is A Masterpiece, TRANSLATION: Vladimir Vysotsky’s “Capricious Horses” (Кони привередливые)