[This long-form review of Woody Allen’s ANNIE HALL appears in Alex Sheremet’s “Woody Allen: Reel to Real.” You can also watch our conversation reviewing and analyzing the film here.]
I’ve praised both Play It Again, Sam (1972) and The Front (1976) as examples of good early Woody drama, but it’s really Annie Hall that kicks off Allen’s Golden Age, for it’s the beginning of his best characterizations, best visuals, deepest narratives, and the overall sense that he had ‘made it’ as a filmmaker of ability and substance. This is because Annie Hall takes many of his now-classic preoccupations with sex, death, relationships, inevitability, and intellectual posturing (including his own!), and creates a genuine narrative out of it, not by force or gags, but simply by dropping some great characters into a landscape, and seeing how a narrative unfolds out of them. There is also a seeming simplicity, here, in Allen’s ‘Alvy’ persona, that absolutely misleads viewers into sympathizing with Alvy, rather than Annie. In short, it is Alvy that constantly spouts self-deprecating gems and rich but down-to-earth posits that aggrandize him as both an Everyman, and as a kind of ‘hero,’ who’s gone through it, and gotten over it, too — “it” being ‘confusing’ relationships, a lack of self-assurance, or whatever else that might be imbued into the film, yet isn’t really there. The film starts with direct exposition, as Alvy Singer tells the audience of his two key metaphors for life:
There’s an old joke. Two elderly women are at a Catskills mountain resort, and one of them says: “Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.” The other one says, “Yeah, I know, and such small portions!” Well, that’s essentially how I feel about life. Full of loneliness and misery and suffering and unhappiness — and it’s all over much too quickly. The other important joke for me…goes something like this: “I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member.” That’s the key joke of my adult life in terms of my relationships with women.
In effect, Woody posits both his knack to torpedo the good things, as well as his getting stuck on the worst parts of life, all the while fearing to lose even that. In the end, he reassures the audience that he’s “not the morose type,” thus kicking things off with a little white lie that gives him an air of reason, even as he’d gently go on to manipulate the various people that he’s with, then alternately bemoan the outcome, or merely offer up the wisdom that he, himself, can’t ever take. This is not to say that he’s a bad guy. He isn’t. Alvy is merely tempted by the same indiscretions that might plague anyone, and this makes him both believable and easy to relate to, even if the viewer is, like Alvy, engaging in a bit of self-deception whenever they align. Annie Hall moves in flashbacks and symbolic events, with an early scene showing Alvy as a redheaded boy, getting reprimanded by his teachers for kissing a girl on the cheek. The adult Alvy tries to intercede, and appear reasonable, and few men, recalling their own childhoods, could fail to appreciate this. Prior to this, Alvy, still a child, is getting questioned by his mother and “Dr. Flicker,” for he’s stopped doing his homework and is depressed over something he’s read: that the universe is expanding, will someday fall apart, “and that’ll be the end of everything.” Alvy, by now, is doubly likeable, first as a ‘normal kid’ whose urges get corralled, and as a precocious child, who is deeper and more concerned than everyone else around him.
No, Annie Hall does not always have the visual greatness of some later films, but it’s full of subtle touches, nonetheless, such as Alvy’s admission of having trouble distinguishing between fantasy and reality (paired with a quick shot of Marilyn Monroe [???] running down the Coney Island boardwalk by the boy’s side), or showing his classmates as if they’re already grown up, thus casting doubt on the ‘innocence’ trope, or his claim of having lived too close to a rollercoaster, wherein he’s seen drinking tea, as his house shakes — precisely how a child would interpret things, no matter how silly or extreme. It’s all treated lightly, as if they are quick, throwaway shots nestled among others, but such things are key to his more ‘adult’ issues, as well. In fact, the first on-screen moment with Alvy and Annie soon follows, as they’re mid-argument (a nice genre inversion, compared to merely seeing a slow, gradual falling-out), with Alvy getting more and more upset at the man behind him, who is blabbering stuff about Fellini. Woody fantasizes over confronting him, and summons up one of the man’s targets, only to watch the man get shut up, shut down, and embarrassed in front of the other movie-goers. Of course, life’s not that easy, Alvy says. The joke, itself, is drawn-out, and — unlike in previous films — lingers just long enough to say something of substance, instead of being mere comedy, existing for its own sake. Meanwhile, Annie’s getting up late, and thus missing her psychotherapy appointment is reduced to a “hostile gesture” — towards Alvy! As with the shots of the roller-coaster and Marilyn Monroe, we do not know how true this perception is, or if it’s merely Annie’s own neuroses, but it’s there, and already quite established as part of a none too easy conflict between them.
The child, therefore, is subtly connected to the man, such as when we learn of Annie’s inability to have sex, even as, in a hilarious scene, it’s revealed that the two have sex three times a week, which Alvy considers insufficient. There’s a flashback to his first wife, Allison (Carol Kane), a stable, intelligent woman whom Alvy rejects through a feigned obsession with the JFK conspiracy, as if to merely avoid sex. Allison comes off as the better person, even though, given that it’s mostly told from Alvy’s perspective, we can’t be sure if this is the true sequence of events, flattering to Allison even now, or the events as distorted by Alvy, which might make it even more damning of the man’s issues. He doesn’t know ‘why’ he rejects her, in the same way, perhaps, that he doesn’t know why he stays with Annie, as she suspects she’s not “smart enough” for him, as she leafs through “adult education” courses to force herself to grow. She can’t grow, however — at least not in this way — as she’s both uninterested in such, and a little ditzy, to boot, while Alvy’s real feelings about her choices only come out when she starts to meet men at the university. Yet one sees the good moments, too: everything from the supernally acted first meeting, wherein Annie is airheaded, cute, and full of the ‘tics’ and details that make such a person real, to the famous lobster scene, where they are laughing, joking, and seemingly improvising a lot of what’s going on. Nor does it really matter if it was improvised or not, for the net result is two people bonding over the stuff of real relationships, deftly contrasted with what ‘could have been,’ such as when the lobster scene replays in near-identical terms with a new girlfriend, who’s very serious and doesn’t get Alvy’s jokes, as he despondently looks on.
The idea, of course, is that Annie would never act like this, thus obscuring Annie’s deeper problems, such as her drug use (marijuana to have sex; cocaine to “try new things”), or her desire to live on the West Coast, partly brought on by a ‘talent’ sleazeball — well-played by Paul Simon — as well as Alvy’s friend, Rob (Tony Roberts). Rob, Alvy, and Annie take a drive down Beverly Hills, which excites Annie but bores Alvy, a disparity that’s well-shot by obscuring their faces in the windshield, as religious Christmas music signifies Alvy’s discomfort as well as the ironies within, while the camera offers a distinctly non-holiday panorama of the city. It is inevitable, then, that the two break up on the flight back, as Annie’s inner voice reveals how happy the West Coast made her, and Alvy’s how tired he is of her moodiness. Interestingly, their focus is not on what they can or cannot offer to each other — the true mark of a relationship’s strength — but on more minor things, indicating how much growing up the both of them still must do. The film ends with a much later, bittersweet reunion in New York, accompanied by a montage of the couple’s memories, and even more poetic relationship advice from Alvy, masquerading as comedy. It isn’t, not really, and makes for a memorable ending, even as Woody Allen would go on to do better and deeper ones that’d touch on things far beyond these ‘lite’ relationships.
So, given that Annie Hall is primarily character-driven, what does the film make of Alvy Singer? I’d argue, as before, that he’s more or less a regular guy, as far as his emotions are concerned. Yes, he is clearly more intelligent than pretty much anyone else on-screen (take, for example, Rob, who’s just as successful, but quite insipid), but emotionally, he is often dishonest and weak. In fact, as Roger Ebert points out, Alvy understands this quite well, and is not “a victim of forces beyond his control, but their author.”[1] Take any scene, whether it’s Alvy as a child, pointlessly bemoaning the universe, or his torpedoing of what seems to be an excellent relationship with the levelheaded Allison for reasons he himself does not quite see. But while Robert Hatch calls Alvy “a man of ingratiating vulnerability”[2] — and although this is technically correct — it misses the deeper point, for Alvy is also smarter than Annie, knows this, and uses the fact to his personal advantage, even if it ultimately backfires, and Annie comes out the better (and happier) person. For instance, Alvy, post-breakup, is scouring the streets for random advice, and eventually meets a young couple that appears content, and wonders about the secret of their success. The girl replies that she is “very shallow and empty,” has “no ideas,” and “nothing interesting to say.” The man adds: “And I’m exactly the same way.” Obviously, this is comic, but it’s also telling that, in Alvy’s mind, the ‘secret’ to relationship success is to be some sort of complete match, with little to no conflict, and zero hang-ups. It is as if only stupid people, with a total lack of concern for things, can reasonably expect romantic health, while the conflicts between Alvy and his string of girlfriends are thought of as somehow more ‘sophisticated,’ more probing, and deep.
In reality, the problems with his relationships are simply more neurotic, more self-wrought, and return to basic flaws within himself. Annie, then, is a kind of foil, and in some ways is the force of good within the film. Yes, she has problems, but she works through them, and it’s not entirely clear how much of the blame could even be assigned to her in the first place. Probably the worst thing she’s guilty of is prolonging the relationship against her own nature for as long as she does. This, too, shows that she’s not entirely self-aware, and it takes her a while to transform. Yet even when some of these issues clear up, she is simply a healthier version of her former self: outgoing, ‘experimental,’ and always around others, for good or ill. It seems, then, that this is simply her essence, to Alvy’s chagrin. At the cafe scene in California, she tells Alvy that he simply can’t enjoy life, which is true, even if her own enjoyment is superficial. “You’re like New York City,” she quips. “You’re just this person. You’re like this island unto yourself.” Yes, one may argue that Alvy knows this is true, and knows that it’s not truly a bad thing, anyway, and that Annie is coming from the perspective of someone who, at least in her former life, is utterly dependent upon external stimulation. The deeper point, however, is that she’s quite all right, and does not care to correct this. Her life may not have the most ‘noble’ of ambitions, but it certainly fits her and her needs, a fact that Alvy simply cannot fathom until he lets her go, and gets some distance and objectivity. And this is it, really. He wants ‘something else.’ Annie is not that. She is simple, and thus resists. It is Alvy, at end, who must live with his choices, and the film’s central issues which are utterly dependent upon how he is wired, internally, and his inability to untie that knot.
Given that this was Allen’s first ‘serious’ film, it is also notable for his first mature use of music. Still under the influence of Bergman, Allen wondered about Bergman’s dictum — that the use of music in film was “barbaric” — and how this might affect his own material. But despite trying to stay quite minimalist in this regard, with most of the film’s music more or less being ambient sound (a car radio, or a record player at somebody’s house), there are two scenes that serve as exceptions. The first is the early montage of Alvy’s childhood reminiscences, wherein one hears Eric Coates’s By the Sleepy Lagoon throughout the sequence, and the wistful song Annie first performs at the night club, which reprises at film’s end as the two meet up after being broken up for so long.[3] Interestingly, however, one never gets the impression that the film is lacking in this regard, for unlike in, say, Interiors, wherein there is no music at all, Annie Hall’s is so well-chosen that the mind elides this sort of compression, and extrapolates music into places where there is none. Alvy’s nostalgia very much permeates the film, and thus Coates’s song — played while the roller coaster rocks his apartment — feels like it does, as well. So does Annie’s singing, and given how memorable the ending is to so many of Woody’s fans, it becomes the film’s de facto theme, and the last few notes absolutely synonymous with its final shot. No, such ‘touches’ can’t hold a candle to what’d eventually transpire in Crimes and Misdemeanors or Radio Days, but it is this technique of making something substantial out of the barest hints that defines Allen’s work with character, scripting, and visual devices that would only deepen with time.
Annie Hall is often considered to be Woody Allen’s best film, and given the kind of discussion it gives rise to, it is not hard to see why. One only needs to look at the new (and old) reviews to see this. Robert Hatch calls the film “astute,” with the greatest “shiksa goddess that Woody Allen created,”[4] Jaime N. Christley considers it a “peculiar type of classic.”[5] Joel Bocko says it’s “the high point of his career,”, alongside the three other films that followed it.[6] But although I’d consider it Allen’s first great film, and one of his very best comedies, it’s not his best overall, for reasons that should be obvious when seen alongside his later work. On the most basic level, Allen has said that he first learned of serious filmic techniques here, and that it was his first attempt at being serious. Given the large number of quality dramas that would follow, however, it is clear that he’s had time to not only better the techniques, but expand to other directions as well. Essentially, Annie Hall is a comedic look at relationships and the people behind them, with some great characterizations — so much so, in fact, that viewers may empathize with the ‘wrong’ character, or miss this or that motive, buried as they are in angst or neurosis or relatability. Yet given its very nature, and its lightness in parts, it has a ceiling by which later films were not handicapped. Husbands And Wives (1992), for example, captures two broken marriages with more depth, and less dependence on jokes, while Another Woman (1988) hoists up what is, perhaps, Allen’s greatest fictive creation via Marion, who is likewise dealing with a bad marriage, but using that as a stepping-stone for much deeper existential issues of identity and sacrifice, rather than simple relationship concerns or small personal neuroses, as in Annie Hall. Still others, like Stardust Memories (1980), seem to be taking on nigh-unconquerable issues with a kind of poetry that, to be perfectly frank, was simply not in Allen’s power just yet, given his very recent foray into drama. This, and this trajectory, is really how art works, for most artists. The later films simply aim higher, accomplish more, and thus make Annie Hall, as great as it is, look timid by comparison.
[1] Ebert, Roger. Review of Annie Hall. RogerEbert.com http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/annie-hall-1977
1/1/1977. Accessed 4/9/2014.
[2] Hatch, Robert. Review of Annie Hall. The Nation. http://www.thenation.com/article/annie-hall#
1/8/2009. Accessed 4/9/2014.
[3] Harvey, Adam. The Soundtracks of Woody Allen. McFarland & Company. Jefferson, NC: 2005. Pgs. 18-21.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Christley, Jaime N. Review of Annie Hall. Slant Magazine. http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/annie-hall/6348 6/17/2012. Accessed 4/9/2014.
[6] Bocko, Joel. Review of Annie Hall. Lost in the Movies. http://thedancingimage.blogspot.co.il/2009/12/annie-hall.html 12/15/2009. Accessed 4/9/2014.
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