Wick's Review

Summary - Great 4.0

It hasn’t aged well, this Seventies icon. Maybe because Woody Allen self-parodied himself in real life, or Left Wing Manhattan neurotics are no longer exotic characters, or topical gags don’t have much shelf life. “La-dee-da, la-dee-da.” Sure it’s still a benchmark movie. The Academy doesn’t award the Best Picture and three other Oscars to chopped liver. It’s just that Annie Hall’s self-indulgence now trumps its humor.

Annie Hall marked “a major turning point”¹ for Allen: his first movie that wasn’t a complete farce. While very funny in its day, it doesn’t rise to the level of hilarity, as did so many of his earlier pictures. After a subsequent dalliance with entirely serious movies, he would later return to humorous movies, though he hasn’t made another hilarious movie since. Pity.

Now after the passage of three decades, some historical observations emerge.

• Fifteen years into the sexual revolution, it had already become boring. Alvey and Annie display all the passion of an old married couple.
• Annie Hall – the character – personifies an era when becoming terribly self-absorbed was a sign of sophistication.
• Forbear to Seinfeld and Please Give, Annie Hall demystified the neurotic New Yorker.
• Schlemiels who are rich, funny and on TV – like Woody Allen – nab beautiful shiksas like Annie Hall. Don’t try this at home.

¹ Woodie Allen, as quoted in Wikipedia.

Acting - Great 4.0

Film - Great 4.0

Woodie Allen’s filmmaking included several then-inventive techniques: inserting an animated sequence of the lead characters into the live action; surreally bringing a celebrity into the action when his name is mentioned; breaking the fourth wall to talk directly to the audience; having the main characters visit their childhood selves. Wikipedia describes all this in detail.

Edge - Tame 1.4

Reality - Surreal 2.1

Is Paul Simon’s character fingering a coke spoon as he invites Woody and Diane up to meet “Jack & Angelica?”

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