woody allen Archives - i luv cinema

In the midst of the hubbub of this past weekend, I did manage to sneak in a film that I have longed to see – Woody Allen’s 1977 Annie Hall starring Allen and Diane Keaton. Initially my main reason for wanting to see this film is to see what all the fuss was about – especially since it captured the Best Picture crown instead of my much beloved Star Wars. As a youth I could not imagine ANYTHING being better than Star Wars, EVER.

As I matured, my obsession with the sci-fi epic began to wane, coinciding with a more “sophisticated” cinematic toolkit. As a result I started SLOWLY to take notice and begin to watch some of Mr. Allen’s later works. While I have it on good authority that these are in fact inferior parts of his body of work, I liked them well enough, especially last year’s Midnight in Paris.

Since then, I have seen Love and Death, which I found a bit odd, but oh well – I digress. Back to Ms. Hall.

I will not bother with a plot synopsis or anything except to say it is about Alvy Singer’s recounting the beginning, middle, near end and finally death throw of his relationship with Annie Hall (Keaton). The story is told is specific time blocks that illustrate particular highs and lows in the relationship.

My immediate reaction was that one of my favorite films, When Harry Met Sally … seemed to lift many stylistic and elemental bits from this film. I guess imitation is the greatest form of flattery, eh? I may be wrong, but that is how it appeared to me.

At least now being more familiar with Allen’s shtick, allowed to be mildly diverted in a way that in prior years would have been impossible. I laughed a bit more than I expected to, so I am taking that as a positive. The writing was paced very well (credit Allen and Marshall Brickman) and all the performances well delivered.

I think my favorite scene was when Annie and Alvy were on that line to see a film and the guy behind him was, for lack of a better term, a pretentious jerk. Some things never change 🙂

Another bright spot was seeing the Capote cameo and appearances by Paul Simon, Christopher Walken and Jeff Goldblum. That was definitely a treat I was not expecting.

One of the few bad things I have to say about the screening has nothing at all to do with the film – apparently the print size was larger than the screen and during the “subtitle” screen, the bottom portion of the projection was cut off.

In the end I found Annie Hall to be an equally light-hearted and melancholic look at a relationship found and lost. I imagine this is just the way Allen wanted it.

In the opening sequence of Midnight in Paris, we are introduced to the City of Lights via picture-postcard montage. Instead of finding this trite and cliché, quite the opposite happens … what we see is a love letter of sorts to a place that simultaneously inhabits the present, past and most importantly, our own imaginations.

The irony of course is that in a city known for love and romance is that the relationship between the main character Gil (as played by ‘Allen-in-Proxy’ Owen Wilson) and his fiancé Inez (played by Rachel McAdams) is anything BUT romantic. They are a couple with very different worldviews. When we first meet Gil, he is a struggling writer – struggling in the sense that he is a hack Hollywood writer who wants to be taken seriously as a novelist. His hope is that the move to Paris will inspire him, like those literary greats who have come before him – especially those of the Jazz Age, a period of time which he greatly admires.

After a night of drinking with Inez and a couple of her friends, he decides to traverse the city on his own; he soon finds himself lost and on the steps of an old church. Suddenly, the bell tolls midnight; this is when the magic begins …

A cab pulls up and Gil is taken away by cab to 1920’s Paris where he meets the Fitzgeralds (Scott and Zelda), Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Picasso, and Dali among others.

He also finds love in the form of Adriana (portrayed by Marion Cotillard), one of Picasso’s muses.

Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald

This leaves Gil in an interesting predicament- torn between his present life and staying in the past. It basically seems that as his life in the ‘past’ is gaining momentum, his present life is falling to pieces. However, with a trip back to Adriana’s “ideal” era (1890s) comes a revelation that leads him to the following epiphany – while there is no harm in looking to the past with a sense of romance and nostalgia, be careful not to inhabit it for the sake of the present. Be sure to relish the here and now – it is the time that matters most.

How this stacks up against Allen’s best work is something that I am not prepared to do. I never considered myself a Woody Allen devotee, having only really discovered him in the latter portion of his career. On balance, the results for me have been mixed at best. In the case of Midnight in Paris, I would say that it probably ranks among one of my favorites during this period of his work. Allen really seemed to capture the spirit of the time.

Among the actors the performances that stood out for me were that of Rachel McAdams and Michael Sheen. It is a credit to their craft that I found them to be so obnoxious. In the case of McAdams’ Inez, one may even wonder how the likes of Gil ended up with her in the first place.

One detail in the film that I found interesting was the introduction of the ‘icons of the Jazz Age.’ At times I felt it was a roll call of sorts … just to be sure the audience knew who they were. This is a minor quibble at best and did not take away from my enjoyment of the film at all.

In the end, Midnight in Paris can be summed up as a beautiful, fantastic trip around a magnificent city.

Midnight in Paris is currently available on DVD and BluRay.

My Take on “Annie Hall”

Now on Video: Midnight in Paris (2011)