Annie Hall

Woody Allen pokes fun at Hollywood and the standards and rules they have for making a Hollywood movie. The movie “Annie Hall” is like reality TV today. It has a voyeuristic quality. I think real life on film is making fun of the rule that real life is not funny or entertaining. One rule that he breaks is pulling out a guest star, Marshall McLuhan, “a Canadian scholar famous for his breakthrough ideas about communications and the media typified by his famous phrase, "The media is the message." He is brought in to the movie to correct the viewpoints of a person behind Alvy Singer and Annie Hall that was standing in line for the same movie. The movie is loosely basted on the real relationship and break up of Woody Allen and Diane Keaton; whose nickname are Annie and her maiden last name was Hall. Another rule Woody Allen breaks regularly in the film is breaking out of character and talking to the screen, the audience. To answer questions that might have just come up or what the viewer might be thinking about. Woody will stop and answer the question or give the audience directly information to help drive the movie forward. For example, Alvy Singer, stops people on the street and asking them if they are happy and in love.
I think the movie helps change the way love stories were portrayed in film. The eternal happy ending does not occur. In this movie, Annie and Alvy break up and grow distant. Woody Allen is a filmmaker that discusses the Hollywood ideals and rules of the happy ending. The happy ending was the standard for movies in the 70’s but it was also a time when the divorce rate in America was climbing. The baby boomer generation was not living the movie life that was being portrayed by Hollywood movies. In the 50’s, life was happy and the mentality was it would all turn out for the best. The “Leave It To Beaver” life style was fading. Woody puts on the table that life is hard and not always happy, and that society wanted more substance than the fairy tale fantasy.
I think Woody being the Writer/Director/Actor makes the movie untainted by the corporate studio or the Hollywood glamour scene. The movie is very personal reenactment of his real life. It seems like Woody Allen was therapeutically writing out their relationship. He and Diane were off and on for a brief time in the early 70’s. But now in the film, Woody is able to being to see his mistakes as a human and a boyfriend. Being the writer and director, he has the ability and power to change what he did to what he should have done or wished he had done. All his regrets can be changed but he does not change all of them. He lets the life’s fate to stay the same. Finally, after acting them out again, Woody is able to get a second chance with the woman he fell in love with. On a big picture, Woody was able to show Diane all his faults that he made with her, and in a way, a second chance with the woman that got away.
In many ways this is not the same element that has been discussed before. The subjects of anti-Semitism, life, romantic angst, drugs, death and his obsessive love of New York and his dislike of California are discussed. In reflection, these essential elements are what makes a good movie better and shows more inner meaning. This gives the viewer something to ponder and reflect on how they correlate together. In the beginning of the movie he goes through his childhood and ends up in the classroom where all the kids stand up and say what they do today, and the one kid says, "I was a heroin addict and now I'm a methadone addict". That one scene I thought was one of the funniest lines in the movie. We all think of being a hero in our adult years when we grow up, but having the children say what they really grow up to be is hilarious. I think it showing peoples reality toward life and their awareness of free choice. They need to start their path as a child and face their feelings of dread and anxiety, which will take over and they will end up doing nothing with their lives. Woody Allen’s movie is an enjoyable insight about real peoples lives. In the movie, “To Kill a Mocking bird,” Robert Mulligan used the childhood memories of good times and elements of old weathered, dusty objects from a cigar-box to symbolize treasures of childhood youth long gone by. Another element used is that of a mature woman’s hand to physically reminisce over the objects from her youth. They both are remembering and reflecting on specific times in there past that are important segments of Alvy’s and scout’s life. Both movies were re-hashing the memories of living among many social prejudices and injustices as children. But in “Annie Hall,” we reflect on Alvy’s childhood and return to current day.
The monologue in the opening, “He would never belong to any club that would have him as a member,” refers to Woody Allen as a director and the members are the studios, Hollywood and Actors Guilds. He thinks of himself as a nonconformist, unwilling to change the views and regrets. Woody is an independent filmmaker and does not want to be anything else. In the movie, we see his obsessive love of New York and his dislike of California, particularly L.A. Alvy hates the happiness and courtesy of California living. Alvy starts to fake sick when he sees his friend adding laugh tracks to his TV show but dramatically gets better once Alvy was able to get out of being on the show his appetite rapidly appears and he is know longer nauseous.
Alvy says he has a hype active imagination and his mind tends to jump around a little and he has trouble between fantasy and reality. Is a perfect set up for how the narration and edited tone of how the movie will be depicted.
The animation scene in the movie is when Annie accuses him of spying on her and they start a heated argument. Searching for the secret to a successful relationship, Alvy starts stopping the pedestrians on the street and asking them questions. It breaks the point of view of the audience and the camera becomes closer and more intimate. Woody makes the audience reflect on the question that he is also searching for. He is left without a solution and blames his failures on his problems in early childhood. Alvy says, “I always fall for the wrong women”. In the animated Disney scene, Annie is transformed into the evil queen in Snow White and Alvy is portrayed as small and childish, which has resembling characteristics of Robert Crumb drawings; like the pointy nipples and the Evil Queen is portrayed with a more voluptuous figure and sexual personality. A cartoon version of Alvy’s friend, Rob, enters saying he has a new girl for Alvy.
The unknown actor at the time has a cameo it was Jeff Golblum. Jeff is seen briefly, but memorably as part of the Los Angeles party scene at Paul Simon’s house. He is on the phone and says: "I forgot my mantra."
The scene near the end of the film when Alvy is watching the actors rehearse the scene from the play is exactly the therapeutic achievement that Woody was going through emotional and visually in the movie.
At the end Annie Hall is now back in New York again, a voice over by Alvy tells us that they had a meal together, not long after she returned. There is a montage of images from their relationship together. Over pictures of them leaving the restaurant he tells us a joke about a man who complains to a psychiatrist that his brother thinks he's a chicken. "Well, why don't you turn him in?" says the doctor. The man replies, "I would, but I need the eggs." To Alvy Singer and Woody Allen this sums up relationships, and we suffer them because we all "need the eggs."
This is a movie that I do not get to see very often but I enjoy watching it every so often to see how it relates to the world today and how perhaps my views, if changed. To see if I have learned something new about life or pick up on something new that I didn’t remember from be for. I was surprised about the reality of the film vs. the reality of today’s TV. They are very similar. I think the movie looses it nuance being overly saturated by the reality TV and movie of today. The movie has loosed it originality in media and Woody Allen line about not wanting to be a member. I think has created a wave of mindset for the independent filmmakers of today that are more prevalent. Woody Allen is now the president of the club.
Phillip D. Roeser 1/28/04 Copyright © 2007 PDRMediaHouse All Rights Reserved.