La di da...la di da...

...because...why not?

AFI Top 100 (10th Anniversary Edition) being watched by yours truly in one calendar year, then blogged about here.  Here are the rules.  This film is the first of 10 I will be watching that I've seen before.

On with the show.  

Film 16

16.  "Annie Hall"  (AFI Rank #35)

"Annie Hall" is the second Best Picture Oscar winner that I have watched in a row, and the fourth in the last five films.  Odd.  The list wound up with a series of two best pictures ("Schindler's List" and "Midnight Cowboy"), followed by a Fred and Ginger movie, then four Best Picture winners in a row.  I didn't notice that.  Interestingly, there are only 27 Best Picture winners on the AFI top 100.  Part of that is because only one film can win in a given year.  1977 is represented twice, with  "Annie Hall," and "Star Wars."   In fact, the 70's is the most represented decade in the AFI Top 100, with 19 on the list (beating out the 50's and 60's with 16 each).  Even if all 10 Best Picture winners from the 70's were on the list (they're not - only 7 of the 10 made the list - again, the highest percentage of any decade), you'd still have 9 films made in that decade that were considered all time greats...while not winning Best Picture.  I digress.  

Let's talk about Woody Allen's great, great film, "Annie Hall."  

Grounded in a period of film history of great experimentation, because of a new-found freedom, with the MPAA ratings guide coming into play, "Annie Hall" is as innovative as it is sweet.  At its core, it's really just a "boy meets girl, boy loves girl, boy loses girl" story.  But "Annie Hall" is so much, much more.

I'd recap the film, but that seems superfluous for this one.  Not a whole lot happens in this film, in terms of great storytelling.  No, what the film manages to do is bring us come really memorable characters, and have them communicate with the audience, if not each other, in shocking honesty.  I need to think about that last sentence a bit.

  

Anyway, Woody Allen plays Alvy Singer, a character based on...well...Woody Allen.  A stand-up comedian, Alvy skirts the edge of fame.  He's the guy you know you've seen before, but somehow is able to walk through the world fairly unnoticed.  I once ran into Joe Spano from "Hill Street Blues" in what was then the Marshall Field's State Street store.  Same kinda thing.  Famous, sure, but not really, and as such, was just a guy shopping in a store.  Except...I recognized him.  Alvy is Jewish (SURPRISE!), to the point of paranoia about others viewing of him.  Some very funny, if very stupid, dialogue with his friend Rob (or Max) about how someone asked him something with the words "Did you...?" and he heard "Jew...?" expands upon that theme.  Then, of course, we get the wonderful scene where Alvy is brought to the WASP home of the Halls, and we see how he feels...in graphic fashion.  Allen's Alvy is a great character, exquisitely embodied by the actor.  Well.  The actor playing himself.  

Opposite Alvy is Annie Hall, played by Diane Keaton, in a performance that I can best describe as lilting.  Like a butterfly, Annie is a wonderfully delicate creature, flying at her whim, yet landing in a light fashion in a relationship with Alvy.  Keaton's performance is so natural, so disarming, it's hard to believe she's acting.  Maybe she isn't.  Maybe this is Diane Keaton, in her distilled form.  Then you see her in other films and you recognize that what you are watching here is indeed, an actor completely in control of every moment.  Choices are being made, and even the wispy is grounded.  It's a magnificent performance.

So.  Why am I on about this film?  Look, the bulk of the film is just two people.  Lots of characters come in and out, whether it Tony Roberts as Alvy's friend, Paul, who calls Alvy "Max" throughout, or Shelley Duvall as a transplendent date that Alvy embarks upon shortly after breaking up with Annie for the first time, or Christopher Walken in a funny little scene as Annie's brother, Duane.  No matter who comes in, they are there for embellishment, and often as a foil to Allen's relentless wit.  

Relentless wit.  That's what this film is.  It is stuffed with punch lines, jokes are set up long in advance at times, and then delivered in a fast, almost Groucho Marxian fashion.  But above it all, nearly every sequence plays like a joke.  We always feel on the edge.  Always wait for the payoff.  That's a real hard thing to keep interesting.  Yet somehow, Allen does it.  Techniques include breaking the 4th wall...most memorably in a scene waiting in a line for a film, as a self-important college professor rants within earshot about Marshall McLuhan.  Alvy confronts the man, who waves his penis, oops, I mean credentials, at Alvy.  Alvy then pulls the thing we all wish we could do in this situation, which is to pull Marshall McLuhan from behind a poster to admonish the man:  "You know nothing of my work."   It's a moment preserved in film history, and rightly so. Not so famous to the general conversation, however, is a scene where Alvy, having just fought with Annie, just starts talking to random strangers on the street, asking them what they do to keep their relationships going.  It's tremendous.  It comes from nowhere, and disarms us.  Also amongst the innovations is a brief animated sequence in which Alvy encounters the Wicked Queen from "Snow White."  Again, where the hell did that come from?  And why is it so absolutely perfect?  There's a scene with Annie and Alvy people watching...and they make reference to a "Truman Capote look-alike contest winner" - except it's actually Truman Capote.  The comedy is in a master's hands.  It's so achingly funny.  

I alluded, earlier, to the characters not talking to each other honestly.

What the film ultimately discusses, to me, is just how little of each other we share with others, no matter how right they are for us.  In a very telling scene, we see a split screen of Annie and Alvy as they are in simultaneous, separate sessions with their analysts.  They are each asked how often they have sex.  Alvy replies, "Hardly ever.  Maybe three times a week."  Annie?  She says, "Constantly.  I'd say three times a week."  It's a wonderfully funny scene, but also incredibly poignant.  So many of us drift along thinking that our set of rules/morals/feelings are the way it should be.  It works for us, so it must be "right."  We don't listen to, or are often completely incapable of listening to, those around us who matter most.  Not because we don't want to, but because we're just different people with different ways of processing information, feelings, whatever.  "Annie Hall" shows us how that drives people apart.  It's remarkably honest about our dishonesty.  It holds a flashlight up to those of us concerned with staying in the dark.  

It is no secret that Allen and Keaton were lovers at this point in their lives, and their chemistry is well...it's palpable.  They have an ease with each other on screen that could only be the result of years of familiarity.  It's great to watch.  

I've rambled on long enough.  "Annie Hall" is a great film.  It is probably worthy of the Oscar it won as Best Picture, even over a film like "Star Wars."  Roger Ebert's take is here.  Hey.  Look at that, I'm on some things Roger brought up.  Yeehaw!  (I always read these articles after I write up the film I've watched)

If you enjoy film at all, this film needs to be in your resume.  Yes, Woody Allen is a creep.  Yes, he's got some deep-seated problems.  This film, however, is brilliant.  Simply brilliant.