Manhattan

I have always thought 'Manhattan' was one of Woody Allen's best films. Filmed in glorious black and white with many of Woody's staple players and a great performance by young Mariel Hemingway. The DVD has a good transfer, but I noticed that there is a slight pause between chapter breaks which is a little distracting! Too bad, it deserves a better treatment and these kinds of glitches are really inexcusable.

Let the diatribe begin...again...

Is it any wonder the 1970's was once termed the era of the Me Generation? Not only are the characters in this film prime examples of that selfish bevy but I can't see Manhattan appealing to anyone other than those who either make up that mindset or else wish to study it. Let's be honest, most people are sheep, and if they're told something is masterpiece of art or literature or cinema, they believe it and cling to that belief with mastiff-like tenacity. I suspect that explains much about Woody Allen's alleged magnum opus, Manhattan.

I guess I'm having trouble seeing this film as a masterpiece. It was all right, I don't regret investing the time to see it, but a masterpiece? Many people cite the brilliance of its opening few minutes, but why does Woody Allen get credit for that when George Gershwin wrote the music, and the skyline of Manhattan was created by other people? Yes, adoring Woody Allen fans, I'm saying it: the filming of the scenery set to Rhapsody in Blue could as easily have been done by an educated media arts student. As for the plot, well, it was thin and seemed badly dated to my twenty-something sensibilities. Pampered pseudo-intellectuals "tawking" endlessly about how convoluted their amoral lives are? Sorry, that's been done and done and done, and for that matter, done better. And then there's the ethics of it all wherein a man teetering on the brink of post-middle age serially commits the statutory rape of a high school girl. Oh, I forgot, that's somehow avant-garde. Gee, I bet his lawyers loved that storyline back when the accusations of child molestation were flying, huh?

Yes, I know, I'm being a little mean here. Woody Allen is a witty soul who has given us a number of fine movies (about one film in six he's made) and since movie appreciation isn't the inarguable exactitude of mathematics, then appreciation others believe they have for this movie is valid in their own minds. I just can't see it...

Okay, fire away. I've got on my Kevlar dress...

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Woody Allen said in an Interview once that 'Manhattan', was never the film he intended to write, the end result turning out infact completely different to the intial vision he had, and that he was actually very surprised at the popularity and accolades it earned by audiences and critics alike. Yet this supposedly unintentional fluke, became the definitive 'Woody Allen' film to many, and a modern cinematic masterpiece that paid reverent hommage to Allen's home town of 'New York City'. A city which Allen's main character 'Issac', admits to 'romantacizing out of all proportion'. I admit it was partly Allen's films over the years that led to my fascination and long distance love affair with New York. A melting pot of artists, writers, intellectuals, Jazz, Gershwin, smokey bars and cosy restaurants, quirky bookshops and delis. And of course the highly strung Manhattan neurotic, never without their 'shrink', or analyst. It's all here in this 70's cinema classic. Woody Allen could not have captured the magic and poetry of his beloved city more sublimely; magnificently filmed in black and white 'Panavision', with an exquisite musical score, cinematography, and all round cast ensemble. Most of my favourite of Allen's films are his collaborations with Diane Keaton, they had such a wonderful chemistry.
The charm of Allen's films lie largley in his clever, witty, satirical and often sadonic observations of human nature, foibles and weaknesses. The fragility of life and fickleness of relationships. Allen's movies often present like a modern take on Brechtian theatre, with the central character acting partly as narrator, and detatched observer or commentator as well as participant. Pondering lifes deeper questions, puzzlements and moral dilemmas. Presented always with his wry Jewish American, intellectual brand of humour. Manhattan, along with 'Hannah and her Sisters', and 'Crimes and Misdemeanours', in my view probably display this "wry observation" the most stylishly and successfully. His films (particularly the earlier ones) are also full of mocking self parody, where by he is really often just playing himself or at the very least aspects of himself. There are some hilarious moments and memorable vintage 'Woody' lines here.
"She's 17 and I'm 42..". Says Issac to his friends about his young girlfriend Tracey (Mariel Hemmingway)."I'm older than her Father... I'm dating a girl where in I can beat up her Father, that phenomenon never occurred before". And on relationships: " I'm old fashioned I believe people should mate for life like pigeons.. or Catholics". But my favourite, in conversation with his ex wife( the divine Meryl Streep)who left him for another woman:
"Well you knew my history when you married me".
" Yeah my analyst warned me, but you were so beautiful that I got another analyst".
The characters in Manhattan are very 'New York' yet ones that audiences recognize within themselves and own lives, or society at large. With all their petty adult problems of extra marital affairs, and flitting from one relationship to the next. Perhaps a subconscious distraction to avoid dealing with life's more deeper issues, such as death. A subject never far from Allen's thoughts.
Allen and Keaton are great as always but I think Mariel Hemmingway really steals the show here, she's just perfectly gorgeous as Allen (Issac's) young love interest, who despite her youth has a wisdom beyond her years, enabling her to teach him ultimately as much as he's taught her, especially in the beautifully ironic twist at the end.
Manhattan really is a timeless visual piece of cinematic art, and most quintessential 'New York' movie. It most definitely would not have worked as well in colour. As one reviewer eloquently put it, the city itself is as much a star of this movie as the actors, if not more so.
Last year I was finally lucky enough to have my dream of visiting New York City become a reality, and I was not disappointed. Every so often as I strolled through Central Park, or Greenwich village, I half expected to catch a glimpse of Woody in the street, hearing Gershwin and Cole Porter tunes as I gazed at the Brooklyn Bridge or the Russian Tea room. New York is certainly very much his 'Town'.

Warning:
This is 1979.
Writers use typewriters, and paper, with no digital memory.
Their only electromagnetic device is a Sony cassette recorder replacing the dictaphone of an earlier cinematic era. In fact the cassette deck is so extraordinary a tool at the time that it overflows the big screen, as does the bridge, as it does ten years later in The Thin Blue Line, in a dramatic, fascinating diagonal shot which overwhelms the material.

Warning:
This is 1979.
People were still influenced by early imprintings of Bogey and Bacall, and drinking and smoking tobacco cigarettes was still considered romantic by the older generation, as mocked in the first scene. Indoor smoking was not yet a crime in New York City.

Warning:
This is 1979.
People are not yet epidemically overweight.
A 42 year old man might conceivably however improbably have a seventeen year old girlfriend, with only a laughing reference to the police. In fact this is the most improbable (and repugnant) device of the film, which closes with the young girl counseling her elder, she the wiser now.

Warning:
This movie best seen upon the big screen for the awe-inspiring visuals backed by the Gershwin score. The dialogue and characters only echo the emptiness of the times, the "negative capabilities."

It is a love story for the island itself of its day, never to be so dramatically depicted again, never before since Kong scaled the Empire State, despite the other New York films from this auteur.

Warning: The story line here might best be described as Mr. Allen still in the grips of Bergman, not yet fully finding his own voice. This script may best be described as practice for writing, or a first draft for writing, the overlooked yet remarkable Alice, in which Mia Farrow plays the Woody Allen role. Get that instead; it stands up far better on the small flat screen, and includes an intriguing glimpse of Catholic theology and morality. Here Catholics are only noted in passing for their alleged life-long commitment.

This movie is highly recommended to those who need to see Manhattan once more, as it was thirty years ago, as it was inhabited by an empty headed intellectual elite, who fight over a woman with screams of intellectual angst and empty universal philosophical principles.

As always the best scene is the cameo with Mr. Wallace Shawn, he of My Dinner with Andre of his moving monologue The Fever and his loveable yet tyrannic appearance in Toy Story (10th Anniversary Edition).

Get it. The best bit is the accurate send up of US televised "comedy" which Allen's character truly lambastes for the horror which it is, saying something like "You guys are all on drugs; no wonder you find it funny." Their response: "It must have substance; we're fighting the censors all of the time."