I’ve hated the movie Annie Hall since I was 6 years old. No, I hadn’t seen this Woody Allen movie, but I had seen Star Wars. And Annie Hall is the movie that stole the Oscar for Best Picture from Star Wars. After nearly 40 years I’ve never forgiven Annie Hall for this slight. But is my hatred for this movie legitimate?
With this May marking the 40th anniversary of the release of Star Wars (May 25th to be precise), this year is also the 40th birthday of Annie Hall, which debuted on April 20, 1977. I figured it might be time to watch Annie Hall again.
Yes, I said again. I watched Annie Hall on TV back in the late teens or early 20s. It came on Channel 13 one afternoon and I videotaped it while I was at work. I had to see it and find out what might be so special about this movie.
No there wasn’t.
I stood by my long held belief that Star Wars had indeed been robbed at the Academy Awards.
But recently I’d been wondering if I’d been fair to Annie Hall. Admittedly I’m not a Woody Allen fan. I don’t swear by his work as some do. I also think the thing between he and his step daughter is not only weird, but improper.
What I do admire about Woody Allen is his prolific ability to create movies.
Since Take the Money and Run in 1969, Woody Allen has released a movie he’s both written and directed every year with the exceptions of 1970, 1974, 1976, and 1981.
That’s 44 movies over 48 years, including this year’s upcoming Wonder Wheel.
So with all of this in mind and my desire to learn from successful story tellers, I decided to give Annie Hall another chance. I ordered it on Amazon this past Thursday and guess what? I really liked Annie Hall.
Told from the perspective of Allen’s comedian character, Alvy Singer, Annie Hall is a smart, quirky, funny, and bittersweet story about relationships. Or perhaps more particularly, it’s a story about a couple and their inability to be in a relationship together.
Here’s the opening of the movie that sets the tone and your expectations perfectly.
Alvy and Annie Hall, portrayed by Diane Keaton, seem unsatisfied when together but also miserable when they are apart. There’s something very real about that. Is it the relationship that’s dysfunctional or are Alvy and Annie just not compatible with one another?
Annie Hall does a great job of showing the awkwardness that often accompanies when two people who are interested in each other first meet. Alvy’s first visit to Annie’s apartment on the same day they first meet is an excellent portrayal of this awkwardness, especially with the honest subtitles.
The movie is full of multiple flash backs and only told in the “present” when Alvy breaks the fourth wall and talks directly to the audience as he does in the opening. Yet Annie Hall never insults your intelligence by spoon feeding the time line of the back and forth flashbacks. It assumes you can keep up which I appreciate.
The flashbacks are what I believe we all have experienced when a relationship has gone wrong. You relive the good times and try to figure out just where things fell apart. Your mind races back in forth and no particular order.
Twenty five years ago I didn’t appreciate this. Today I do. I think Annie Hall is a damn good movie and one I intend to watch again. The characters, their dialogue, and their pacing are definitely the precursors of Kevin Smith and Richard Linklater.
With all that said, it’s time for me to forgive Annie Hall for stealing the Oscar for Best Picture from Star Wars.
It’s not Annie Hall‘s fault. The blame lies with the Academy of Motion Pictures of Arts and Sciences. Star Wars was clearly the best picture of 1977.
But Star Wars was too commercially successful and popularly appealing for the voting members of the Academy. On top of that George Lucas was already pretty anti-Hollywood, so they couldn’t let Star Wars win. Instead they handed the statue over to the more artsy movie that appealed to their “tastes,” which was Annie Hall.
It would be wrong to end on a sour note, so I’ll leave you with this. Christopher Walken has a small role in the movie as Annie’s brother Duane. There are a couple of scenes he’s in that are absolutely hysterical and worth your time even if you don’t watch the entire movie.