Annie Hall

365 Films

Entry #151

Annie Hall (1977)

Directed by Woody Allen

Unfortunately, for somebody in my particular age bracket, Woody Allen was only known as something of a punchline growing up in the early 90's.  The tabloid ready nature regarding the fall-out of his marriage to Mia Farrow made it all but impossible to understand that there was ever a respected filmmaker beneath that sordid affair.  It also didn't help that I first came into contact with Mr. Allen's work right around the beginning of his so-called "decline" period that seemed to have ended (although this depends entirely on who you ask) with 2005's Match Point.  I can't remember exactly which film it was but my first Woody Allen experience was either Mighty Aphrodite on video or Deconstructing Harry in theaters.  I guess I was too young at the time to fully grasp the particularities of the humor on display but the consistent and collective laughs of the adults around me indicated that something harmonious was being put up on screen.  It was not enough to get me to go back and begin tracing the origins of Mr. Allen's filmmaking career but I do remember seeing and quite enjoying the incredibly goofy Small Time Crooks.  It wouldn't be until sometime around early 2007 that I would finally get around to seeing Annie Hall.  It was an experience I can only equate with those that described any film watcher's first encounter with Star Wars or color film, it was literally mind blowing.  I remember watching Chris Rock on Charlie Rose being interviewed about Dogma and he said the reason he wanted to work with Kevin Smith was because he thought Chasing Amy was the best romantic comedy of its kind since Annie Hall.  For some reason, that ringing endorsement from no less a genius than Chris Rock did not inspire me to immediately run out and rent the damn thing.  The fact that I was also pretty unhealthily obsessed with Chasing Amy only confuses matters more (I haven't gotten to Chasing Amy yet but don't worry, I'm working on it).  Rocks' insight was incredibly spot on because  n Annie Hall, one can practically see the origin of every single romantic comedy created in its wake.  The self awareness, the visual gags, and the ultimately bittersweet tinge to the final images are all fairly standard ingredients in the modern day romantic comedy but unfortunately, influence has the problem of running both ways.  What makes Annie Hall so unique is that Allen and co-writer Marshall Brickman are never in any hurry to busy the plot with thoroughly hare-brained contrivances.  The notorious Hollywood tales of Annie Hall starting out as a murder mystery with a romance subplot and a two and hour and twenty minute original edit speak to the importance of editing but also the idea that Annie Hall began as something as thoroughly conventional and over stuffed as any modern day take on the subject.  It makes sense somewhat considering that even the final ninety-three minute Annie Hall feels like Woody Allen making the last movie he would ever be allowed to make.  The film is almost a sprint through his comic mind, mixing up a taste of his early slap-stick heavy work with a gorgeous visual palette beautifully refined by Godfather cinematographer Gordon Willis.  The prickly and piercing observations on modern romance seem integral to the piece and wisely those elements survived all the judicious editing.  It's funny that in revisiting the film, the scene that still stuck with me the most is Annie's panicked phone call to Alvy in the middle of the night (I know this film has a dedicated following, so you'll have to forgive me if my singling out of this scene is forehead-slappingly obvious) to ask him to kill the spider cornered in her bedroom.  The scene was painful to watch then and remains so to me six years later.  Watching a relationship thought to be deceased blossom again with a mixture of playful flirting and lonely neediness is just one of those movie moments to which it is damned near impossible not to relate.  The fact that a film as universally beloved as Annie Hall could only have come from the singular mind and vision of an eccentric like Woody Allen only speaks to the beguiling powers that only true works of art like Annie Hall possess.