| Collector's Corner August 2009
Manhattan
- Starring: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton,
Michael Murphy, Mariel Hemingway, Meryl Streep, Anne Byrne, Michael O’Donoghue
- Directed by: Woody Allen
- Theatrical release: 1979
- DVD release: 2000
- Video: 2.35:1 (anamorphic widescreen)
- Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0
- Released by: MGM
 George Gershwin’s music
blares across the speakers, and in black-and-white photography unmatched since Citizen
Kane, New York City blazes across the screen with more sex appeal than a slow,
meandering shot of a lightly sweatered 1930s starlet. It looks as if Woody Allen has
created a love story for his hometown. Then we hear Allen’s deadpan voice:
"‘Chapter One: He adored New York City. He
idolized it all out of proportion.’ Uh, no, make that: ‘He, he romanticized it
all out of proportion.’ Yes. ‘To him, no matter what the season was, this was
still a town that existed in black and white and pulsated to the great tunes of George
Gershwin.’ Eh, no, missed out something. ‘Chapter One: He was too romantic about
Manhattan, as he was about everything else. He thrived on the hustle and bustle of the
crowds and the traffic. To him, New York meant beautiful women and street-smart guys who
seemed to know all the angles.’ No, no, corny, too corny for a man of my taste. Can
we, can we try and make it more profound? ‘Chapter One: He adored New York City. To
him, it was a metaphor for the decay of contemporary culture. The same lack of individual
integrity that caused so many people to take the easy way out was rapidly turning the town
of his dreams into --’ No, that’s a little bit too preachy. I mean, you know,
let’s face it -- I want to sell some books here. ‘Chapter One: He adored New
York City, although to him it was a metaphor for the decay of contemporary culture. How
hard it was to exist in a society desensitized by drugs, loud music, television, crime,
garbage --’ Too angry. I don’t want to be angry. ‘Chapter One: He was as
tough and romantic as the city he loved. Behind his black-rimmed glasses was the coiled
sexual power of a jungle cat.’ I love this. ‘New York was his town, and it
always would be . . .’"
Of course, with "the coiled sexual power of a jungle
cat," we know that we’re hearing typical solipsistic Woody Allen shtick in which
he goofs on himself as a typical solipsistic member of the Manhattan intelligentsia, this
time one named Isaac Davis. In other words, it’s like a Charlie Kaufman film, only
funny. Very funny.
The jokes Allen writes for himself in Manhattan come
from a comedian at the top of his game. Even the lines Allen writes for Diane
Keaton’s character, Mary, would be manna to most comics. Who writes like this today?
Judd Apatow’s writing is as funny, but it rarely tickles the intellect. Andrew
Stanton pulls hard at both the laughs and the tears, but again, you won’t find many
jokes about Kafka or Strindberg.
The cast is loaded with great actors. Keaton is hilarious,
Michael Murphy is a jerky predator, and Meryl Streep is perfect as Isaac’s ex-wife,
newly converted to lesbianism. Perhaps the best was the only one of the bunch to be
nominated for an Oscar: 17-year-old Mariel Hemingway, as doe-eyed, sexually willing Tracy:
"Let’s fool around. Let’s do it some strange way that you’ve always
wanted to, but nobody would do with you." Far more mature than the much older Isaac
and his friends, Tracy creates the most centered character in this cabaret of neurotic meshuganner.
Woody Allen has directed 42 films and written 47. He likes
to joke that, though they make money, the Hollywood types aren’t interested in films
that make only a few million dollars. One of the reasons he now makes films abroad is that
European bankers are happy to back his films, thus freeing him from the Hollywood studio
system. The bankers obviously think he makes enough money for them, even though he’s
uneven as a director. Of his 42 films, there are at least a dozen classics, and of those,
five that are timeless: Annie Hall, Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters,
Bullets Over Broadway, and Match Point. He’s been nominated for
an Oscar 14 times for his writing (and probably a 15th for this year’s Whatever
Works). Billy Wilder, considered by most to be the best writer-director in history,
received a total of only 11 nominations. Allen has been nominated another six times for
Best Director, and once for Best Actor. That’s 21 altogether, a number that must be a
record.
Allen’s response to all these Oscars and nominations?
"I have no regard for that kind of ceremony," he said in 1978, the year before Manhattan
was released. "I just don’t think they know what they’re doing.
When you see who wins those things -- or who doesn’t win them -- you can see how
meaningless this Oscar thing is." Still, he could paper his New York apartment with
all the awards he’s received from around the world (see here for a list).
Allen’s problem, especially of late, is that viewers
draw little distinction between the characters Allen plays and Allen himself. Thirty years
ago, when Manhattan was released to almost universal acclaim, what most folks
thought they knew about Woody Allen was that he was funny, phobic, and ferally horny. In Manhattan,
the story of a 42-year-old man having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old-girl
provoked feelings of "gross" or "way to go," depending on which side
of the gender gap you fell. And although Allen’s films are often seen as
iconoclastic, Manhattan is, at heart, a sweet love story in which nature does step
in and Allen falls for someone more his own age.
Of course, that was before 1992, when Allen and Soon-yi
Previn, the adopted daughter of Mia Farrow (Allen’s lover for the previous 12 years),
announced that they were a couple. He was 57, she was 22. However ethically ambiguous the
relationship might be or have been, the sad fact is that it cast a pall over Allen and, by
extension, his films.
The bigger question, especially for anyone who has digested
Manhattan, is why Allen has stayed with Soon-yi and not moved on to someone
nearer his own age and wide-ranging interests. As mirrored by Isaac’s dilemma in the
film -- Tracy or Mary? -- Allen usually spends some time with a younger woman, then leaves
her for an older woman. His first wife, Harlene Rosen, was 16 when they married. He left
her for 27-year-old Louise Lasser, left Lasser for 24-year-old Diane Keaton, and then,
after a short liaison with 17-year-old Stacey Nelkin, vamoosed for 35-year-old Mia Farrow,
and finally, 22-year-old Soon-yi Previn.
Farrow had already been married to Frank Sinatra (he was
50, she 21) and, four years later, André Previn (he was 41, she 25). Despite the fact
that Farrow was complicit in the dirty fighting with Allen (Soon-yi said of her adoptive
mother, "She’s no Mother Teresa"), Farrow won the public role of the
wronged and trod-on woman. Most in the U.S. vilified Allen. During the legal haggling,
Farrow accused Allen of sexually abusing another daughter, then seven years old (the
allegation was later disproved). Sinatra reportedly called ex-wife Farrow and offered to
have Allen’s legs broken. Allen’s natural son with Farrow -- a preternaturally
smart kid who went to Yale Law School at 15 -- offered the following, with the clarity of
a great writer and the sting of a pissed-off comedian: "He’s my father married
to my sister. That makes me his son and his brother-in-law. That is such a moral
transgression." Is it now possible to see Manhattan without thinking of the
Allen-Farrow dustup? I hope so.
Currently, Manhattan is available only on DVD.
Despite the fact that it’s in black and white, it was so gorgeously shot by
cinematographer Gordon Willis that it deserves the high-definition treatment. Allen was a
champion for videophiles early on when he refused to allow anyone to show his film with
cuts, or in any format other than what was then called letterboxing. Untold numbers of
viewers returned their copies of the VHS version because they thought something was wrong
with the picture ("What are those damn black stripes doing on my screen?").
Allen stood firm. Unfortunately, he’s also against DVD extras -- in his opinion, the
film should speak for itself. So all you can expect is a good picture, which is what you
get with the MGM DVD.
Manhattan is Woody Allen’s least favorite film,
despite (or maybe because of) the fact that it was his biggest money-maker. "I hated
that one," he said. "I still can’t believe, even to this day, how it became
so commercially successful. I can’t believe I got away with it."
Luckily for us, he did.
. . . Wes Marshall
wesm@hometheatersound.com |
