A Breath of Fresh Air with Woody Allen
I’d taken quite an interest in Woody Allen over the coming months. He was a controversial figure, but one that was very popular as well. I wasn’t a big fan of his previous films, although I was told Manhattan would be different.
Woody Allen has presented me with an ensemble of films to his credit, some better than others while others showed glaring weaknesses. Throughout most of his films he has given us a repetitive but cynical theme of love shown over the course of the respective film’s storyline.
From Annie Hall, Hannah and Her Sisters, and Interiors, we were presented with epic dynamics of family life interwoven with drama, heartbreak and the often-lighthearted comedy found in Allen’s films. However, his film Manhattan stands out to me as a triumphant Woody Allen film. Not one that is particularly different from the rest, but one that had an ending quite different from the rest, in a personal way for me.
I’ve had my fair share of gripes and appreciations when it comes to films by Woody Allen. I seem to allow his personal controversies often to overshadow his achievements when it comes to filmmaking. I loved Hannah and Her Sisters as well as Manhattan, with both leaving a positive tune with me considering Allen’s controversies and darker stories.
I’ve personally seen Allen’s films grow on me as I take a different perspective. Even despite the background context behind this film, with Allen’s own current wife reflecting Tracy’s pre-mature age at the time of the start of their relationship, I was able to shed that aspect away and appreciate the film for its beautiful cinematography and fresh but slightly repetitive story.
Aside from its obvious plot points, I’ve come to grow very fond of Manhattan around my second viewing of it. I hold some personal nostalgia in my heart for not only Manhattan but New York itself. When I was younger I used to go see the Christmas tree in the city and go ice skating avidly with my family, during better years. Now my family is quite divided, and I haven’t been able to make a trip to the city on my own due to my busy schedule.
Re-watching Manhattan rekindled a bit of old love for my old life. An old life I know I can’t go back to as I grow older and continue to move forward. Manhattan’s beautiful scenery and cinematography shows Allen’s own appreciation for the city, as I feel he knows exactly where to film in certain spots, particularly on his still shot footage in the beginning. That segment alone, with Allen not even discussing elements of the film or plot but rather the city itself, cemented my love for the film personally.
The film itself shows itself to me as a sort of montage of the city’s beauty, through Allen’s own lenses. He adds the stark black-and-white that remains throughout the film, although it pulled me even more into the film despite its lack of “flavor”. The black-and-white allowed me to focus in more on things that stood out to me throughout the film. It is truly a more beautiful aspect of the film that I really appreciated. I asked myself if he had to stop the set and have a stand-in come in for him so that he could personally assess his own shots sometimes.
The montage in the beginning of the film sets the immediate tone of the film with beautiful still shots and some witty title-dropping by Allen in the background as he humorously tries to find a title. The shots give Manhattan its mystique, as well as lending to the credence of it being its own character in the film by Allen’s own accounts. He lends us many faces and sides of the city, with some overlooking shots from Central Park standing out to me gorgeously. His most famed shot for the film, the bridge shot, was also a marvel and the black-and-white arguably helped the shot better.
Allen has set his films up with the repetitive theme of cynicism and unreliable relationships plenty of times. This film is no different, with two of his characters engaging in an affair of some sorts with Allen’s character being embroiled in some manner, having introduced the two love interests he interacts with in Keaton’s and Murphy’s characters. Like past movies, Allen presents the cynicism of love and the frequency of unfaithfulness present in his own life.
In his novel Woody Allen on Woody Allen, Allen explains the taboo of extramarital affairs in America, due to the upheld stereotypes and reinforced images of the American Dream constantly perpetuated through the media. Allen plays on this, especially in this film and with its locale. Allen’s character, Isaac, realizes the unnaturalness of his relationship with Tracy, he being forty-two and she being seventeen over the course of the film. Isaac breaks up with her and pursues his eventual love interest for the film in the form of his friend’s former mistress, Mary. Allen’s dynamic character relationships are reminiscent of past ones especially prevalent in Hannah and Her Sisters. Mary seemingly leaves Yale, her love interest, and settles down with Isaac who has recently broken up with Tracy to pursue Mary. However, Mary returns to Yale and once again forces Allen’s character to ponder his own life decisions. I feel this is very similar to previous films where Allen’s character is forced into a revelation due to his own decisions. Much like his character in Hannah, upon realizing he isn’t dying he seems to find a new purpose. Likewise, in this film, Isaac seemingly finds his own rekindled purpose in Tracy, despite leaving her for Mary. He questions “the meaning of life,” and concludes Tracy to be the answer. Despite not convincing Tracy to stay, her advice to Isaac stuck with me as she urged him he had to “have a little faith in people”. This stood out to me as a reflection of Allen’s thoughts towards relationships and love in general as well as showing his growth throughout his films, with his own cynic views possibly taking on a more lighthearted tone.
Manhattan was a breath of fresh air regarding Woody Allen films. It felt personable, relatable and was beautiful in every sense of the word. Allen really took his time with this one, despite his claims of insecurity regarding the film, and the finished product was evident as Manhattan has taken my top spot for favorite Woody Allen film recently.
