Woody Allen Film Festival: MANHATTAN (1979)

Woody Allen Extended Film Festival! Woody Allen is one of the greatest directors of all time. It's hard to overstate how great he is, emotionally deep, funny af of course, intellectual, and filmically creative. He made one or two movies EVERY YEAR from the seventies until recently, only slowing down in his eighties. I've chosen five to start us with, but we'll stick with him until we've seen all of them we want to.

First up is Manhattan (1979) I think probably his single most perfect movie, so it's a good one to start with. He had already been moving away from his early '70s outrageous comedies, but even Annie Hall (1977) is quite silly, more like a mashup between his early comedic work and his later more mature work. Then Interiors (1978), which we'll watch next, is just an insanely depressing homage to Bergman. Manhattan is his first, I think, fully formed adult movie, a black-and-white love letter to, you guessed it, Manhattan. Starring Mariel Hemingway, Diane Keaton, Michael Murphy, Meryl Streep, shot by Gordon Willis, and of course written and directed by Allen (It just occurred to me, Allen's career is a little like Shakespeare's--there are the outright comedies, the tragedies, and then the more mature "romances.")

The movies we'll be starting with are Manhattan (1979), Interiors (1978), Husband and Wives (1992), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), and Blue Jasmine (2013). These represent a good cross-section of Allen's output, the late '70s when he was creative output was on fire, the '80s/'90s when he was producing one consistently great movie after another, and then one much more recent one, when he has been less consistent but still sometimes great.

One interesting note about the above picture; it is totally fake. I tried to recreate it one time in Manhattan, and it's impossible. The park overlooking the Queensborough Bridge is there (although much lower than in the picture), but the benches aren't arranged like that, the railing is wrong, and there are no roads--the "tow away" sign doesn't belong there at all. It's an interesting example of faking realism, as we were talking about with Zodiac and French Connection.

Most of these movies will be available on any streaming service, or as always you can find a (free) link here:

https://gregoryberry.net/cinematography

We will meet on Friday, August 8, 2025, at 8PM, at LEANING TOWER OF PIZZA at 24th Street and Lyndale, same as always. See you there!