Filmsite.org Logo Filmsite: written by Tim Dirks

Filmsite Movie Review

Manhattan (1979)

Pages: (1) (2) (3) (4)
Background

Manhattan (1979) was an acclaimed, mature, B/W masterpiece enhanced by a George Gershwin score (performed by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta), telling about infidelity, entangling romances and situations, and the comings-and-goings of self-absorbed, mostly-dishonest, glib, intellectual Manhattanites. The film's main focus was a quadrangular love story between unequals: a conflicted 42 year-old divorced TV comedy writer, an optimistic 17 year-old prep-school sweetheart, a flighty, vascillating and intellectually-neurotic and cynical divorced female journalist, and a university literature teacher and cheating husband.

The evocative, much-loved film was formulated as a stylish rom-com drama (known as 'dramedy'), with liberal and verbose doses of neurotic ("nebbish"), self-defeating, and self-ironic humor. Allen described the film's plot as a combination of his previous two films, Interiors (1978) and Annie Hall (1977) . The various haphazard romantic choices, "neurotic problems," and cynical statements made by the characters in the film were actually efforts to avoid their own emotional depths. It was a way to escape from the existential questions of human imperfection, frailty and insignificance in the cosmos (the "more unsolvable, terrifying problems about the universe"). With his unique sense of humor, Allen surveyed the downfall of society and the decay of culture, including the ubiquitous shallowness of television, wrecked relationships, difficulties with marriage, and the lack of control in people's lives. Trying to make sense of things, almost all of the principal characters were working on a book (or aspiring to do so).

The highly-respected film had a straight-forward romantic narrative (with no tricks or gimmicks such as the voice-overs or dream/fantasy sequences in Annie Hall (1977) or the fast-cutting in earlier slapstick genre parodies). In tribute to director Allen's favorite city, it was set in his beloved urban NYC, lovingly shot and portrayed by the black and white cinematography. The famous scene of the Queensboro Bridge (the 59th Street Bridge, spanning over the East River connecting the boroughs of Queens and Manhattan) captured the essence of the city's stunning beauty, and was the iconic centerpiece of the film's marketing and posters. However, one of the film's main points was that city life could be very fragmented, isolating and empty.

The non-diagetic use of New York composer Gershwin's music was deliberately placed throughout the film to metaphorically extend the character of the main protagonist, to serve as a counterpoint to the hero’s life, and to provide more meaning to the scenes.

There were a number of notables for the 96-minute film:

There were some eerie auto-biographical parallels in this R-rated film regarding Allen's May-December romances, and his own film's relationship between the 42 year-old main protagonist (Allen) and his young 17 year-old dating partner (Mariel Hemingway) - a 25 year gap. When Manhattan was released in the US, Allen was 43 and Hemingway was 17. [In real life, there were two other striking parallels:

(1) Allen experienced a two-year romantic relationship with actress Stacey Nelkin, whom he first met as a 16 year-old extra on the set of Annie Hall (1977). Their dating relationship allegedly began shortly later, starting when she was a 17 year-old high school student (Allen was 42), and continuing until she was 19.

(2) Allen's current wife, Soon-Yi Previn was roughly 35 years his younger. (At the age of 8 in the year 1978, Soon-Yi became the adopted Korean daughter of Mia Farrow and her then-husband Andre Previn, before they divorced in 1979. Then, Allen became the romantic partner of Mia Farrow for about 12 years, from 1980 until 1992. Denying any scandal, he asserted that he had inherited Soon-Yi from Farrow's previous marriage. Five years after Mia Farrow's breakup with Allen, Woody and Soon-Yi wed in 1997.)

Further allegations claimed that Allen sexually abused another of Farrow's adopted daughters, Dylan Farrow when she was 7 years old in 1992. She had been adopted in mid-1985.]

The film was one of eight collaborations between Woody Allen and Diane Keaton, and their only black and white film. Allen co-starred in six of them, and directed seven:

  1. Play It Again, Sam (1972) , director: Herbert Ross, star: Woody Allen
  2. Sleeper (1973), director and star: Woody Allen
  3. Love and Death (1975), director and star: Woody Allen
  4. Annie Hall (1977) , director and star: Woody Allen
  5. Interiors (1978), director: Woody Allen
  6. Manhattan (1979) , director and star: Woody Allen
  7. Radio Days (1987), director: Woody Allen
  8. Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993), director and star: Woody Allen

There were two Academy Award Nominations (with no wins): Best Supporting Actress (Mariel Hemingway, in her sole Oscar-nominated performance), and Best Original Screenplay (Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman). Streep won the Best Supporting Actress award for her role in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) (being shot at the same time), stealing it away from her Manhattan co-star Hemingway.

Plot Synopsis

42 year-old, neurotically-obsessed, Jewish Isaac "Ike" Davis (Woody Allen), a Manhattanite, narrated about his failed attempts at writing (he had turned from writing frivolous TV sit-coms to composing a serious novel). He struggled to find the properly-stated, appropriate viewpoint about Manhattan, and the perfect beginning for his new novel, to the tune of George Gershwin's glorious Rhapsody in Blue. The long opening note was played by a clarinet - director Allen's own instrument. [Note: It could be naturally assumed that Ike's new book became the film Manhattan!]

The voice-over dialogue, divided into five parts in the opening, began with exquisite distant postcard shots of the NYC skyline and then closer, more typical scenes of urban life (bulleted below). These were the starts of five different openings (in voice-over) for Isaac's unwritten book, as if he was reading aloud from his writings, or verbalizing his thoughts. However, it was probably the least well-articulated and worthwhile bit of "serious" writing that he could produce. All of the aspects about the city and its inhabitants in Isaac's five dictated descriptions were basically illustrated in the subsequent film ("the hustle-bustle," "lack of individual integrity," "the easy way out," "a society desensitized by drugs, loud music, television, crime, garbage" and more).

There were five different, increasingly over-heated prose styles for his first chapter that he characterized as Romantic, Corny, Profound, Angry, and Sexual. It appeared that the fifth opening was the one that he would choose ("Behind his black-rimmed glasses was the coiled sexual power of a jungle cat"), combining both main aspects of his persona (intellectual and sexual). In fact, Allen's character Isaac would go on to critique urban living as morally shallow, self-absorbed, and compromised although he clearly adored an idealistic view of the city.

ROMANTIC
'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.' Better. '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.' Uh, no, let me start this over...

Next Page

Copyright © 1996-2026 Filmsite LLC. All rights reserved.

AltStyle によって変換されたページ (->オリジナル) /