ANNIE HALL: Blu-ray (UA, 1977) MGM/Fox Home Video

BEST PICTURE - 1977

Not since 1938's You Can't Take It With You had a comedy won the coveted Best Picture Oscar until Annie Hall. Since then, no comedy has even dared try – and, for good reason. Along with Manhattan (1979), Annie Hall (1977) is probably Woody Allen's greatest artistic achievement - a darling existentialist romp through the rather severe neuroses of a pair of pixelated misfits. Co-written by Marshall Brickman and Allen, the film takes romantic banality to a whole new and sublimely hilarious level. The film's uncanny biographical similarities with Allen's real life have caused some critics to suggest that Annie Hall is really about Allen's relationship with co-star Diane Keaton - a fact Allen denied then, and, continues to deny to this day. In retrospect, Annie Hall marks a significant departure for Allen from his previous movies. The plot is played mostly serious, if with brilliant, often scathing and supremely sardonic wit that only Woody Allen can provide. Originally intended as a drama with a murder mystery as its focus, Annie Hall ultimately became a study of imperfect (in some cases, seriously flawed) male/female relationships. And Allen is working here with one of his exceptional muses – Keaton; in all her oddball glory, wearing a truly curious hodge-podge of Ruth Morley’s frumpy costumes that collectively put a whole new slant on the idea of eclecticism in common wardrobe. La-dee-da-da, indeed!

The concept for Annie Hall came to Allen via his beloved New York City. It’s no secret – the great love affair between Woody Allen and that isle of 8.623 million had been immortalized before and since, though arguably, never with quite so much cynical charm.  Conferring daily with co-writer, Marshall Brickman initially led to some frustrations and an outright rejection of the idea. Still, Allen refused to give up on Annie Hall, rendering a script in barely 4-days, sent to Brickman for his input and alterations.  The screenplay for Annie Hall is a delicious fusion of Allen’s slant on his own Jewish heritage, his notions about love and sexuality, his acute sense of place and time, and, his riotous ability to poke fun at his own persona and neuroses. Brickman could certainly appreciate Allen’s take on this middle-aged man (Allen turned forty in 1975), his concerns about advancing age and death, tinged in Allen’s own inimitable philosophies on life. But could it be considered ‘commercial’? It is important to note, Annie Hall is not an out-and-out comedy, as so many of Allen’s movies prior to it were farcical to a fault, so much as it tells a legit tale about real human beings that just happens to be ironically comical, as life itself quite often is too; Allen’s bravery to step away from the need to be funny, actually making the movie more heartwarmingly tender, genuine and humorous as a result.

Eventually, a deal with UA was ironed out for a cool $4 million; the working title of the Allen/Brickman screenplay, bouncing from ‘Anhedonia’ (or inability to experience pleasure), to It Had to Be Jew, A Rollercoaster Named Desire, and, Me and My Goy. And although UA’s advertising arm was ready to accept Allen’s initial working title, Allen was unconvinced the audience would gravitate to it, and continued to play around with ideas, including Anxiety and Annie and Alvy, before settling on the much more succinctly put, Annie Hall. There are many parallels between the events and characters in Annie Hall and Allen’s own life, leading some critics to consider it his most autobiographical work. While Allen, and his fictional counterpoint, Alvy Singer are both comedians living in New York, and Diane Keaton’s real surname was ‘Hall’ (Annie, her nickname), and, she and Allen were once romantically involved, any other similarities between Keaton and Allen and the people they represent in Annie Hall is purely coincidental. “It's so exaggerated, that it's virtually meaningless to the people upon whom these little nuances are based,” Allen would later confide, “People got it into their heads that Annie Hall was autobiographical, and I couldn't convince them it wasn't.”

Although kismet may have provided the inspiration for the picture, its first rough assembly left Brickman flat. At 2 hrs. 20 mins., “It was like the first draft of a novel”, Brickman later recalled, “…a visual monologue…more sophisticated” but ultimately, “a cerebral exercise” - “nondramatic and ultimately uninteresting.” Ultimately, the concept for Annie Hall morphed as Brickman and Allen endeavored to pare down the picture’s run time. Annie Hall was photographed by the great, Gordon Willis – an odd alliance, perhaps, given Willis’ penchant for ‘darkness’ and the subject matter of the picture, firmly situated in jest. Nevertheless, the teaming proved inspired, Willis using a ‘hot golden light’ to represent the sequences shot in California, and a ‘grey overcast’ as contrast for Manhattan, with an homage to forties’ Hollywood gloss for the ‘dream sequence’ and flashbacks - most of which were eventually cut from the movie. Ultimately, Annie Hall would emerge as something of a confrontational exercise – Allen, addressing the audience directly during several key scenes, and, in others, offering alternatives to Alvy’s own misinformed adventures – an exercise Allen dubbed as his ‘mental subtitles’, “because I felt many of the people in the audience had the same feelings and the same problems. I wanted to talk to them directly and confront them.”

Our story opens with socially repressed misanthrope, New York TV comedy writer Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) and his misshapen reflections on his life thus far. Alvy sees himself as a typical Jewish man but tends to see Jew haters, both real and imagined lurking everywhere in his midst. To alleviate this religious angst Alvy relies on wasp friend, Rob (Tony Roberts) who chronically calls him 'Max' and inadvertently sets Alvy up with social neurotic Annie Hall (Diane Keaton) during a tennis match.  Annie is obnoxiously funny, a horrendous scatterbrain and a truly terrible driver. Her idiosyncrasies (smoking marijuana before, during and after sex) leave Alvy feeling even more socially inept and awkward, but with the added emotional hindrance of being hopelessly in love. Alvy engages Annie on a strictly platonic level at first. In point of fact, he thinks she's pretty dumb and encourages her to take night course to improve her mind. Unhappy chance for Alvy that Annie takes up his suggestion. As her intellect grows so do Alvie's insecurities - that she might leave him for someone more intellectually stimulating.

Annie introduces Alvy to her family. Her mother (Colleen Dewhurst) encourages the match, but Annie's severely disturbed brother, Duane (Christopher Walken) only seems to add to Alvy's nervous uncertainties. Annie wants to be a singer. At first, this dream goes unrealized. In fact, her nightclub debut is an unqualified disaster. But fear not. With Alvy's encouragement, Annie presses on, eventually garnering the respect of her audience and even the interest of big time L.A. record producer, Tony Lacy (Paul Simon). Alvy and Annie fly out to the coast (Allen poking devilish fun at the feather-headed superficial celebrity sect). Although Annie elects to stay behind to cut a record - thereby forcing her to breakup with Alvy she eventually returns to the Big Apple, though not necessarily to Alvie or even to that cloistered neuroticism she once knew. Alvy runs through a series of even more tragically flawed relationships (Janet Margolin, Carol Kane and Shelley Duvall) only to realize too late that Annie has been the one for him all along. Regrettably, by the time he has figured this out it is much too late to go back and repair the damage in their relationship. Alvy will just have to live with the fact he has let his soul mate get away.

Annie Hall is, indeed, a great comedy. It stands head and shoulders above most anything else yet attempted on celluloid, and certainly remains one of Woody Allen’s greatest achievements. Allen’s ability to fashion a cohesive story out of disjointed - often seemingly pointless - vignettes is not only admirable, but brilliantly realized. His non-linear narrative nimbly explores the past, present and future all at once, incorporating first-person narrations and even animation to revitalize what is essentially a very conventional romance between two very un-romantically inspired people. Take, for example, the scene where Alvy is waiting outside a theater for his movie date with Annie. Alvy is suddenly accosted by an ardent fan (James Burge) who makes a damn hilarious nuisance of himself by screaming Alvy’s name and credentials to passersby. This scene, like the next where Alvie and Annie are forced to listen to a pontificating amateur critic while waiting in line for tickets, ends only when the criticized author - Marshall McLuhan – miraculously turns up from behind one of the lobby marquees to admonish the man and reaffirm Alvy’s faith in sweet revenge. "If only life were this simple," Alvy muses. But these sequences have absolutely nothing to do with Alvy and Annie's romance. Nevertheless, they help to set a style, a mood and a tone for the picture that ultimately satisfies and, even more miraculously, enriches the romantic thread to its next deceptively explorative moment.

Woody Allen is his usual brilliant, self-deprecating self – employing a direct address to the audience throughout the film that is quite engaging. Christopher Walken makes a welcomed edition as Annie’s off kilter brother. Diane Keaton won her Best Actress Oscar for this film. But knowing her as we do today, she seems to be playing herself rather than a character; her wacky delivery of lines and unconventional wardrobe just par for the course of who Diane Keaton is in life. So, does she still deserve the Oscar? Arguably, yes. Her performance is eclectic and moody and fraught with an intuitive ability to create empathy for a character as nutty as the proverbial fruitcake, but with most of the sweet parts removed. The irony of Annie Hall is that it is presumably a story about nothing other than pseudo-intellectualism run amok and pretentious New Yorkers who have very little to say, though, say it magnificently well, as masters in the art of their own time-suckage.

MGM/Fox's Blu-ray is adequate, although the image continues to lag, I suspect, being at the mercy of less than perfectly archived film elements. Woody Allen’s ‘technique’ in picture-making has never been particularly concerned with high key-lit gloss. In fact, he seems almost to rebel against this traditional look of Hollywood product, much preferring a minimalist approach that squarely focuses on character and plot, often, at the expense of visual appeal. But Annie Hall could most certainly use a new 4K scan – even if it only gets reissued to standard Blu-ray sometime in the future. This Blu-ray exhibits colors that are slightly faded and contrast levels, much weaker than expected. There are even a few instances where film grain has that ugly digitized look to it. *Check out the scene where Annie and Alvy stroll near the Hudson at twilight near the bridge. It's not only excessively grainy, but background information hints at some 'tiling'. Sharpness is also another issue. The Blu-ray is softly focused and I am not at all certain this is the result of Gordon Willis’ photography. Darker scenes lack fine detail, but overall, the image is just flat and visually uninspiring. In keeping with Woody Allen’s minimalist approach to picture-making, the audio remains in DTS mono as originally recorded, and although dated, gives us an adequate representation of the original listening experience. Big surprise here: there are NO extras! Bottom line: Annie Hall is Woody Allen’s masterpiece. This Blu-ray doesn’t rate such high praise. Regrets.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

5+

VIDEO/AUDIO

2.5

EXTRAS

0