Woody Allen
Manhattan

THE REVIEW

Okay, so, why is life worth living? That's a great question. Uhm. Well, there are some things, I guess, that make life worth living. And what? Okay. For me? ehm, I would say? Groucho Marx for one, mhmmmm, and Willie Mays and? the second movement of the Jupiter Symphony? Louis Armstrong, the recording "Potato Head Blues"? Swedish films naturally? "Sentimental Education" by Flaubert, Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, those incredible? Cézanne’s apples and pears, crabs at Sam Wo, Tracey's face.

After starting his career as a director, indelibly marked by brilliant comedies from "Take The Money And Run" to "The Sleeper," where Allen brings his sharp vision of contemporary society to the big screen, making it accessible to the general public thanks to irresistible visual gags à la Buster Keaton, in 1977 his relationship with comedy changes radically. Indeed, he abandons the easier expression and focuses more on dialogues and surreal situations that everyday life, especially that of couples, spontaneously provides.
From these new foundations comes "Annie Hall" (1977) a superb fresco of couple psychology, and on much more dramatic elements that mark family relationships, his first serious film in the style of Bergman, "Interiors" (1978); "Manhattan" (1979) draws its emotional power directly from the director's last two films, and Allen shifts the focus of observing life by turning the eye on the city, New York, seen as a land of great hopes and endless possibilities but which harbors in its heart stories of betrayals, failed loves, and ordinary social and moral degradation.
Thus Allen sets love stories in this metropolis, that of the protagonist Isaac (Allen) with the young student Tracey (Mariel Hemingway), ("...I have a girl who has to go to sleep early because she has homework") and the apparently happy and serene one between Yale (Michael Murphy), Isaac’s best friend, and his wife Emily (Annie Byrne). The arrival of the exuberant and ruthless intellectual Mary (Diane Keaton) shatters the group's fake harmony, leading to betrayals and relationship breakups that Allen perfectly expresses through the rapid dialogues between the characters. This is brought to the screen with beautiful black-and-white photography by Gordon Willis. The choice of black and white is perfect, making the film twilight-like, in "Manhattan" you can see the sunset of the '70s and the dawn of the '80s, the end of great illusions and the beginning of a more material era where morality is put to the test, a theme so dear to Allen which will be extensively covered in many other films of the decade ("Hanna And Her Sisters" above all). The film offers very beautiful moments, quickly shifting from light to dramatic tones, and the scene rapidly moves between interior and exterior settings, creating an alienating effect for the viewer that conveys the idea of the city's becoming. The music by Gershwin gives the film a splendid touch, with the opening accompanied by "Rhapsody in Blue" probably being the most beautiful in the history of cinema alongside that of "Breakfast at Tiffany's".

In the end, "Manhattan" can be considered one of the most important films of the American director, certainly one of his masterpieces on par with "Crimes And Misdemeanors" and "Zelig".