Final stretch! Down to the last five movies on the list. I know this is my Fall 2014 Movie Bucketlist but it’s never too late to immerse yourself in classic cinema!
So I’m starting to learn what makes a good well-rounded Moviecation List. Each one needs a Hitchcock film, a Studio Ghibli film, maybe a Coen brothers or a Tarantino, a silent film, a horror movie, a Best Picture winner. And of course a Woody Allen film. I chose Manhattan because it was on Netflix when I made the list but as fate would have it, it got deleted before I got to it.
Also it has 19 Academy Award Nominee Meryl Fucking Streep!
I actually assumed this movie would be an Annie Hall-style love story with Woody Allen and Meryl Streep. Turns out Meryl plays his bisexual (or possibly lesbian) ex-wife and Manhattan is a love story between Woody Allen and Diane Keaton… or so we think.
Of course it starts with him dating a 17-year-old high schooler so the whole film is shrouded in a kind of uncomfortable feeling, similar to the one you get when you see Woody Allen promoting monogamy.
Anyway so the film has that sort of “Here’s real, complicated people living their real, complicated lives, so screw conventional storytelling” that I actually love and think very few writers are able to pull off. It’s bordering on satire while also portraying authentic situations. The only person I think who is pulling that off today is Lena Dunham.
Feel like a line from Girls? It’s because we’re the protagonists of our own stories! A lot of people hate that “Here are some deeply flawed characters who are aimlessly navigating their sometimes boring lives.” I don’t care, I love it.
So the film is objectively no Annie Hall. It doesn’t have the complicated timeline that makes for one of the coolest love stories in cinema. But Manhattan is full of messed-up people trying to figure out what they want.
One major difference I did notice from Annie Hall is Manhattan’s reliance on music, as well as sequences of driving. I want to say the music made the film a little more sappy, with the repetition of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue elevating the story to capture the majesty of New York City. Even the black and white sort of seemed to be a reference to a period of higher culture, acknowledging a city in decline.
The driving I took to be an understanding of the characters constantly being in motion, sometimes stuck, but always navigating the complicated network of roads in the largest city in America.
The film had its boring moments as well as its poignant moments, about love and growing old, and I definitely enjoyed watching it.
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