Woody's Last Laugh?

Rating: 8/10 (14 March 2007)

It took "Star Wars" to get the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to acknowledge Woody Allen's contribution to film.
In 1978, the A.M.P.A.S. had a problem: What to name best picture of the year before? High-art dramatic pictures like "The Turning Point," "Julia," and "Equus," didn't really capture anyone's fancy the way previous winners had. And the films that did grab people by the throat were too mass-market for the elite's comfort: "Saturday Night Fever," "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind," and especially "Star Wars." Out of duress, the Oscars were then forced to do something it rarely did before: Choose a comedy.
It was thus a perfect year for "Annie Hall," Allen's latest comedy, of a more serious bent than his past comedies but still laugh-out-loud funny. Woody plays Alvy Singer, a stand-up comic who starts the film telling the audience he just turned 40 and is feeling down after breaking up with his latest girlfriend, Annie Hall (Diane Keaton). The film then goes back to examine that relationship from its beginning through their development as a couple until a fateful moment aboard a plane when they realize what they have on their hands is not love but a dead shark.
I like "Annie Hall," a lot more often than not. It's not a terribly engaging story, but it contains brilliant comic episodes. You feel immediately affected by Annie as Alvy is, seeing in her not the typical Diane Keaton of past Allen comedies, but someone more vulnerable and alert. The acting is stupendous, very real-feeling line readings that come across like spying on our part. And there is the rare gift of seeing a relationship end, not with recrimination, but a sense of mature grace.
A lot of people say "Annie Hall" is Allen's best film. I don't. For pure comedy, "Sleeper," made before, was funnier and a better story besides. Later on, I'd choose "Zelig" and "Hannah And Her Sisters" over this, and others who have seen them mention "Manhattan" and "Crimes And Misdemeanors." It was just that 1977 was a good year for a comedy, and Woody Allen had a good comedy out. If it didn't go to him, it would have been Neil Simon's "The Goodbye Girl" instead, at least according to my theory.
People say this was the last time Allen made a real comedy, and I agree more with that, but not completely. What happened was that this was the last time Allen made a comedy for everyone, albeit one about the cultural elite. After "Annie Hall," he made films for the cultural elite alone. He later made films more for laughs than "Annie Hall," but not before shedding most of his wider audience with films like "Interiors" and "Stardust Memories." "Annie Hall" is about relationships, with which we can all identify. It contains five or six of his best-known quotes, and funniest situations. Some parts of the film have aged better than others. I still get a big laugh out of the lobster incident and the his/her dichotomy over "three times a week." I keep my opinions to myself in theater lobbies out of fear someone will drag out Marshall McLuhan. Parts of the movie, like Keaton singing "Seems Like Old Times," appeals to me more now than it did then.
It would be a better film if the relationship with Annie had as much of a window on her life as it does on his, if there was more done with the Tony Roberts character other than a handful of droll conversations, and if Woody's social commentary was more spot on, rather than revealing how isolated he was getting. Witness his takes on rock music or West Coast culture, which feel horribly narrow.
But you have to love a film that sets up Paul Simon as the other guy, draws laughs from "The Sorrow And The Pity", and plays with narrative structure in such an accessible style. I don't think "Annie Hall" the best film of 1977, but have no problem with its selection. Woody and comedy got their due.