Romanic comedy standard

Rating: Null/10 (9 May 2014)

Old Hollywood was brimming with movies that had a romantic comedy subject matter. Starting with Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin's early silents, into the late 1930's with The Women, and on from there romantic comedies were a hit with audiences and usually provided a clever way for director to bypass Hayes Code restrictions. However, with the end of classic Hollywood and the new film era brought about the opportunity to set a new standard for the romance and comedic film combo. Director Woody Allen rose to the challenge. The significance of this movie is how much it differs from the old style and subject matter of romantic comedies and how several aspects of the films structure, plot, characterization, and mise-en-scene are still used today. In classic Hollywood comedies we see a ditsy young women either infatuated by a man or has one infatuated with her. They proceed to tease and lure men in via sexual innuendos, silly childish flirting, and of course pulling the damsel in distress card. The man is usually a weak self-conscious underdog, a well-intentioned good hearted down on his luck type, or the masculine every girls dream man. Overall they are always generic and seemingly artificial characters that lack true human qualities. What we have in Annie Hall is a drastic change-up from the this usual setup. The movie is narrated by the main character Alvy (Woody Allen) who plays an awkward, cynical, arrogant little man who works as a comedian. despite not appearing to as dreamy wonder boy type Alvy has quite the ego. Annie Hall (Diane Keaton), although somewhat "ditsy", plays a women who attempts to hold her own and maintain a sense of confidence. Throughout the film there is drug use, premarital sex, inappropriate interactions, and essentially everything else that would have made code era regulators and old Hollywood audience gasp with horror, disgrace, and overall shock. However, the commentary, uncomfortable and awkward sex scenes, and character attitudes are undeniably similar to what we would see in any romantic comedy released in the past few decades. The significance that is more clearly evident is the drastic desensitization of film subject matter and how characterization and interaction was the key to making it apparent in romantic comedies. Furthermore Annie Hall seemingly provides guidelines to what a successful romantic comedy should entail.