Australian Left Review
Article Title
Film Review - Woody Allen's Manhattan
Abstract
In a time when it is often argued that people — particularly men — seem incapable of taking their emotional lives seriously. Woody Allen would appear to be an exception. In his last three movies (Annie Hall, Interiors and Manhattan) Allen follows his exemplar, Bergman, in making personal relationships — particularly, unrequited love — the subject of his films. In many ways this is quite an achievement: to be able to make movies which modestly yet successfully compete with space spectaculars, exploitation pot-boilers, and flaccid sit-coms of the Neil Simon variety. Notice that I said “to be able to make moves.... ” because what is even more remarkable than Allen’s establishing private life as a suitable case for treatment on the non-art movie house American screen is his confinement of the genre to his own private life. In film after film, we buy our tickets to peer once again into Woody Allen’s life, to see, basically, how he’s getting on with his girlfriend/s.