Film Review
The majestic panoramas that fill the screen in those entrancing opening minutes
of
Manhattan, rendered even more beautiful and alluring by the music
that accompanies them (Gershwin's
Rhapsody in Blue), are enough to
convince you that New York City is the most wondrous place on Earth.
It is a sublime overture to Woody Allen's greatest film, pulling us into
a world that is totemic of human achievement, where unfettered art and grubby
capitalism find a way to live side-by-side and where even the air itself
seems to be alive, a drug that once it enters your lungs hooks you for life.
There is probably no other film in which a city is presented with such intense
affection, bordering on idolatry, but Allen's artful
billet-doux to
his beloved home town is a work of profound irony and contradiction.
Magnificent it may be, but New York also symbolises all that went wrong with
America in the 1970s - the wholesale surrender to materialism that resulted
in so much insecurity and lack of personal fulfilment. The mindless
quest for wealth and enjoyment in this new age of hedonistic freedom brought
more misery than happiness. Still, it was a good time to be a psychoanalyst.
The 'grown up' protagonists in
Manhattan all suffer from this malaise.
Each is a fully paid up member of a society that mistook material well-being
for genuine happiness and ended up being drawn like pins to a magnet into
a soulless mire of decadence and dismay. They are comfortably off intellectual
sophisticates who have good jobs and no trouble in finding members of the
opposite sex to share their beds with, but at no time do they appear settled
or satisfied. Allen's character Isaac Davis is (typically) the most
extreme case of this - an over-sexed 42-year old writer who is Ignmar Bergman's
greatest fan and yet he acts and talks like a juvenile delinquent who is
incapable of expressing or feeling any real emotion. Tracey, the 17-year-old
he is in a relationship with at the start of the film, is by contrast emotionally
mature and far more in touch with her true feelings. She hasn't (yet)
been corrupted by the narcissism of the cultural elite and so is able to
appreciate what love really is. In common with his middle-aged cohorts,
Isaac wouldn't recognise true love even it were standing stark naked in front
of him, with a gigantic Valentine's card in one hand and a DVD of
Now,
Voyager in the other.
Diane Keaton's character - a more neurotic, less emotionally secure version
of the one she played alongside Allen in
Annie Hall (1977) - is almost
a mirror image of Isaac. She is just as incapable of experiencing real
love, owing to the intellectual defence mechanisms she has created for herself
to spare her the pain of rejection and disappointment. For both characters,
and we may add Isaac's friend Yale (Michael Murphy) and his venomous ex-wife
Jill (a wonderfully waspish Meryl Streep), the obsessive need to make money
and forge a big career becomes a barrier to true happiness. They are
destined to end up isolated, pursuing solitary lives in separate bubbles,
sustained not by love or the things that truly matter but by the hollow decadence
of the buzzing metropolis. By the time Isaac finally realises what
true love is, it is too late. His one chance of real happiness has
gone forever and all he can do is watch with a wry smile as it slips from
his fingers. He must content himself with being a mere brick in the
fabric of the city he adores, his heart marching to the almighty beat
of the great metropolis.
Manhattan isn't just a cogent morality tale (one that remains depressingly
current), it is also a lovingly crafted visual ode to New York. The
film's widescreen format was forced on Allen by his original conception of
showing us the Manhattan skyline in all its glory, a vista that is surely
every bit as awe-inspiring as the pyramids of ancient Egypt. The 2.35:1
aspect that Allen went for is a tricky one but his cinematographer Gordon
Willis manages to fill every inch of the screen and repeatedly we are treated
to a succession of dazzling images, none more arrestingly beautiful than
the exteriors depicting the familiar New York landscape. Grandiose
shots of the Empire State Building, Brooklyn Bridge and Central Park, along
with glimpses of the city's thronging streets, bookshops and cafés,
make up a vibrant living tapestry in which we soon feel we are as immersed
as the protagonists themselves, and the fact that the film is in black and
white somehow lends it an even greater visual impact and immediacy.
It is hard to name another film of the 1970s that is so exquisitely photographed
as
Manhattan. Every frame is a work of art, seductively stylish
and yet imbued with a sad longing for that small part of paradise which
is gone forever.
© James Travers 2016
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Woody Allen film:
Stardust Memories (1980)
Film Synopsis
Isaac Davis is a television comedy writer who is so disgusted with his milieu
that he decides to chuck it and start a new career as a serious writer.
His inspiration is the city of New York, in which he has lived his entire
life and which perfectly encapsulates his idea of romanticism. Now
in his early forties, he is half-heartedly pursuing a relationship with a
17-year-old schoolgirl, Tracey, just as his embittered ex-wife is poised
to publish an account of their marriage that will make him a laughing stock.
His best friend is Yale Pollack, a married college professor who is having
an affair with columnist Mary Wilkie. Convinced that his relationship
with Tracey cannot last, Isaac presses her to start going out with boys of
her own age. Heartbroken, Tracey agrees to part company with Isaac
and is soon making plans to go to London to study drama. With Tracey
now out of the picture, Isaac is free to make his move on Mary, who has by
this time broken up with Yale. Although Isaac has more in common with
Mary than he did with his teenage lover he soon regrets giving up Tracey...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.