Annie Hall

Last night Stan wanted us to watch a film and I refused to watch just any film - they regularly seem quite boring and I start reading halfway through. So I chose what we should watch and we watched Annie Hall.
I am rather glad that my son (20) and daughter (17) had never seen it before. They are the right age to appreciate it. They have seen plenty of comedy that echoes Annie Hall and references Annie Hall, and at last, they have seen Annie Hall.

Compared with modern films it is more compact - quite short - and doesn't repeat itself, so every line is telling. The whole relationship is shown out of sequence, so it makes the audience do the work of putting it in order, but this is not a stupidly complicated exercise as it is in 500 Days of Summer, because it is always possible to view the relationship as a whole - something that has a particular, happy tone of its own - as well as something that has a rise and fall.

Allen is at home with the idea of reducing people to cultural stereotypes - in one scene he meets a woman who remarks that he has just done exactly that - but he also wants to play with them - juxtaposing them for comic effect, and noticing the influence we have on each other when we embark on a relationship, (mainly Alvy on Annie). He also notes how the elements of common culture - such as films and sport - enable and enrich the urban mix.

Woody Allen was like a silent movie director in that he loves to explore the fun possibilities of what's possible in story-telling - cutting the screen in half or using subtitles or taking modern people back to visit a scene from the past, and he loves a bit of slapstick in the form of car crashes or strange driving. In this way a film that is all about conversation is also full of gags and surprises.

Annie talking to her shrink while Alvie talks to his.

What I like about it is that it's an unapologetically clever film that young people can aspire to - they can take a load of references away from it and try to explore them - I know I did. it made me hungry to know more, like the Annie Hall character, so she could feel more confident with the know-it-all urban men. She wanted to be more than an endearing diversion from Alvy's long-time preoccupations with death and sex. The dynamic of the relationship is about a woman growing up and away. The subtext is about education and gaining the confidence to choose your path.