Manhattan (film)
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| Manhattan | |
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 original movie poster |
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| Directed by | Woody Allen |
| Produced by | Charles H. Joffe |
| Written by | Woody Allen Marshall Brickman |
| Starring | Woody Allen Diane Keaton Michael Murphy Mariel Hemingway Meryl Streep Anne Byrne |
| Cinematography | Gordon Willis |
| Editing by | Susan E. Morse |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
| Release date(s) | March 14, 1979 |
| Running time | 96 min. |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Manhattan is a 1979 romantic comedy film. Like Annie Hall, the movie was written by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman, and directed by Allen. It is due for theatrical re-release in the UK on December 8, 2006.[citation needed]
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[edit] Plot
The movie opens with a montage of images of Manhattan accompanied by George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.
It features Allen as Isaac Davis, a twice-divorced forty-something comedy writer dealing with the women in his life.
He is having an affair with Tracy (Mariel Hemingway), a high school girl. However, he falls in love with his best friend's mistress, Mary Wilkie (Diane Keaton). Also, his lesbian ex-wife, Jill (Meryl Streep), is writing a tell-all book about their relationship. Over the course of the movie, Isaac tries to figure out who he ultimately wants to be with -- Tracy or Mary.
[edit] Technique and style
Allen insisted that this movie be shown in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1 when it was released on video. As a result, all copies of the movie on video are letterboxed, the first video to be released in such a format. He sued a Swiss TV channel that broadcast a pan and scan version of the movie. A pan and scan version has since been aired on UK television.
The film is shot in black and white by cinematographer Gordon Willis, who also filmed The Godfather and its sequels. It is also notable for its extensive use of music composed by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin.
According to an inteview he did with Marc Didden in the New Musical Express at the time of its release, Allen decided to shoot his film in black and white
"because that's how I remember it from when I was small. Maybe it's a reminiscence from old photographs, films, books and all that. But that's how I remember New York. I always heard Gershwin music with it, too. In Manhattan I really think that we -- that's me and cinematographer Gordon Willis -- succeeded in showing the city. When you see it there on that big screen it's really decadent."[citation needed]
In an interview with London-based arts critic John Fordham, Allen said that Manhattan was "like a mixture of what I was trying to do with Annie Hall and Interiors."[1] He told Time that his film dealt with the problem of people trying to live a decent existence in an essential junk-obsessed contemporary culture without selling out but admitted that "it's impossible not to be a sellout unless you give away all your physical possessions and live like a hermit."[citation needed]
The iconic shot of Diane Keaton and Woody Allen on the Bench was shot just south of the 59th St. Bridge on a bench by the East River (notably referenced in the opening titles of the second season of the animated sitcom, The Critic.)
[edit] Reception
The film was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Mariel Hemingway) and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen. The film is consistently on the Internet Movie Database's list of top 250 films and was #46 on American Film Institute's 100 Years, 100 Laughs. In 2001 the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry, although Allen himself was reasonably disappointed with the film.[citation needed]
Auteurist film critic Andrew Sarris notably praised Manhattan as "the only truly great American movie of the 1970s."[2] Time film critic Frank Rich wrote at the time that Allen's film was "tightly constructed, clearly focused intellectually, it is a prismatic portrait of a time and place that may be studied decades hence to see what kind of people we were."[citation needed]
This film is number 63 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies."
[edit] Box Office
Manhattan opened in North America on April 25, 1979 in 29 theatres. It grossed $485,734 ($16,749 per screen) in its opening weekend, and earned a robust $39,946,780 in its entire run.[3]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "Manhattan." BestPrices.com. 15 November 2006.
- ^ moviediva. "Manhattan." moviediva. January 2003. 15 November 2006.
- ^ http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=manhattan.htm
[edit] External links
