Manhattan (film)
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| Manhattan | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical 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 |
| Music by | George Gershwin |
| Cinematography | Gordon Willis |
| Editing by | Susan E. Morse |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
| Release date(s) |  April 25, 1979 |
| Running time | 96 minutes |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Gross revenue | $39,900,000 (USA) |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Manhattan is a 1979 romantic comedy film about Isaac Davis (Woody Allen), a twice-divorced 42-year-old comedy writer dating a 17-year-old high school girl (Mariel Hemingway). Isaac eventually falls in love with his best friend's mistress (Diane Keaton). The movie was written by Allen and Marshall Brickman and directed by Allen, who had also successfully collaborated on Annie Hall. Manhattan is filmed in widescreen and black and white.
The film was nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Mariel Hemingway) and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen. It also won the BAFTA Award for Best Film. The film was #46 on American Film Institute's "100 Years... 100 Laughs". This film is number 63 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies." In 2001, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.
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[edit] Synopsis
The film opens with a montage of images of Manhattan accompanied by George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. Isaac Davis, played by Allen, is introduced as a man who loves New York City. He is a twice-divorced 42-year-old comedy writer dealing with the women in his life. He is dating Tracy (Mariel Hemingway), a 17-year old 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 whom he ultimately wants to be with, Tracy or Mary.
[edit] Cast and characters
- Woody Allen as Isaac Davis
- Diane Keaton as Mary Wilkie
- Michael Murphy as Yale
- Mariel Hemingway as Tracy
- Meryl Streep as Jill
- Anne Byrne Hoffman as Emily (as Anne Byrne)
- Michael O'Donoghue as Dennis
[edit] Production
According to Allen, the idea for Manhattan originated from his love of George Gershwin's music. He was listening to one of the composer's albums of overtures and thought, "this would be a beautiful thing to make . . . a movie in black and white . . . a romantic movie".[1]
[edit] Filming locations
The scene in which Isaac romances Mary at an art exhibition opening was filmed at the Museum of Modern Art. The sculpture garden and Pablo Picasso's She-Goat are featured. The iconic shot of Diane Keaton and Woody Allen on the bench was shot just south of the 59th Street Bridge by the East River. The film opens at Elaine's, then a famous hot spot for New York's literati, and later Allen brings his son to the Russian Tea Room.
[edit] Style
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."[2] He told Time that his film deals with the problem of people trying to live a decent existence in an essential junk-obsessed contemporary culture without selling out, admitting that he himself could conceive of giving away all of "[his] possessions to charity and living in much more modest circumstances," continuing, "I've rationalized my way out of it so far, but I could conceive of doing it."[3]
The film is shot in black and white by cinematographer Gordon Willis, who had also filmed The Godfather and its sequels, as well as Annie Hall. According to an interview with Marc Didden in the New Musical Express from the time of the film's 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."
The film was shot in the Panavision aspect ratio, 2.35:1. Allen wanted to preserve Willis's compositions, and insisted that the aspect ratio be preserved when the film was released on video (an unusual request in a time when widescreen films were normally panned and scanned for TV and video release). As a result, all copies of the movie on video and television were letterboxed, originally with a gray border.[1]
[edit] Reception
Manhattan opened in North America on April 25, 1979 in 29 theaters. It grossed $485,734 ($16,749 per screen) in its opening weekend, and earned $39.9 million in its entire run.[4]
The film received generally positive reviews. It currently has a rating of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. Gary Arnold, in the Washington Post, wrote, "Manhattan has comic integrity in part because Allen is now making jokes at the expense of his own parochialism. There's no opportunity to heap condescending abuse on the phonies and sellouts decorating the Hollywood landscape. The result appears to be a more authentic and magnanimous comic perception of human vanity and foolhardiness".[5] In his review for Newsweek magazine, Jack Kroll wrote, "Allen's growth in every department is lovely to behold. He gets excellent performances from his cast. The increasing visual beauty of his films is part of their grace and sweetness, their balance between Allen's yearning romanticism and his tough eye for the fatuous and sentimental - a balance also expressed in his best screen play yet".[6] Roger Ebert, in his review for the Chicago Sun-Times, wrote, "Diane Keaton gives us a fresh and nicely edged New York intellectual. And Mariel Hemingway deserves some kind of special award for what's in some ways the most difficult role in the film".[7]
Allen was named best director for Manhattan by the New York Film Critics Circle.[8] The National Society of Film Critics also named Allen best director along with Robert Benton who directed Kramer vs. Kramer.[9]
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.[10] It also won the BAFTA Award for Best Film.
Auteurist film critic Andrew Sarris notably praised Manhattan as "the only truly great American movie of the 1970s."[11] Time film critic Frank Rich wrote at the time that Allen's film is "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]
The film was #46 on American Film Institute's "100 Years... 100 Laughs". This film is number 63 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies." In 2001, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Recently, J. Hoberman wrote in the Village Voice, "The New York City that Woody so tediously defended in Annie Hall was in crisis. And so he imagined an improved version. More than that, he cast this shining city in the form of those movies that he might have seen as a child in Coney Island—freeing the visions that he sensed to be locked up in the silver screen."[12]
[edit] References
- ^ a b Fox, Julian. "Woody: Movies from Manhattan", Overlook Hardcover, September 1, 1996.
- ^ Brode, Douglas. "Woody Allen: His Films and Career", Citadel Press, 1987.
- ^ "An Interview with Woody", Time, April 30, 1979.
- ^ "Manhattan", Box Office Mojo, May 2, 1979. Retrieved on 2007-01-11.
- ^ Arnold, Gary. "Woody Allen's Comic High: A Delightful and Deluxe Rhapsody of Wry Romance", Washington Post, May 2, 1979.
- ^ Kroll, Jack. "Woody's Big Apple", Newsweek, April 30, 1979.
- ^ Ebert, Roger. "Manhattan", Chicago Sun-Times, January 1, 1979. Retrieved on 2008-01-11.
- ^ "Kramer vs. Kramer selected best film", Globe and Mail, December 21, 1979.
- ^ Arnold, Gary. "Film Critics' Pick of the Year", Washington Post, January 3, 1980.
- ^ Arnold, Gary. "Kramer, Jazz Lead Nominees", Washington Post, February 26, 1980.
- ^ moviediva. "Manhattan." moviediva. January 2003. 15 November 2006.
- ^ Hoberman, J.. "Defending Manhattan", Village Voice, July 10, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-07-11.
[edit] External links
- Manhattan at the Internet Movie Database
- Manhattan at Allmovie
- Manhattan at Rotten Tomatoes
- The Film Journal: Woody's Manhattan at 25
- The Reeler interview with Gordon Willis
| Preceded by Julia |
BAFTA Award for Best Film 1981 |
Succeeded by The Elephant Man |
