Annie Hall (1977)

Taglines: A nervous romance.

Annie Hall is a film about a comedian, Alvy Singer (Woody Allen), who falls in love with Annie Hall (Diane Keaton). Both of the characters are completely different but both strikingly entertaining and unusual. Alvy is an extreme pessimist that obsesses over the subject of death and has very sarcastic and cynical views about the world and the people around him.

Annie is a ditsy and clumsy talented singer and photographer. When Alvy and Annie meet for the first time they are instantly attracted to each other and as a result their conversations are awkward but never the less adorable. The film takes you through the couple’s love lives, before and after their relationship. Alvy often comes out of the scene he is in to talk directly to the audience about his views on whatever situation he is in.

Alvy Singer is a neurotic comedian who desperately wants to analyze his relationship with his former girlfriend Annie Hall. The beginning is romantic. Then problems arise. He is not too enthusiastic about her idea of moving in with him, and leaving her apartment. He dislikes her habit of smoking weed before having sex and her lack of education. After she enrolls in adult education classes, she soon gets attracted to a professor.

Alvy and Annie break up in a fight. He tries to calm down and starts a new relationship but with no success. After a while she calls him and they start again, convinced they will make it this time. Everything looks wonderful. But soon they both reveal to their shrinks that the relationship has gone sour again. After visiting California they break up, peacefully this time.

Alvy is proud about their calm transition from relationship to friendship. He tries to date another woman but again with no success. He gets a panic attack and flies to California where Annie is in a happy relationship. She rejects him. He gets so upset that he ends up in jail.

After coming back to New York he writes a play about their relationship, but with a happy ending. He meets her again later in New York with some other guy. They go for lunch as friends, remembering their good times. At the end he realizes that although relationships are absurd and irrational, we still need to go through them. We need to believe they are not what they are.

Annie Hall is a 1977 American romantic comedy film directed by Woody Allen from a screenplay he co-wrote with Marshall Brickman. Produced by Allen’s manager, Charles H. Joffe, the film stars the director as Alvy Singer, who tries to figure out the reasons for the failure of his relationship with the film’s eponymous female lead, played by Diane Keaton in a role written specifically for her.

Principal photography for the film began on May 19, 1976, on the South Fork of Long Island, and continued periodically for the next ten months. Allen has described the result, which marked his first collaboration with cinematographer Gordon Willis, as “a major turning point”, in that unlike the farces and comedies that were his work to that point, it introduced a new level of seriousness. Academics have noted the contrast in the settings of New York City and Los Angeles, the stereotype of gender differences in sexuality, the presentation of Jewish identity, and the elements of psychoanalysis and modernism.

Annie Hall was screened at the Los Angeles Film Festival in March 1977, before its official release on April 20, 1977. The film was highly praised, and along with winning the Academy Award for Best Picture, received Oscars in three other categories: two for Allen (Best Director and, with Brickman, Best Original Screenplay), and Best Actress for Keaton. The film additionally won four BAFTA awards and a Golden Globe, the latter being awarded to Keaton. The film’s North American box office receipts of $38,251,425 are fourth-best of Allen’s works when not adjusted for inflation.

It ranks 31st on AFI’s List of the greatest films in American cinema, 4th on their list of greatest comedy films and 28th on Bravo’s “100 Funniest Movies”. Film critic Roger Ebert called it “just about everyone’s favorite Woody Allen movie”. The film’s screenplay was also named the funniest ever written by the Writers Guild of America in its list of the “101 Funniest Screenplays”. In 1992, the United States Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

Directed by: Woody Allen
Starring: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, Carol Kane, Paul Simon, Janet Margolin, Shelley Duvall, Christopher Walken, Colleen Dewhurst, Christopher Walken, Helen Ludlam, Sigourney Weaver
Screenplay by: Woody Allen, Marshall Brickman
Cinematography by: Gordon Willis
Film Editing by: Wendy Greene Bricmont, Ralph Rosenblum
Costume Design by: Ruth Morley
Set Decoration by: Robert Drumheller, Justin Scoppa Jr.
Art Direction by: Mel Bourne
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: United Artists
Release Date: April 20, 1977