Manhattan (film)
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| Manhattan | |
|---|---|
| Image:Manhattan-poster01.jpg Theatrical poster | |
| 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) | Image:Flag of the United States.svg March 14, 1979 |
| Running time | 96 minutes |
| Country | Image:Flag of the United States.svg United States |
| Language | English |
| Gross revenue | $39,900,000 (USA) |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Manhattan is a 1979 romantic comedy film. The movie was written by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman, and directed by Allen, as with their previous successful collaboration, Annie Hall. Manhattan is filmed in 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.
Isaac 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 who 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] 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.[1] 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 Woody 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 Allen's 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."[cite this quote]
The film is notable for its extensive use of music composed by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin.
The film was shot in the Cinemascope 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 were letterboxed. Allen even sued a Swiss TV channel that broadcast a pan and scan version of the movie.[citation needed] However, a pan and scan version has since been aired on UK television[citation needed].
[edit] Reception
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.[4] In 2007 dollars, this would be over $110 million.
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. 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.
Auteurist film critic Andrew Sarris notably praised Manhattan as "the only truly great American movie of the 1970s."[5] 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]
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."[6]
[edit] In Popular Culture
- Parodied on the Australian movie show The Bazura Project, Episode 1.09, as part of the episode's opening sequence.
- In the Simpsons episode Rome-old and Julie-eh, during a montage establishing the romance between Grandpa and Selma, they're seen in an homage to the film's 59th St. Bridge money-shot, though it's quickly revealed they're really just on a bench looking at the film's poster.
- Near the end of the pilot episode of Northern Exposure, Joel Fleischman asks Ed Chigliak how he knows so much about New York, Ed says it's from watching Manhattan, saying "I think Woody's a genius!".
- The iconic bridge shot seen above was parodied in the opening intro for The Critic; in it Jay Sherman and Alice Tompkins are sitting on the bench as they watch the Brooklyn Bridge collapse into the East River.
[edit] References
- ^ Made in NY, Museum of Modern Art, New York City, USA, 2006.
- ^ "Manhattan." BestPrices.com. 15 November 2006.
- ^ "An Interview with Woody", Time, April 30, 1979.
- ^ http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=manhattan.htm
- ^ 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
- 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 |
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Categories: Articles with unsourced quotes | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since February 2007 | 1979 films | Black and white films | 1970s romantic comedy films | United States National Film Registry | Films directed by Woody Allen | Films set in New York City | English-language films
