Last night, I had the sincere privilege of watching Woody Allen’s 1977 Annie Hall. The film, released on the very first year of the postmodern cinema era, left me shellshocked in its execution, experimentalism, and pure genius. The current landscape of postmodernism is ripe with films devoid of character and substance, many serving as regurgitations of prior generic films. Annie Hall is a film unlike anything I have witnessed in the postmodern era, a film whose presence I’d like to be a constant in my life.
Allen’s powerful imagination, sincerity in emotion, and creativity in interacting with the medium, help establish Annie Hall as a masterwork, a humorous and poignant tour de force. Evidently drawing from his career as a comedian and past relationships, both familial and romantic, Allen guides the audience through an exploration of the eventual dismantling of a still-beautiful partnership between the film’s eponymous lead (played wonderfully by Diane Keaton) and Allen himself. Despite the overabundantly witty dialogue, and the brilliant acting on display, what remains most memorable from the film is the performance by Keaton of the song, “Seems Like Old Times.” Simple, honest, evocative, and winsome, the performance of the song, and its subsequent invocation in the film’s “finale,” are among the most heartfelt and sincere film “moments” I’ve yet encountered in cinema. It’s both an effective and charming method through which Allen, in this masterstroke, crucially adds a final, hugely endearing, dimension to Hall’s character, resulting in a greater degree of pathos experienced on behalf of Allen’s character.
The world Allen creates within the screen - the relationships, the tone, the setting, the delivery of dialogue, and unwavering humor - all come together to form a truly beautiful piece of cinema; a work of art that reminds me why I love film. The challenge to craft something of this quality and depth propels me through each of my cinematic endeavors. Allen inspires me to experiment in my own filmmaking pursuits, pursue my own style, and gives me hope for the future of cinema.
