``Annie Hall'' Woody Allen and Diane Keaton, the beginning of their friendship

The legacy of the past that will never disappear

Putting aside the issues of his personal life, I think his legacy will never fade. The work that is synonymous with Woody Allen is "Annie Hall" (1977).

A bittersweet love story depicting the meeting and parting of the protagonist Alvy and his girlfriend Annie Hall. The story is very simple, but every time I watch it I discover something new and am surprised by something I hadn't noticed before.

It was first shown in Japan in the 1970s, but at the time Allen was more known as a comedian than a director. Many of his parody films, such as " Sleeper " (1973), were made to showcase his humor rather than the story or characters, and his jokes, which highlighted his Jewish identity, were difficult for Japanese people to understand. There was even a joke that "when Allen's films were screened in Tokyo, the audience was full of foreigners."

It was with Annie Hall that he finally came closer to us. With this film, Allen went beyond his role as a comedian, evolved as a film director, and established his foundation as a director who portrayed the emotional nuances of urban men and women.

Annie Hall trailer

That year, the film won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay (co-written with Marshall Brickman), and Best Actress. Allen has won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay three times (he was nominated 16 times), including this film, but this is the only time he has been nominated for Best Actor.

There are two main differences from Allen's previous films. First, the director of photography was Gordon Willis, a famous director of photography known for " The Godfather " (1972). At the time, Willis was known as the "Prince of Darkness" and was good at shooting in the dark, but it was unusual for a comedian like Allen to use someone with such a unique style. The collaboration with Willis was a great success, and the pair continued together until " The Purple Rose of Cairo " in 1985 (after which they worked with famous European cinematographers such as Carlo Di Palma and Svin Nyqvist, and more recently Vittorio Storaro, who worked on films such as " A Rainy Day in New York " (2019), was in charge of photography).

The other is his portrayal of women. Allen is now known as a director skilled at portraying actresses, but according to my translation of " Woody on Allen " (Stig Bjorkman, Kinema Junposha), Allen says, "When I started writing screenplays, I could only write from a man's point of view...But before I knew it...I started writing from a woman's point of view...My inner self changed. It may have something to do with the fact that I was undergoing psychoanalysis (in real life), or it may have been because of my relationship with Diane (Keaton)."

"Annie Hall" was Allen's first film to focus on the visuals and female characters. He also directed other films with heroine names in the title, such as " Hannah and Her Sisters " (1986), " Alice " (1990), and " Blue Jasmine " (2013), but "Annie Hall" was the first of them.

From “Anhedonia” to “Annie Hall”