Word: allene
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...characters declare their problems bluntly to each other, instead of living them out or summing them up in an act. Bergman's characters can get away with stating their naked feelings because he elevates their conversations from daily life. When Allen uses these declarations to comic effect they work, but as serious character-building they don't. Diane Keaton's character--a pushy writer, neurotic like everyone else in the movie--declares, 'I come from Philadelphia, and I believe in God!" and Allen has scored both a laugh and and illumination of her character. She blurts, "I'm beautiful...
Mariel Hemingway as Allen's 17-year-old lover suffers the same verbal excess. When Allen tells her he has found another woman, she responds, "We have laughs together. We have good times. Your concerns are my concerns. We have good sex." The curtain of the drama rips to reveal a scriptwriter desperately hanging more significance on the lines than they can handle...
...ALLEN'S TROUBLE with writing serious dialogue does not totally overwhelm Manhattan because much of his intellectual humor remains, and his cinematic direction--with the work of Gordon's Willis's camera--continues to develop in exciting ways. Manhattan is shot entirely in black and white. Along with careful application of gushy George Gershwin music at critical moments, the black and white suggests nothing more than Capra and corniness...
...neurosis and confusion in Manhattan's plot is thus both unexpected and disturbing. It is a story of love affairs nearly broken up, communication nearly established, people nearly honest with each other. If Allen was unfair to California in Annie Hall by depicting it as a doped-up land of sun and stylessness, he is doubly hard on his native city. The extensive location shooting in Manhattan--of the Museum of Modern Art, Rizzoli's Bookstore, Hayden Planetarium, even the Dalton School--may be the worst thing for the heartland's vision of New York City since the fiscal crisis...
...Allen's other recent films, he plays himself or a close approximation thereof, in Manhattan. But this short, balding little Jew has come a long way from the pitiful failure he played in Bananas. In Manhattan he's successful television writer who has no trouble meeting women. The new Allen is more fleshed out and believable than the old, but the troubles which the old might have hidden with quips are now revealed as deep crevasses in his personality. When Keaton tells him she is still in love with old flame Michael Murphy. Allen is reduced to shrugging his shoulders...