Word: bergmans
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...LAWS Directed by Arthur Hiller Screenplay by Andrew Bergman...
Donald Woods, exiled South African journalist, will probably top off his year as a Nieman fellow with a sheepskin. Ingmar Bergman or Orson Welles, past near-misses for the Norton Lectures, may represent the cinematic world on the honorary list...
...black-and-white, entertaining, not quite as good as Annie Hall, but better than most other movies you could choose to see. If Allen ever overcomes the paralysis his years of psychoanalysis have induced in his capacity to write serious dialogue, he may yet emerge as the American Bergman. Until then, he should stick to comedy. And stay away from 17-year-olds...
...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...
...Manhattan he accomplishes this, points to promising possibilities in his use of language and the camera, and creates memorable images. Allen and Keaton wandering across the lunar surface in the planetarium, discussing their affair, hold our attention, but not the same couple silhouetted before an empty screen a la Bergman...