Word: keaton
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...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 and I'm bright and I don't deserve this...
...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 and spluttering, "Really? Really? Do you really mean that...
...each Allen movie, Keaton's performances improve by an inch or two, but she still has miles to go before anyone can take her seriously as an actress. Try hard as she may she still sounds like she's reading lines. Murphy is little better. Hemingway does her best to make the role of a 17-year-old in love with a 42-year-old seem believable, and her scene breaking up with Allen strikes the most genuine emotional note in Manhattan...
Allen remains potent only when he weds his old instinct for incongruous humor to his new skill as a director. Several times in 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...
...Allen has a favorite actor, it seems to be Keaton. Talking about her always cheers him up: "She has no compunction about playing a lovable and gangly hick in Annie Hall and then very neurotic and disturbed women in Interiors and Manhattan. That's the mark of an actress and not a movie star. Keaton also has the eye of a genius, as you can see in her photos, collages, silk screens and wardrobe. She can dress in a thousand more creative ways than she did in Annie Hall. When I first met her, she'd combine unbelievable stuffat boots...