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Annie Hall
Directed by	Woody Allen
Produced by	Charles H. Joffe, Jack Rollins
Written by	Woody Allen, Marshall Brickman
Starring	Woody Allen Diane Keaton Tony Roberts Christopher Walken Carol Kane Paul Simon
Cinematography	Gordon Willis
Editing by	Wendy Greene Bricmont Ralph Rosenblum
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date(s)	April 20, 1977 September 29, 1977
Running time	93 minutes
Language	English
IMDb profile

Annie Hall is an Academy Award-winning, 1977 romantic comedy film directed by Woody Allen from a script he co-wrote with Marshall Brickman. It is one of Allen's most popular films: it won numerous awards at the time of its release, and in 2002 Roger Ebert referred to it as "just about everyone's favorite Woody Allen movie,"^[1]. Allen had previously been known as a maker of zany comedies; the director has described Annie Hall as "a major turning point"^[2] , as it brought a new level of seriousness to his work, in addition to consolidating his signature cinematic style, which includes long, realistically-written scenes of conversation, often shot in uninterrupted takes, and an equal thematic investment in both hilarity and heartbreak.^[1]

Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Production 4 Style and technique 5 Awards and nominations 6 Considered sequel 7 Influence 7.1 Just Shoot Me 8 References 9 External links

The film is set in New York City and Los Angeles.

Allen plays Alvy Singer, a comedian obsessed with death, attempting to maintain a relationship with the ditzy but exuberant title character (played by Diane Keaton). The film chronicles their relationship over several years, intercut with various fantasy trips into each other's history (Annie is able to "see" Alvy's family when Alvy was only a child, and likewise Alvy observes Annie's past sexual relationships. In the flashbacks showing Alvy as a child, we learn that Alvy Singer grew up in Brooklyn. His father operated a bumper cars concession. He claims the family home was located below the Thunderbolt rollercoaster on Coney Island.)^[3]

After several years, many arguments and many reconciliations, the two realize they are fundamentally different and split up, with Annie moving in with a Hollywood executive (played by Paul Simon of Simon and Garfunkel). Alvy eventually realizes he still loves her and tries to come back and get her. He fails, and, resignedly, returns to New York. However, they are able to meet later on good terms and have no regrets about the relationship.

• Woody Allen — Alvy Singer
• Diane Keaton — Annie Hall
• Tony Roberts — Rob
• Carol Kane — Allison Portchnik
• Paul Simon — Tony Lacey
• Shelley Duvall — Pam
• Janet Margolin — Robin
• Colleen Dewhurst — Mrs. Hall

The film features a number of appearances by actors and actresses who went on to later fame:

• Christopher Walken, in an early film role, plays Annie's creepy, suicidal brother Duane.
• Jeff Goldblum speaks one line as a man at an LA party phoning his guru: "I forgot my mantra."
• Sigourney Weaver can be briefly glimpsed as Alvy's date outside a theatre.
• Beverly D'Angelo plays one of the actors in Rob's TV show.
• John Glover appears as Annie Hall's previous boyfriend.
• Shelley Duvall as another date of Alvy who writes for Rolling Stone.

In the scene in which Alvy and Annie are observing passersby in the park and Alvy comments, "Oh, there goes the winner of the Truman Capote Look-Alike Contest," the passerby is actually Truman Capote, who appeared in the film uncredited.^[4]

Allen's working title for the film was Anhedonia (a psychoanalytic term for the inability to experience pleasure from normally pleasurable life events), but this was considered unmarketable, as was Brickman's suggested alternative, It Had to Be Jew. Ultimately Annie Hall was settled upon as the release title. Because of biographical similarities with the character Alvy and Woody Allen (including Allen's previous relationship with co-star Diane Keaton, whose real name is Diane Hall, and who portrays the character Annie Hall), Annie Hall has been widely assumed to be semi-autobiographical. Allen has denied this.

The film was originally intended to be a drama centered around a murder mystery with a comic and romantic subplot, and was filmed that way. According to Allen, the murder occurred after a scene that remains in the film, the sequence in which Annie and Alvy miss the Ingmar Bergman film Face to Face.^[2] After shooting had completed, the film's editor persuaded Woody Allen to cut the mystery plot and make the film a romantic comedy. (Allen would make a murder mystery film many years later, with 1993's Manhattan Murder Mystery, also starring Diane Keaton.)

Similarly, the production of the film was semi-improvisational. For example, in the original script, Alvy didn't grow up under a roller coaster, but while Allen was driving around Brooklyn with his crew, looking for locations, "I saw this roller-coaster, and I saw the house under it. And I thought, we have to use this."^[2] The 'house' in question is in fact the Kensington Hotel, which really was located underneath the Thunderbolt roller coaster.^[5] Another example is the scene in which Alvy sneezes into cocaine, which was purely accidental, but Allen decided to keep it in the movie; when they tested it with audiences they laughed so much that Allen had to add more footage after the scene so they wouldn't laugh through important conversations afterwards.^{[citation needed]}

Allen has said that Annie Hall was "a major turning point" both thematically and technically. "I had the courage to abandon... just clowning around and the safety of complete broad comedy. I said to myself, 'I think I will try and make some deeper film and not be as funny in the same way. And maybe there will be other values that will emerge, that will be interesting or nourishing for the audience.' And it worked out very well."^[2]

Allen has also stated that working with cinematographer Gordon Willis for the first time on Annie Hall helped improve his technical skills, calling Willis "a very important teacher" and a "technical wizard."."^[2] Annie Hall was the first of Allen's films to utilize long takes, where sometimes one shot will continue, unabridged, for an entire scene. Allen has commented, "It just seems more fun and quicker and less boring for me to do long scenes."^[2] (Allen's tendency to use long takes has also meant that the time it takes to edit his films is negligible.) Film critic Roger Ebert cites a study that calculated the average shot length of Annie Hall to be 14.5 seconds, while other films made in 1977 had an average shot length of 4-7 seconds.^[1] Ebert adds that the long takes add to the dramatic power of the film, saying, "[F]ew viewers probably notice how much of [Annie Hall] consists of people talking, simply talking. They walk and talk, sit and talk, go to shrinks, go to lunch, make love and talk, talk to the camera, or launch into inspired monologues like Annie's free-association as she describes her family to Alvy. This speech by Diane Keaton is as close to perfect as such a speech can likely be... all done in one take of brilliant brinksmanship.".

The film also breaks with conventional realism: characters frequently break the "fourth wall" by addressing the camera directly, and Allen makes use of split-screen imagery, double exposure, and subtitles expounding the characters' real thoughts (in contrast to the dialogue). In one scene, Allen's character, standing in a cinema queue with Annie and listening to someone behind him expound on Marshall McLuhan's work, leaves the line to speak to the camera directly. The man then speaks to the camera in his defense, and Allen resolves the dispute by pulling McLuhan himself from behind a counter to tell the man that his interpretation is wrong. Another scene is animated, featuring a cartoon Allen and the Wicked Queen from Snow White. In another scene Allen's character again addresses the audience, then stops several passers-by to ask them questions about love. Woody Allen chose to have Alvy break the fourth wall, he explained, "because I felt many of the people in the audience had the same feelings and the same problems. I wanted to talk to them directly and confront them."^[2]

1977 Academy Awards (Oscars)

• Won - Best Picture - Charles H. Joffe and Jack Rollins
• Won - Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role — Diane Keaton
• Won - Best Director — Woody Allen
• Won - Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen — Woody Allen, Marshall Brickman
• Nominated - Best Actor in a Leading Role — Woody Allen

1978 Golden Globes

• Annie Hall won one Golden Globe Award, for Best Actress in Musical or Comedy (Diane Keaton). It was nominated for three more: Best Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy), Best Director (Woody Allen), and Best Actor in Musical or Comedy (Woody Allen).

1978 BAFTA Awards

• Annie Hall won the BAFTA Award for Best Film

AFI 100 Years series

• The American Film Institute has placed Annie Hall on five of their 100 Years series:

• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (#31)
• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs (#4)
• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions (#11)
• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs (#90; "Seems Like Old Times," performed by Diane Keaton)
• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes (#55; Annie: "La-dee-da, la-dee-da...")

Other Awards

• The film consistently rates in the top 150 on the Internet Movie Database's list of top 250 films, and has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Zagat Survey Movie Guide (2002) ranks Annie Hall one of the top ten comedies of all time, one of the top ten movies of the 1970s and as Allen's best film as a director. In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted it the forty-second greatest comedy film of all time. The film is number 28 on Bravo's 100 Funniest Movies.
• Woody Allen, however, did not attend the Academy Awards ceremony for Annie Hall, claiming that the awards meant nothing to him.

Allen says he gets approached "all the time" about making a sequel to Annie Hall,^[6] but has repeatedly demurred. However, he admitted in a 1995 interview that for a time he considered it, saying,

“

I did think once - I'm not going to do it - but I did think once that it would be interesting to see Annie Hall and the guy I played years later. Diane Keaton and I could meet now that we're about twenty years older, and it could be interesting, because we parted, to meet one day and see what our lives have become. But it smacks to me of exploitation....[Sequelism] has become an annoying thing. I don't think Francis Coppola should have done Godfather III because Godfather II was quite great. When they make a sequel, it's just a thirst for more money, so I don't like that idea so much.[7]

”

Annie Hall is a benchmark for modern romantic comedies, with a large influence over future films.^{[citation needed]} Its mix of relatively realistic scenes and surreal flights of fancy was highly influential on later films and TV series; the 1980s TV series Thirtysomething, for instance, was just one of many shows that would break away from more realistic, dramatic scenes for comic trips into the imagination of the characters. In fashion, Keaton dressed in layers with a tie (by Ralph Lauren), which became a popular style. Allen recalled that Keaton's natural fashion sense almost didn't end up in the film. "She came in," he recalled in 1995, "and the costume lady on [Annie Hall] said, 'Tell her not to wear that. She can't wear that. It's so crazy.' And I said, 'Leave her. She's a genius. Let's just leave her alone, let her wear what she wants.'"^[2]

The sitcom Just Shoot Me pays homage to Annie Hall in the episode "My Dinner with Woody".^[8] Allen's general film making style (such as black and white sequences accompanied by jazz music) is honored also, but Annie Hall is the predominant source. In the episode, Maya (Laura San Giacomo) is contacted by an Allen-impersonator (Ed Crasnick) after writing a flattering article about the director.^[9]

Elements from Annie Hall specifically referenced include the bookend direct-to-camera addresses, including the 'eggs' and 'small portions' jokes and the subtext subtitle scene. The real Woody Allen makes his first sitcom appearance with a voice cameo at the end of the episode. He recorded his contribution in New York and sent it to the production team.^[10]

• Annie Hall at the Internet Movie Database
• Annie Hall at the TCM Movie Database
• Annie Hall - synopsis, production details, etc.
• Greatest Films Essay - Filmsite.org essay

Films directed by Woody Allen

What's Up, Tiger Lily? • Take the Money and Run • Men of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story • Bananas • Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) • Sleeper • Love and Death • Annie Hall • Interiors • Manhattan • Stardust Memories • A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy • Zelig • Broadway Danny Rose • The Purple Rose of Cairo • Hannah and Her Sisters • Radio Days • September • Another Woman • New York Stories • Crimes and Misdemeanors • Alice • Shadows and Fog • Husbands and Wives • Manhattan Murder Mystery • Bullets Over Broadway • Don't Drink the Water • Mighty Aphrodite • Everyone Says I Love You • Deconstructing Harry • Celebrity • Sweet and Lowdown • Small Time Crooks • The Curse of the Jade Scorpion • Hollywood Ending • Anything Else • Melinda and Melinda • Match Point • Scoop • Cassandra's Dream

Preceded by One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

BAFTA Award for Best Film 1978

Succeeded by Julia