Movies
Manhattan (1979)
『マンハッタン』1979年
Fan page about the movie “Manhattan” (1979), directed by Woody Allen, starring Woody Allen, Diane Keaton and Mariel Hemingway.
The Story
Isaac Davis (Woody Allen) is a well-known and wealthy television scribe who has had it with the medium and wants to use his talent to amuse in another fashion - his dream is to write a serious book. “Chapter One” is supposed to describe his love for Manhattan, but since it is so hard for him to define what he loves so much about it, he never gets past the first paragraph. Most recently he has had a divorce from a lesbian who is writing a tell-all book about their marriage. Isaac is having an affair with 17-year-old Tracy (Mariel Hemingway), a fact that weighs on his mind and contributes to his already full capacity for guilt. His best friend, Yale (Michael Murphy), is married and is having an affair with Mary Wilke (Diane Keaton), whom he met at a party. But Yale has doubts about the relationship, and so subtly tries to shift Mary to Isaac, who in the meantime thinks he wants to ditch Tracy. In the beginning, Isaac finds Mary annoying and aggressive, yet fascinating underneath. In a while, he realizes that her behavior is all a sham and she is, in truth, a lovely person who is acting the way she thinks Manhattanites should do. They start an affair, but eventually Mary decides that she wants to stay with Yale. Isaac wants to return to Tracy, but she is already on her way to London for a half-year theater engagement. And he still has not started to write his book …
This is the masterpiece of one of the greatest filmmakers of the 20th century. An ode to Woody Allen’s hometown, it is breathtakingly photographed in black-and-white by Gordon Willis and makes splendid use of George Gershwin’s music on the soundtrack.
Star Bios
Diane Keaton was born Diane Hall on January 5, 1946, in Los Angeles, California. She began her show business career in summer stock, eventually landing an understudy job on Broadway in the musical Hair, in which she starred for most of 1968. At the beginning of the 1970s, she started out into the movies, managing to hold her own among the powerhouse cast of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972). She then went on to prove her versatility in a number of Woody Allen films, such as Play It Again, Sam (1972), Love And Death (1975), Manhattan, and - most notably - Annie Hall (1977), which won her a Best Actress Academy Award. She was further Oscar-nominated for her roles as activist Louise Bryant in Reds (1981), a leukemia patient in Marvin’s Room (1996), and a dramatist in Something’s Gotta Give (2003). In 2017, she was honored with the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award.
Mariel Hemingway was born on November 22, 1961, in Ketchum, Idaho. The striking, squeaky-voiced granddaughter of famed writer Ernest Hemingway made her screen debut at age 14 in the distasteful box-office flop Lipstick (1976). For her charming work in Manhattan, she received a Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. Since then, practically none of her movies (including Personal Best, 1982, and Star 80, 1983) was worth of the talent she had displayed in Manhattan. Several big screen disasters finally drove her to television, where she starred in the prime-time dramatic series Civil Wars in 1991-92. In 1997, she once again had the chance to team up with Woody Allen, who gave her a supporting part in Deconstructing Harry. Hemingway’s acting career slowed in the late 1990s, and she focused on advocating for mental health awareness. She contributed to the acclaimed documentary Running from Crazy regarding her family’s struggles with mental illness.
The Director
Woody Allen was born Allen Stewart Konigsberg on December 1, 1935, in Brooklyn, New York. Intending to be a playwright, Allen began writing stand-up comedy monologues while still in High School. His introduction to show business came a few years later when he was hired to write material for such comedians as Sid Caesar and Art Carney. In the early 1960s, after several false starts, he acquired a following on the Greenwich Village night club circuit, performing his own routines. Already during that period of time, Allen developed his character of a bespectacled, self-doubted Jewish-American neurotic, which he was to both vary and refine in the majority of his movies. His first movie job, as screenwriter and actor in What’s New, Pussycat? (1965) made him a demi-icon of the singing sixties. His first film as a director, Take The Money And Run (1969), was followed by a classic series of dazzling comedies, including Bananas (1971), Play It Again, Sam (1972), Sleeper (1973) and Love And Death (1974). But it was 1977’s Annie Hall that was his artistic and commercial breakthrough - it won him a Best Director Oscar and one for best screenplay, which he shared with Marshall Brickman. Since that time, there has rarely been a year without a new Woody Allen feature. Take a look at this extract from his amazing body of work since the late 1970s:
(D=Director, S=Screenplay, A=Actor)
Manhattan (1979) - DSA
Zelig (1983) - DSA
The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) - DS
Hannah And Her Sisters (1986) - DSA
Radio Days (1987) - DS
Crimes And Misdemeanors (1989) - DSA
Husbands And Wives (1992) - DSA
Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993) - DSA
Bullets Over Broadway (1994) - DS
Mighty Aphrodite (1995) - DSA
Everyone Says I Love You (1996) - DSA
Deconstructing Harry (1997) - DSA
Match Point (2005) - DS
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) - DS
Midnight in Paris (2011) - DS
Blue Jasmine (2013) - DS
Allen’s scripts were nominated a record 16 times for Oscars in the Best Original Screenplay category, spawning three wins for Annie Hall, Hannah And Her Sisters, and Midnight in Paris.
Quotes
(manually transcribed from video)
(Opening sequence. Voice-over.)
Isaac: Chapter One. He adored New York City. He idolized it all out of proportion - er, no, make that: he - he romanticized it all out of proportion. - Yes. - To him, no matter what the season was, this was still a town that existed in black and white and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwin. - Er, tsch, no, missed out something. - Chapter One. He was too romantic about Manhattan, as he was about everything else. He thrived on the hustle bustle of the crowds and the traffic. To him, New York meant beautiful women and street-smart guys who seemed to know all the ankles. - No, no, corny, too corny for a man of my taste. Can we … can we try and make it more profound? - Chapter One. He adored New York City. To him, it was a metaphor for the decay of contemporary culture. The same lack of individual integrity that caused so many people to take the easy way out was rapidly turning the town of his dreams in … - no, that’s a little bit too preachy. I mean, you know, let’s face it, I want to sell some books here. - Chapter One. He adored New York City, although to him it was a metaphor for the decay of contemporary culture. How hard it was to exist in a society desensitized by drugs, loud music, television, crime, garbage … - Too angry. I don’t want to be angry. - Chapter One. He was as tough and romantic as the city he loved. Behind his black-rimmed glasses was the coiled sexual power of a jungle cat. - I love this. - New York was his town, and it always would be …
Isaac: You shouldn’t ask me for advice. When it comes to relationships with women, I’m the winner of the August Strindberg Award.
(At the Museum of Modern Art, Isaac and Tracy run into Yale and Mary.)
Isaac: We were downstairs at the Castelli galleries and saw the photography exhibition. Incredible, absolutely incredible.
Tracy: Yes.
Mary: Really, you liked that?
Isaac: Er, yes, the photographs downstairs - great, absolutely great. Did you …
Mary: No, I really felt it was very derring-doed. To me it looked like it was straight out of Diane Arbors, but it had none of the wit.
Isaac: Really? Well, you know, we didn’t really like them as much as the plexiglass sculpture, that’s what I meant …
Mary: … Really, you liked the plexiglass, uh?
Isaac: You didn’t like the plexiglass sculpture either?
Mary: Uh, that’s interesting. No, er, …
Isaac: It was a hell of a lot better than that steel cube. Did you see the steel cube?
Mary: Now that was brilliant to me, absolutely brilliant.
Isaac: The steel cube was brilliant?
Mary: Yes. To me, it was very textural, you know what I mean? It was perfectly integrated, and it had a marvelous kind of negative capability. The rest of the stuff downstairs was bullshit!
Isaac: I think people should mate for life, like pigeons or Catholics.
Yale: You are so self-righteous, you know. I mean we’re just people. We’re just human beings, you know? You think you’re God.
Isaac: I… I gotta model myself after someone.
Mary: Really, I would like everything to work out.
Isaac: It’s great, it … You should leave everything to me. I’ll make everything happen. You don’t have to worry.
Mary: You promise? You really promise? Because I do - I like you a lot. I feel good around you.
Isaac: Well, I don’t blame you.
Mary: Yeah, I mean … Yale was great, he was absolutely great, but he was married. And Jeremiah, look at Jeremiah, my ex-husband. He was just this oversexed, brilliant kind of animal.
Isaac: Hey, what am I - Grandma Moses?
(Mary and Isaac have just run into Mary’s ex-husband)
Mary: God, what a surprise - I cannot get over it. My ex-husband, and he does … he really does look a lot thinner. He looks great.
Isaac: Well, he certainly fooled me. I’m in awe, sure, because that is something … This is not what I expected.
Mary: What did you expect?
Isaac: I don’t know. You said, well, you would always … Well, you said that he was a great ladies’ man, and that he opened you up sexually …
Mary: … so, so?
Isaac: … and then, this little homunculus, er … uh …
Mary: He’s quite devastating.
Isaac: Really? You know, I … - It’s amazing how subjective all that stuff is.
(Isaac lying on the couch, speaking into the tape recorder)
Isaac: An idea for a short story about … um … people in Manhattan who … er … are constantly creating these real unnecessary neurotic problems for themselves - because it keeps them from dealing with more unsolvable terrifying problems about … er … the universe - Um, tsch — it’s, uh … well, it has to be optimistic. Well, all right, why is life worth living? That’s a very good question. Um. Well, there are certain things I - I guess that make it worthwhile. Uh, like what? Okay. Um, for me … oh, I would say … what, Groucho Marx, to name one thing … uh ummmm and Willie Mays, and um, uh, the second movement of the Jupiter Symphony, and ummmm … Louie Armstrong’s recording of “Potatohead Blues” … umm, Swedish movies, naturally … “Sentimental Education” by Flaubert … uh, Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra … ummm, those incredible apples and pears by Cézanne … uh, the crabs at Sam Wo’s … tsch, uh, Tracy’s face …
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