Annie Hall (1977): Eitan’s Take

27Feb09

Well, I’ve been wondering for two years where I would even begin with Annie Hall, and now that the day has finally come and gone, I still feel reluctant to let it all out here. Unlike The Godfather, which is a difficult film to tackle because it feels like everything’s already been said, Annie Hall is a difficult film to tackle because it matters so much more to me than any of the other 80 films we’re watching over the course of this project. For a young, neurotic, East Coast Jewish male, I don’t think there’s any film that speaks more deeply or more resonantly to the sort of innate frustrations we develop about ourselves. Woody Allen has made about forty other films, but Annie Hall is the one that rings truest. I can view other films objectively, but this one is different; some people say that they “grew up” on a film, or that some film feels like it’s a “part of their family,” but this is probably the only one that’s ever felt like it was a part of me, like it was just a voice inside of me speaking out through celluloid. I feel that way about Philip Roth and Joan Didion, and I feel that way about Woody. He doesn’t just appeal to me… with this movie, it feels like he IS me.

Now, I realize that’s a ridiculous claim to make. There must be millions of other people who thought that this film — this amazing, genre-hopping, non-linear, experimental, restless film, the only film that has ever really felt like actual love feels — was like some inner voice finally expressing their own tragicomic take on romance and New York and literature and snobbery and, oh, basically everything contained within the universe that this film encompasses. But Jewish men… we own this film. Sorry to everyone else, but there are things about Annie Hall that will simply make no sense to you unless you have a Y chromosome and a circumcision. This, more than any other film or play or book every produced, is really written in our language. The insane fantasy contained here — the nebbish woos the shiksa from Chippewa Falls — may not be the life story of each and every one of us, but something about it just clicks, psychologically and culturally, in ways that are hard to explain to people from the outside. How do you explain Alvy’s trepidations about Annie’s assimilation into goyishe West Coast culture to someone for whom these things make no difference? How do you explain the preoccupation with death, the nervousness, the pastrami-on-white-bread scene, the chaotic family life, the paranoia about Jewish identity, the huge significance of every culture-clash moment shared between Alvy and Annie? To goyim, the lobster scene is just a moment of slapstick comedy; to people with the “decoder ring,” it’s a haunting, even deep scene about rejecting Jewish values and abandoning the mythos of Jewish tradition. I’m not kidding. If you don’t see this, it’s because you were never meant to.

This is not only my favorite Best Picture winner. It’s also my favorite Woody Allen film, which says a lot. I don’t think he ever addressed the major themes of his creative career better than he does in Annie Hall. It’s sort of like his greatest hits, wrapped up in a surprisingly innovative package that feels authentic, inspired, challenging, unyieldingly romantic. How anyone could give it anything other than a 10/10 is beyond me.

Now, thank GOD we can finally watch this movie again whenever we feel like it. Phew!

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Tags: Annie Hall, Christopher Walken, Diane Keaton, Eitan 10, Woody Allen