Screenplay Four: Annie Hall

Annie Hall (1977)

Woody Allen, Marshall Brickman
Click for screenplay.
"That movie makes me feel guilty."
"Yeah, 'cause it's supposed to."




Alright, so my last post covered the screenplay of a movie with which I am very familiar. It went alright, I suppose... but this time, I chose something new. I am not familiar with Woody Allen's body of work but I do know that he is a quirky little dude, so this is gonna be a wild adventure. Ready?







"Allen has described [Annie Hall] as 'a major turning point', which, unlike the farces and comedies that were his work to that point, introduced a level of seriousness where he says he 'had the courage to abandon... just clowning around the safety of complete broad comedy... I [thought] I [would] try and make some deeper film and not be as funny in the same way...' ".

(I'd like to tell you that I searched high and low for viable quotes from Woody Allen about Annie Hall, but I didn't. Wikipedia is a legitimate source. Back off.)

Wikipedia also informed me that although it seems like this story might be autobiographical for Allen, he claims that it is not.

Having learned that, I still think that his "courage to abandon...clowning around the safety of complete broad comedy" is reflected in the character Alvy Singer, a neurotic New York Jewish-American male who is all caught up and paranoid and hides behind a mask of humor and is really a little boy and

Okay, hold up. Let's get something straight. This screenplay is the hardest to analyze out of the ones I've read so far, because I feel like Allen uses lots of contemporary references (that I probably missed) and he definitely has a unique style (which I don't know very well). Just thought I should inform you that I'm essentially ignoring these facts for the reminder of this post and will just go based on what I read in Annie Hall. 

As far as The Seven Steps go for this screenplay... yeah, not gonna happen. It's told out of order and because of this lack of linear narrative, it's difficult for me to identify the "norm" that is the First Step ("Once upon a time..."), let alone the turning points and the climax. If anyone has seen the movie/studied the screenplay more thoroughly than I, please, give me some input, because I would love to understand this story better.

Ah, but the armature. Let's try that one. By beating around the bush and discussing big ideas in the screenplay that will maybe lead me to unearthing some sort of underlying message.

Here's a collection of quotes. Try to figure out what ties them together.

ALVY: Well, that's essentially how I feel about life. Full of loneliness and misery and suffering and unhappiness, and it's all over much too quickly.

ALVY: I've a very pessimistic view of life. You should know this about me if we're gonna go out, you know. I-I-I feel that life is-is divided up into the horrible and the miserable. 

MOTHER (looking off-screen): You always only saw the worst in people. You never could get along with anyone at school. You were always outta step with the world. Even when you got famous, you still distrusted the world. 

ALVY: Uh, no, I gotta- I gotta problem with driving... I got, uh, I got a license but I have too much hostility. 

ALVY'S VOICE (this is meant to be one of his thoughts): If only I had the nerve to do my own jokes. 

ALVY: She- she's making progress and I'm not making any progress.  Her progress is defeating my progress. 

ANNIE: You never wanna try anything new, Alvy.

ANNIE: Alvy, you're incapable of enjoying life, you know that? I mean, your life is New York City. You're just this person. You're like this island unto yourself. 

Did ya see it?

All these quotes are people (sometimes even Alvy himself) telling Alvy what he is, what he does, what he doesn't do. He only sees the worst in people; he was always "outta step" (thanks, Mom??); he's too hostile for driving (yeah, I read the scene outside the café, Alvy); he never tries anything new; he's incapable of enjoying life; he's an island...

Freud is all over this.

Well, maybe not just Freud. Psychoanalysis. Regular analysis. Psychology. Psychiatry. If I remember Psych 101's History of Psychology unit correctly, it was in the 60's and 70's that people began to think, Oh, I can figure out everything that's "wrong" with me and solve it all through thinking really hard about it, which (don't get me wrong, I'm an introvert, I pretty much live inside my own head) is just not feasible. Both Alvy and Annie have analysts who they seem to trust implicitly (even on subjects such as their "sexual problem" with... alarm... clocks...?). 

Annie's dream that she discusses with her analyst is a relatively obvious connection to Freudian thought. Dreaming about Frank Sinatra smothering her, except her analyst thinks it's meant to be Alvy (whose last name is "Singer") because Annie ends up breaking Sinatra's glasses (Alvy's?)...

Hand-in-hand with this psychoanalytic motif comes a very unique way of story-telling where the film's audience is very much in Alvy's head. He frequently turns to face the camera and comments on the events unfolding before him. We see his childhood flashbacks include adult Alvy as well as child Alvy (and sometimes Annie and Alvy's friend Rob). Alvy is our narrator and our protagonist, and he's aware of the audience on a level that isn't too common in American films. 


This forces me to question the narration entirely. Alvy is in control of everything the audience sees and hears; the "reality" of the film is blurred through Alvy's constant interference. Alvy even admits early on that he sometimes has trouble distinguishing between fantasy and reality: why should the audience trust anything he says after this? 

Trusting the narrative isn't really the point, though. This screenplay isn't focused on what happens. It's a character study. Not even of the title character, Annie, although we do get a little bit of insight into her head... no, it's mostly about Alvy Singer. 


Alvy is a child. He really is. 

• He's nervous about performing immediately after another comedian because he doesn't think the audience will laugh at his jokes. 
• Annie snaps pictures of him while he's trying to wrangle the lobsters in the pot, like one would with a child who is doing something that is challenging for them.
• Alvy tries to weed Annie off of weed (see what I did there?) during sex. The way he approached it struck me like a child who is self-conscious that people don't really like spending time with him--as an adult, it becomes a fear that people need to medicate themselves (Robin had the Valium, remember?) to be with him in intimacy of any kind.
• I feel like this one needs no explanation... 
  

  ANNIE: Would you like a glass of chocolate milk?ALVY: Hey, what am I- your son?

• Alvy's childish, immature actions post-denial in Los Angeles. He literally bumper-cars his way out of a parking spot.  
• He's quick to love: 

ALVY: ...I have to invent- of course I love youANNIE: Yeah.ALVY: ...Don't you think I do?ANNIE: I dunno.

• Awkward, unsure, and something tells me Alvy already knows the answer... 
  

  ALVY (looking down at his hands, sadly): So wanna get married or what?

Alvy is afraid of being abandoned, ignored, and unloved. He clings to Annie because he senses her innocence when they first meet and he feels like he can take care of her and even be her role model to some extent. Unfortunately, he ends up feeling left behind.

ALVY: She- she's making progress and I'm not making any progress. Her progress is defeating my progress.

Alvy and his sense of metaphorical "space" is another big theme in the script. He loves crowded, dirty New York City, but he hates sunny, chill, expansive Los Angeles. He loves reading and thinking about death because it's a boundary that is definite, regardless of what else happens. Annie's character is even nice enough to conflate those two ideas for me, (hopefully ultimately) supporting my point:

ANNIE (smiling): What's so great about New York? I mean, it's a dying city.

It's even better when we look at the scene with child Alvy, his mother, and the doctor. They are discussing Alvy's concern for the universe, which he has learned is constantly expanding and therefore will eventually "break". His mother snaps at him and tells him not to worry, since he lives in Brooklyn and Brooklyn isn't expanding (and apparently is no longer a part of the universe as we know it, eh, Mrs. Singer?).

This idea comes back when Alvy and Annie argue over her moving in with him. Alvy asks her if she wants it to be like they're married, to which Annie responds that they basically already are. And Alvy feels incredibly uncomfortable with this idea. Why?

Because for Annie, the boundary is fluid. It's like they're married. Alvy can't handle that. Like with death, he needs explicit boundaries. His neurosis throughout the entire screenplay reflects that need.



So, the armature. 

Check out this quote from the end of the screenplay, after the audience catches a glimpse of a rehearsal of Alvy's play (which appears to be the plot of the entire screenplay I just read. Or at least the Annie-Hall-bits).

ALVY (to the audience, gesturing): Tsch, whaddya want?  It was my first play. You know, you know how you're always tryin' t' get things to come out perfect in art because, uh, it's real difficult in life.

This isn't Allen's first movie (of course, he claims that Annie Hall isn't biographical, so what does it matter), but I think he's trying to make a subtle point about film--and storytelling in general--with this notion.

No matter how we try, we can't tell a story that fully captures reality. We can't know everything through intense analysis.

Allen is consistently sneaking in the idea of contradictions inherent in the media and in the attempted reproduction of reality:

VOICES (singing): Remember Christ our Savior/Was born on Christmas day/To save us all ... from Satan's power/As we were gone astray...(They pass a theater, the marquee announcing "House of Exorcism Messiah of Evil. Rated R. Starts at 7:15.")

ALVY: Do you realize how immoral this all is?ROB: Max, I've got a hit series.ALVY: Yeah, I know; but you're adding fake laughs.

THIRD MAN: Right now it's only a notion, but I think I can get money to make it into a concept ... and later turn it into an idea.

(And tons of others that I didn't want to exhume from the screenplay.)

The characters in this screenplay are so removed from reality and are stuck inside their own minds (and their analysts', probably) that they can't function. Annie grows out of it. She relaxes. She moves to Los Angeles. Alvy can't do that, so he writes a play about the pain of his relationship with Annie and what does he do?

He changes the ending so that she doesn't leave him; she returns to New York with him.

Play-Alvy has his boundaries. He has his clear-cut ending. He has certainty. Real-Alvy ("Real"-Alvy, I should say, since he is a character in a film) doesn't, and what's saddest is that he doesn't grow out of it. 


Sorry for the disjointed response this time, guys. I enjoyed it but Woody Allen just makes me feel kind of out-of-the-loop. Because I'm not in his loop and that's the loop where he makes his movies, designed for an audience of (you guessed it) his loop.

DOCTOR (heartily, looking down at Alvy): It won't be expanding for billions of years yet, Alvy. And we've gotta try to enjoy ourselves while we're here.