Manhattan (1979)

 

Manhattan

Woody Allen loves New York and “Manhattan” is his love letter to the city. Maybe it is this angle that makes me like “Manhattan” a lot better than most other of Allen’s movie. When he changes the focus a bit away from himself, his movies become so much better.

We follow a few characters who are interconnected and, at least to me, appear more as generic New Yorker types than necessarily particular individuals. Their actions, discussions and problems become an image of the city with its nervous energy, which is what Woody Allen wishes to portray.

Isaac (Allen) is a twice divorced comedy writer who is dating a 17-year-old girl, Tracy (Mariel Hemingway). He is friends with Yale (Michael Murphy) who is married to Emily (Anne Byrne), but secretly dates Mary (Diane Keaton). As friends, Yale is confiding in Isaac about his philandering, while Isaac is quite open about his worries that Tracy is so much younger than him. When Isaac gets to meet Mary is put off by her, considering her a cultural snob, but as they spend more time together a certain energy between them emerges. Isaacs neurotic sarcasm against Mary’s nervous snobbery makes an unlikely, but interesting combo. Maybe it is their honesty about their likes and dislikes that draws them together.

Yale and Mary decide to break up their relationship and that opens the door for Isaac. He in turn breaks up with Tracy and goes all in. Unfortunately for Isaac, Yale and Mary are not done with each other and when they break it to Isaac, he realizes that what he had with Tracy was actually pretty good.

With Meryl Streep as Jill, Isaac’s second ex-wife, now turned lesbian and writing a very revealing book about her relationship with Isaac. Meryl Streep’s role in this movie is not big, but the amount of comedy it brings to the movie is immense. Having an ex-wife who turned lesbian and delivers all your shortcomings with spite and relish to the public is the ultimate in male humiliation.  

The changing relationships here are of course a mess, but it is the dynamics around them that is interesting. The doubts everybody is in, their insecurities, the intellectual facades used to explain away what is basically emotions run amok. Being a Woody Allen movie, the dialogue is of course witty and poignant, exposing the speaker as much as the spoken about. It is fun to listen to, but also makes a lot of sense. Isaac is trying to be the voice of reason but is as little in control of himself as anybody else. The neat thing here is that although Isaac gets a lot of the good lines, this is not so much about Isaac himself as about the situation. Almost all here are narcissists and not only Allen’s character. Tracy may be the only character who is not obsessing about herself, she just is and feels and responds and this may be the realization Isaac comes to, that all the intellectual narcissism does not make him as happy as her unconditional love.

The presentation of “Manhattan” is also interesting. It was filmed in widescreen black and white with a score by Gershwin, which combines to give a nostalgic image of New York as a setting. This classic setting is then offset by these very modern types trying to get their modern selves to work out and the aggregate is thereby a picture of New York as Allen wants us to see it. I am certain the city is many things, but for many, and I suppose particularly people not living there, this is an image that resonates. Allen did a similar love letter to Paris in “Midnight in Paris”, and I think they would make a good double feature. Another option is the more recent Billy Crystal movie “Here Today”, which could be “Manhattan” 30 years later.

I really liked “Manhattan” and I liked it a lot more than any previous Woody Allen movie I have watched. This would make me more open, than I have been, to watch more of his production.