I need to start this out with full disclosure here. I am not a huge fan of Woody Allen’s films. I like some of his films, and don’t like others. I have always respected Woody Allen as a writer, as a film maker and as a comedian. However I find his humor to be very hit or miss. When it hits, it’s very funny, and when it misses it’s quite often uncomfortable. Annie Hall is probably Woody Allen’s signature film, and I think it very much encapsulates Woody Allen as a film maker. The scenes that are funny are very funny. The scenes that are not are not at all, and in this film more than some of his others, he really brings attention to himself as a film maker through the varying techniques that he used throughout the film.

Before I get too far into this, I want to preface it with one other point. Humor is very, very subjective. I suspect that the reason more comedies haven’t won Best Picture is that one man’s comedy is another man’s discomfort. I love the humor of Monty Python. Many people do not. If you’re a fan of that type of humor, you’re going to love films like Monty Python and the Holy Grail or Monty Python’s Life of Brian or A Fish Called Wanda. If you’re not a fan of that type of humor, you’re probably not going to like those films. That’s the case with any style of comedy. It’s so subjective, that even within the genre there are many different styles of comedy that may appeal to some and not to others. Other genres may have that issue, but not nearly to the degree that comedy does. You might like Ben Stiller comedies, but hate Hugh Grant comedies. You might hate Wes Anderson, but like Judd Apatow. And the thing of it is that if you don’t like those styles of comedy then you’re probably not going to like the films as a whole.

That is my issue with Woody Allen. I’m not a huge fan of his brand of comedy, so I have a hard time enjoying his films. I loved Midnight in Paris. I didn’t like Blue Jasmine. I liked Bullets Over Broadway. I was not a huge fan of Mighty Aphrodite. He has directed more than 50 films, and it’s entirely possible that I just haven’t seen enough of them, but the films of Woody Allen that I’ve seen (outside of Midnight in Paris) haven’t blown me away.

That leads me to Annie Hall, a film that did not blow me away. In fact, there are stretches of Annie Hall that I found to be almost unwatchable because it was so boring. I understand that I am in the minority here, but this film isn’t even close to being one of my favorites. Is it a bad movie? Of course not. It actually has some amazing writing in it and there are some very cool film making techniques that were used in a way that helped progress the story and make the story more entertaining. But pound for pound and scene for scene, it is not a great film to me.

I will say that there are several strong component in the film and the strongest of those is Annie Hall, herself. Starring in her third Best Picture Winner of the seventies, Diane Keaton had a much larger role than in either of the Godfather films, and her character in Annie Hall was obviously a much more integral role to the story. Even though I am not a huge fan of the film, I am a huge fan of her character, and anyone who is an aspiring screenwriter and is trying to get better at their craft, can learn a lot from this screenplay, penned by Allen and Marshall Brickman, which also won Best Screenplay on Oscar night. Annie starts out the film as a free-spirited air head but grows into a confident and educated woman who is in touch with who she is and has grown beyond what she starts out needing. In fact, I dare say that Annie learns and grows much more than Alvy does, and Alvy is the true main character of the film. That isn’t to say that Alvy doesn’t learn anything, because he does, although it’s too late to save the relationship.

What I also enjoyed about Annie’s growth is that it was motivated by Alvy. They meet playing tennis with mutual friends, and then she drives him home. The next thing you know they’re dating. Alvy is a comic and an intellectual, and Annie is trying to become a singer, but what she has in talent, she lacks in confidence. Alvy encourages her to start taking adult education classes and he encourages her to start going to therapy, and he provides things for her that wake her up from emotional and intellectual standpoints. Then, in one of the great bits of cinematic irony, Annie realizes that she no longer needs Alvy, and that he is, in fact, holding her back.

But really with the character of Annie Hall, everything comes back to Diane Keaton, and how she turned this film into one of her signature roles. Keaton is one of the most admired women in Hollywood, and has earned that distinction for the work that she has done over the past 45 years. Annie Hall is her signature film, however, because it’s the role that we think of when we think of her as an actress, which is somewhat stunning to me considering her role as Kay in The Godfather films. What makes the role of Annie Hall more of a staple for Diane Keaton is the previously mentioned growth of the character and how well Keaton acted that out. She’s just as believable as the flaky, free-spirited artist as she is as the confident, mature singer. What’s more is that even though she reaches those different extremes, you never feel like she’s a different person. The character growth is natural and organic and Diane Keaton played that role as well as any actor has played any role. Do you think that’s hyperbole? The Academy didn’t, as Keaton won the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her work in Annie Hall.

Even though the humor isn’t really working for me in Annie Hall, I think that the story is working very well. Again, one of the difficult things to do in a comedy is separate the story from the jokes. Even if you’re not a fan of the style of humor, the challenge is always still trying to relate to the story, and Annie Hall does have a very strong story.

I say that, even though the story is told in a very unconventional way. It is not a linear story, and the timeline jumps around quite a bit. That’s just one of the unique techniques that Allen used to tell this story. He also did some other interesting things, like using subtitles during one scene to show that Annie and Alvy are actually meaning something completely different from what they’re saying. He’s showing us the subtext in this way, and it actually is quite funny. There are also some scenes where the characters step outside of themselves and give a different perspective on what’s happening. My favorite of these scenes is when Alvy wants to have sex with Annie, but she needs to smoke weed first, and he’d rather she not. She becomes completely disinterested and we see her become two people as one version of her leaves the bed and the version of her still in bed tells Alvy that he can have her body but her mind is elsewhere. There are also a few examples of breaking the fourth wall and Alvy will speak directly to the audience. There is even an animated scene where Annie is represented by the evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Alvy is one of the dwarfs. What’s remarkable about that is that this film came out in the late seventies when animation was at a nadir in terms of popularity and appeal.

One other thing that I think should be mentioned that I’ve never heard talked about in Annie Hall is the cinematography. This is a very well shot film and the use of deep space as opposed to flat space is very effective. They also used color very effectively whether it was everyone wearing white in Los Angeles or all of the gray tones in New York, this is a film that also has a visual story to tell, and it’s told quite well.

Even though I’m probably in the minority in terms of how I feel about the level of greatness of this film, I do think it’s actually a very fine piece of film making. Part my issues with Allen’s films could also be Allen himself, as I don’t particularly care for his shtick. Yes, he has made a long and distinguished career for himself with that shtick, but it just doesn’t appeal to me. I’m sure that his intention is to set himself up as an underdog, but it always comes off as annoyingly self-deprecating. He has also made a career about being neurotic and even points out his neuroses several times during this film. It can be funny at times, but a little goes a long way.

Did the Academy get it right?

No they did not. There was one film that should have won Best Picture in 1977, and that film was Star Wars. Think I’m out of my mind? Star Wars was ranked #15 on the original AFI Top 100 movies of all time and Annie Hall was ranked #31. The 10-year anniversary of the list bumped Star Wars up to #13 while it dropped Annie Hall to #35. The only component in which Annie Hall is superior to Star Wars is the acting, but Star Wars is superior to Annie Hall in every other way. It has a better story with a more complete Hero’s Journey. It’s more entertaining and it’s visually stunning for its time. Star Wars also changed cinema in a profound way. Just as Jaws helped to usher in the summer blockbuster a couple of years earlier, Star Wars took it to the next level, but it was more than just a blockbuster. There is actually quite a bit of depth and structure to the story in Star Wars. George Lucas was able to use mythic structure to create characters with whom the audience could relate even though they were living in a universe of science fiction mixed with fantasy the likes of which no one had ever seen before. It became and iconic brand that would become ingrained in our popular culture in a way that no film had before or since. Star Wars was on the cutting edge that would eventually become the norm, and by almost any measure it was the Best Picture of 1977.