Thursday 29 November 2007

On Annie Hall

Last night whilst playing Scrabble, noisms and I watched Annie Hall, which is my favourite Woody Allen film, and the more I've thought about it today, the more I wonder if it really is "perfect" in some sense. From start to finish, nothing that happens seems out of place, or unbelievable, but maybe this is because Alvy Singer starts the film by breaking the fourth wall.

I love the opening address that he gives the camera, and I was quite amazed to see that it is on Youtube (but then I thought, of course it's on YouTube, what isn't?).




I just showed one of my officemates that clip, and he didn't laugh at the "two old ladies" joke. Not at all. He just stood there. He said he didn't get it. I'm wondering if there is something wrong with him. The punchline for that just kills me, kills me every time.

Another great moment is when he is in line at the movies, and the boorish guy behind him is giving his opinions, and then Alvy starts to talk to the camera about him. The guy overhears and tries to defend himself, and then Alvy ends the discussion by bringing out a critic who tells the man, "You know nothing of my work." The boor and the critic look at each other, and Alvy looks at the camera and sort of shrugs, and ends the scene saying, "If only life were more like this."

Indeed.

2 comments:

noisms said...

I think the two old ladies joke might be the cleverest one ever.

NathanRyder said...

I know! F in my office just clearly isn't tuned to the right frequency of funny...