I wrote this analysis of simplicity and complexity in films for a class I’m taking in school.
___________________
What does the Universe have to do with it? You’re here in Brooklyn!
Momma Singer
Boy, if life were only like this!
Alvy Singer
Love stories come in many different forms. But, for the most part, it’s the same old story. Boy meets girl, boy chases girl, girl falls in love with boy, they are happy for a while, it all goes to shit, then they kiss and make up or don’t. The End.
Woody Allen’s Annie Hall is such a story. It fits snuggly into the shoebox of love stories. There are no big twists, no dramatic fight scenes, no affairs. The story is set in bedrooms and coffee shops, bookstores and dining rooms, the streets of New York and the streets of LA. It’s all old hat. It’s a simple story set in familiar places.
The simple construct in which Allen builds the film gives him the freedom to plumb the depths of one of the most neurotic and complex personalities to smile forth from the silver screen in the last 35 years; and it gives him the freedom to employ a psychedelic mix of story telling techniques. The film is fundamentally a series of conversations intercut with flashbacks and split screens strung together with narrative monologues and voiceovers. It is these devices that provoke both the complexities of character and create depth the story itself.
Simplicity pervades the film. Aesthetically, it is drab, musical is virtually absent, costumes (other than Annie Hall’s character – apparently Diane Keaton used her own personal wardrobe) are plain.
Within the most simple of stories and clichéd of settings Alvy Singer comes alive. He the ultimate cliché of the Jewish nerd but at the same time the most unique of characters; he encompasses every stereotype and condition to plague the hapless creature crushed by thousands of years of tribal guilt and oppressive intellectualism.
Allen’s unique story telling techniques are anchored around the collapse of the ‘fourth wall’. He does this through flashbacks where the present day character appears in the past and provides commentary on the situation, directly addressing the audience and the historical characters in the scenes. He uses, what I’ve termed, ‘thought-titles’ where a subtitle reveals the characters true thoughts in contrast to the lines of dialogue they are speaking.
The list goes on. But the point here is to emphasize the complexity created by these devices. All the tricks and gimmicks elevate the experience of this tale from one of a simple love story to a romp through the mind and memory of a person who is just like everyone else, neurotic and strange, and yet totally unique in their all encompassing intellectual egocentric psychosis.
The story ultimately folds in on it self when Alvy Singer tells Annie Hall that he working on a play. At that point Singer promptly proposes to Hall. And she promptly walks away. In the next scene, we see a group of actors rehearsing a play. The lines are word for word the conversation Singer had with Hall surrounding his proposal of marriage. Except! In the play Hall agrees to get back together with him. Singer then quickly apologizes to the audience for the clichéd ending. But it is a reminder that it was all fiction. He says:
You know, you know how you’re always trying to get things
to come out perfect in art because, uh, it’s real difficult in life.
The line almost acts as an explanation to the audience as to the methods used in Annie Hall. Allen is emphasizing that we has trying to capture the essence of experience through all its complexity and techniques. But of course, the reality of the matter is that the non-linear, complicated, sometimes confusing, often hilarious way in which Allen tells this story is indicative of life. Every experience is layered with our personal and collective histories, every encounter is complicated by our insecurities and neurosis and the only thing that makes it all worthwhile is love. And the one thing that brings it all out is love.
Addendum:
Within an examination of the film’s complexities and simplicities it is important to note a piece of trivia, nay history. The plot of the film originally focused on a murder mystery. But in postproduction Allen decided to cut those scenes and focus mainly on the love story. To have developed deeply complex characters using untraditional tools and tried to tell a complicated story would have been unbearable and ineffective. Allen used the model of simple story and simple settings to create characters of tremendous depth through the use of complex and innovative cinematic and storytelling techniques. .
Allen has continued to use essentially simple stories and settings to build complex and intriguing characters. This is his grammar. It is most interesting to note that in his more recent films where complicated plots are the focus, such as Melinda and Melinda and Match Point, were not very well received. While Vicky Christina Barcelona (although a totally original screenplay) returned to the model of a simple story and complicated characters and was deemed a critical success.
Pingback: Annie Hall