Annie Hall

I love "Annie Hall", or maybe I just love Diane Keaton, or maybe it's just Woody Allen, or his dialogue, it's really the whole package. It's hard to believe what a little movie "Annie Hall" really is, even by Woody Allen's standards, yet it was a sleeper hit in 1977 beating out "Star Wars" for the Best Picture Oscar back then, also picking up statues for Keaton's performance plus Screenplay, and Director for Allen. It marked brave new territory for Allen, who before then made mostly comedies with great wit and visual gags, but this was the first film that hinted at a more personal and reflective work.

The film actually started off with a more ambitious outline, but Allen cut it down from an original print that ran 140 minutes to the one we have today at a little more than 90. The film we have today remains a bare bones relationship comedy about an on and off romance between Allen's stand-up comic Alvy Singer, and Keaton's title character.

The film begins with Allen addressing the camera in monologue, this is probably the image people associate with Allen the most, and it's really a bold move by the filmmaker, something that has been repeated mostly unsuccessfully by others. We find out at the beginning that Alvy and Annie have broken up, and the film moves in flashbacks going back to Alvy's childhood, to the moment the two first meet and fall in love, and to their eventual break up.

We see Alvy and Annie meet, talk, fall in love, fight, break up, get back together, then break up again. It's all done very economically, with Allen's usual visual aesthetic of people walking and talking. He rarely does cutaways, and it's really the actors in the frame that keep the film alive.

But unlike his later ensemble films which juggled multiple characters like "Manhattan", "Hannah and her Sisters" or "Crimes and Misdemeanors", "Annie Hall" doesn't stray from its main story, it has a more intimate feel then his later films, and because of this we start to care about Alvy and Annie probably more than any one of Allen's other characters. We want to see them make it, because we get the sense they are meant to be together, but it's Alvy's own anxiety and indecisiveness about love, and life that becomes the relationship's undoing. It's only when it's too late does he realize that Annie was the girl for him.

There are other women in Alvy's life that we meet, including a political advocate, (Carol Kane) who he dates before Annie, and a religious follower of the Dalai Llama (Shelley Duvall) who he sleeps with while he and Annie are broken up. But none of these come close to having the same kind of dynamic he has with Annie, we feel that she gets him,and they can match barbs better together than with anyone else.

It's probably no surprise that at the making of this film Allen and Keaton were in a relationship, and Keaton's nickname was in fact Annie. Allen also instructed Keaton to wear the same kinds of clothes she wears in real life for the film. It's also been hinted that Allen added many Keatonisms in Annie's speech such as the famous "la,di,da" scene when Annie and Alvy first meet.

Wherever the lines between fact and fiction get blurred, Keaton gives a purely naturalistic performance, so much so it's hard not to fall in love with her. This is one of my absolute favorite performances by any actress because it feels so real, look for example at Keaton's monologue about an Uncle of hers who is a narcaleptic, who one day doesn't wake up and is dead; her reaction is funny because it's an honest moment. There's also the scene where Annie and Alvy are cooking live lobster, something that had to have been improvised by both actors, especially since dealing with live lobster crawling around the floor, one must.

"Annie Hall" was also made at the time Allen liked to experiment with structure on his film. The movie weaves in and out of various comedic moments that, if you think about it might interrupt the flow of the film, yet it imbeds itself with the tone quite well. I'm speaking of such moments as the exaggerated childhood flashbacks where Alvy swears his family lived underneath a rollercoaster, and his hilarious take on his former school mates and where they ended up. My favorite has always been the kid who says "I used to be a heroin addict, now I'm a methadone addict."

At one point Allen even cuts to an animated sequence where Annie is portrayed as the Evil Queen from Disney's "Snow White". Yet Allen makes all this randomness work, they are portrayed more or less as sketch ideas, but fill in the tapestry of the story he's telling.

But what really counts and what I think makes this Allen's most beloved film is the relationship between Alvy and Annie, it's a human comedy about two very intelligent and neurotic people. They are unsure about what makes them happy, they are too concerned about life and how to live it, and analyzing it, they don't seem to settle down with each other. You could call this an anti-romantic comedy since it ends with the two not being together, but it's really Allen's tale about love, and even if it doesn't last, it makes life worth living.

Throughout the film Alvy uses jokes as an analogy on how he sees his life, he ends the film with a joke that basically explains why people like him enter into relationships, and it's really a bittersweet and beautiful sentiment the way it's delivered, and it's usually what I think of when I am reminded of this film.

The other thing I am reminded of is the image of Keaton in the two instances Allen films her singing in a nightclub. The first time, she is overshadowed by the noises of audience members and the ambiance of the nightclub, the second time, Allen gives her the moment to sing a song, but it's as if she is alone, we don't hear anything else but quite murmurs. I'm pretty sure she sings the whole song, and Allen doesn't cut away, he is showing us Keaton in this moment, and she is able to reveal herself to us. It's not just a moment where we get to see the real Keaton, but also the way you feel Allen saw her as well. Allen films Keaton singing again in his later film "Radio Days", where she had a cameo, and you feel in that film that the admiration for this women has not gone away. How he must've really loved her at one time, I'm sure they remained friends, but we know from this film that what they had was very special.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

The Black Knight, The Killer Bunny, The Knights who say Nee, Shrubberies, llamas, swallows, "Run away!", "Bring out your dead", the holy hand grenade. If you haven't heard of any of these references than chances are you have never seen "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", perhaps you haven't even bothered to see it, after all it's very silly.

For the non converted, Monty Python was a comedy troupe started in the 1960s by five Brits (John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin), and one American who did animation for them (Terry Gilliam). They had what is arguably the most influential and groundbreaking sketch comedy show "Monty Python's Flying Circus", which lasted for seasons, where they created inspirational silliness such as "The Dead Parrot sketch", "The Spanish Inquisition", and "Spam". Their show never played it safe, it would change format all the time, in one infamous episode they played their closing credits right in the middle of the program.

Their show would grow more and more until it found itself too big for the small screen, and no doubt the Pythons craved a larger canvas to let loose their madness on. "The Holy Grail" was the first of three very funny films the troupe made together, and it is probably by far the silliest and the one that refers the most to the original television program.

In the film, the Pythons retell the Arthur Legend and the quest for the holy grail, it more or less sticks to the original story about King Arthur, and his knights of the round table, with each Python playing a knight or their trusted steeds (the horses in the film are men galloping with coconuts to make the sound effect). Chapman himself plays Arthur, but every troupe member shows up in multiple character roles.

I could go on about the plot, but that's really the boring part about this film, the plot is more or less a backdrop, an idea that can be parodied by the Python's best ability and they do it in spades.

The beginning of the film starts out almost like a series of sketches, as we see Arthur riding through the country side, the most famous bits coming from Eric Idle, playing a dead collector at a local village, he shouts out "Bring out your dead!". When one citizen isn't "quite dead yet", Idle speeds things up by knocking him upside the head with a mallet. It's all darkly grotesque, but is so ridiculous, you can never take it seriously.

Not soon after that, Arthur encounters the black knight, who loses every limb in a sword fight, but is still convinced "it's only a flesh wound". As a side note on this particular scene, when I first saw it as a kid of ummm I'll say about ten, I don't remember laughing harder at a single scene before in my life, and even though I can anticipate what's to come, I still laugh out loud.

The film really is a series of scenes like the ones described above that work as a sketch, with the idea of the grail being the through line which will give everything a conclusion. The film ends abruptly with the plot being interrupted by policeman coming to arrest them all for the murder of a local historian who was helping narrate the stor. It was said the filmmakers got the idea of breaking the fourth wall like this after Mel Brooks used the same technique at his conclusion of his western parody "Blazing Saddles". But this is just the way to end a film like this, if they were going to actually obtain the grail in a more conventional way then that would be a let down.

Some might argue that "The Holy Grail" doesn't hold up as well as a film compared to the group's later efforts, and a case can be made for their follow-up "The Life of Brian" to be their masterpiece. But I like "The Holy Grail" just a little bit more for the simple reason that it is all very silly, it doesn't seem to concern itself with anything but making us laugh at very ridiculous things. Perhaps some might say it's a scathing indictment on autonomy or religion, or the monarchy, but that metaphor is all but lost in the debris left over from the holy hand grenade.

What the film does do, and does well is one of the reasons I love comedies like these, it breaks the rules and makes something that is usually stuffy and self-important like a costume epic, and brings it down a peg. Most costume epics, at least the bad ones are designed to show off expensive sets and scenery, and actors saying some important but not so interesting things, in fact to quote from another python sketch, it's all very dull, dull, dull, dull. Monty Python takes some of the starch out of films like these, first by showing off their not-so expensive budget, and talking about not-so important things such as if coconuts migrate.

That's the beauty of comedy, it's the eternal equalizer, drama is there to show that the middle ages had kings, and knights and great battles, and comedy is there to show that it also had a lot of shit in the streets too.

The Man from Laramie

In the 1950s, director Anthony Mann and star Jimmy Stewart made eight successful films together, five of which were westerns, and they stand as some of the finest ones ever made. I could pick any one of those fives to talk about and make an argument as to why they are great, but almost at random I decided to choose their final film the made together, "The Man from Laramie", partly because I see it as their most ambitious (it was filmed in glorious Vista Vision), their most violent, and probably their most psychological.

"The Man from Laramie" casts Stewart as Will Lockhart, a former Army Captain who's come from Laramie a personal vendetta. Lockhart's brother was killed by a group of Apache Indians who had repeating rifles, and he wants to find the man responsible for selling them.

This brings Lockhart to a town that is mostly owned by a cattle baron named Alec Waggoman (Donald Crisp). Alec has his ranch run by his psychotic son Dave (Alex Nicol) and the more level headed Vic (Arthur Kennedy) who was hired on by Alec to more or less look after his son. When Dave mistakes Lockhart for stealing his father's salt, he goes crazy and lassos Lockhart pulling him across a burning fire, while burning his wagons and killing off his mules in the process. When Alec learns about his, he pays off Lockhart, he seems to want to get him out of town as soon as possible. It is later revealed that Alec believes Lockhart is a messenger of death he has dreamed about for years, will inevitably kill his son. We learn Alec is also going blind and knows that he must leave his ranch for Dave to run, something he has mixed feelings about. He feels more certain that Vic is the right man to take over the ranch, he is the adopted son, someone who has always wanted Alec's approval and love, but always comes second in favor of Dave who is his flesh and blood, even though he's obviously crazy.

Things come to a boil on a fateful day when Lockhart is hired by Kate Canady (Aline MacMahon) a rival ranch owner and Alex's former love interst. Kate has Lockhart separate her cattle from Alec's, which Dave sees, which he turns into a gunfight between the two men. Dave is wounded in the hand, but he quickly exacts vengeance on Lockhart as his men hold him down, as he shoots him point blank in the hand. Once this happens, soon all the pieces come together, and it isn't long till everything is revealed and in a way resolved.

Even though Lockhart is the central character, and the man with the mysterious past as the name in the title points out, most of the drama centers on the family dynamic of Alec, Dave, and Vic. Mann focuses on their story, where as Lockhart's own familial vengeance is put on the back burner until the end. Lockhart is more the observer, the witness to everything, he's almost playing detective here to see what everyone's motives are.

I find Anthony Mann to be at his best when he is dealing with high stakes in drama, which usually have a violent outcome. The shooting of Lockhart's hand is so memorable, because it's the culmination of Dave's psychotic behavior, we knew he was crazy, but we didn't know it would turn so sadistic. Even Dave's men feel shame when they see him do this, and they even help Lockhart with his gun and his horse when it is all over.

But you can see Mann revel in the Lear-like drama of Alec and his two sons. The themes of family, love, hate, and jealousy that are at the heart of what he is trying to explore.

The film is also wonderfully shot on location in New Mexico, capturing the desolate landscape, which is the perfect place for this story of family deterioration to take place. Mann shows off great compositions giving long takes with actors sometimes off in the foreground, but also showing great shots of close-ups, particularly Jimmy Stewart who does some of his finest acting in this film.

The casting of Stewart was the other masterstroke, as it was for the other westerns he did for Mann. It might be difficult to buy Stewart as a western hero at first, but that's because he is so unorthodox. He stands tall, yet gangly, he's often soft spoken, but there is a spark of madness in his eyes. Unlike the John Wayne western hero, Stewart looks like someone who could lose in a fight, and it's often that he does in a Mann film, or he struggles to gain the upper hand.

Stewart's characters in these films are usually seen as loners, either on a quest for vengeance, or escaping a shady past. These are usually typical characters found in film noirs, which is not an accident, considering Mann began his career making some of the most memorable film noirs ever.

Stewart brings a sense of pain and anguish to these characters, however the role he plays in"The Man from Laramie" is more melancholy, he's somewhat quiet and reflective. He's probably the most decent character in all the westerns he made with Mann, yet ironically, he's probably punished the most. He's still dealing with the death of his brother, and we can see the conflict in him as he is trying to find the man responsible, and when he inevitably does, his reaction becomes somewhat much more surprising after all the pain he's had to bare throughout the film.

To me Stewart was always the more real western hero, when he is shot in the hand by Dave, he doesn't hide the true pain and hurt he is feeling, his voice cracks, and he screams in agony, not many movie stars would let you hear them scream. Stewart's always been a fascinating actor, who is mostly known to mainstream audiences as the modern everyman hero, yet his range and choice of characters have always been more interesting than that. Anthony Mann was the right director to tap into his darker side, and they made some of the greatest western because of it.

Though "The Man from Laramie" is a great film on its own, I'd recommend visiting all of the Anthony Mann/James Stewart westerns: "Winchester 73", "Bend of the River", "The Naked Spur", and "The Far Country" being the others, they all deal with dark, and violent themes, and are unique among the western genre.