Allan Stewart Konigsberg, a.k.a. Woody Allen, was born in the Bronx on December 1, 1935. As one of the most creative cinema writer/director/producers of his time, Annie Hall (1977) is a mirror to Allen’s life. His work draws from interests in literature, psychology, Jewish culture, philosophy, European cinema and New York City, where he was born and has lived his entire life.

He first became hooked on movies upon seeing Snow White, and “from that day theatres became his second home,” according to WoodyAllen.com. He has played the clarinet since the age of 15, and continues playing it to this day. While appearing socially awkward and clumsy, Allen was said to be quite good at sports in his youth and popular amongst peers.

His type of creativity relies on a certain amount of interaction within culture. Parts of his humour rely on timeliness. We can see then how if his works are to stay relevant, he needs to still be connected to larger frames that operate within society. While a mathematician may lock themselves away, a comedian cannot afford such a luxury.

What makes Woody Allen a creative success, may lay in part to feeling detached from the world, feelings which he explores in Annie Hall . “In 1959, Woody began seeing a psychiatrist, feeling melancholic for no identifiable reason. Ever since he sees an analyst once a week or so, with occasional breaks, not much for treatment but to talk to an objective person unlinked to his personal life,” says WoodyAllen.com. In this film, and in a lot of his works, analysts and jokes feature as large parts of his wit. “The ambiguous reference to the poetically imaginative and the nimbly amusing which ‘wit’ had enjoyed from Elizabethan times was split during the neo-classic age into the meaning of ‘propriety’ which we have observed and a second and lighter meaning of ‘sheer wit’ or repartee in comedy” (Wimsatt, 1957. p243).

Annie Hall

Annie Hall is both a comedy and a tragedy, and contains solid examples of creativity in comedy. It is a film about the absurdity of the human condition. As such, we will explore key scenes from the film and how Woody Allen’s unique style creates comedy through ridicule, jokes, pairing of opposites.

We know that the relationship between Annie Hall and Alvy Singer is doomed from the beginning, because most of the film occurs in flashback. This style also allows great freedom in the structure. “Wit is the Lustre resulting from the quick Elucidation of one Subject, by a just and unexpected Arrangement of it with another Subject” (Wimsatt, 1957. p243). The film can leap back and forth randomly in time, creating different emotions for the viewer. We can dart from romance, to joy, to sorrow, and so on.

Woody Allen is a master of all the best known tools of comedy. In the scene following the opening monologue, begins the flashbacks to visit his childhood. He begins with a caricature of his mother and her need to control, and goes on to talk about his earlier life using farce. “My analyst says I exaggerate my childhood memories, but I swear I was brought up underneath a rollercoaster in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn. Maybe that accounts for my personality which is uh, a little nervous I think” (Alvy, in Annie Hall).

Alvy appears to be a vehicle, as are a lot of his characters, for the issues surrounding Woody Allen’s real life. The character is a classic figure for comedy: a controlling, suspicious male who is consumed by jealousy. When paired with the light-hearted, somewhat ditzy “la dee-da” Annie Hall,

it creates a foundation for comedy. “Relational opposites… cannot be known without the other; to know what a ruled person is you must know whether the ruler is a general or an archbishop. Thus a word which names both parts of a relation may be more precise than a word which only names half of it. Another reason is that, case which out to be distinguished, but being anxious on the point you find it hard to remember which is which. To the senses they may be opposite, but they excite the same feelings” (Empson, 1966. p195). Allen uses a combination of his natural wit, filmic devices, and specific narrative structure to tell this comedy effectively.

Here is a complete list of all the posts I did on the film “Midnight in Paris”