The_Film_That_Changed_My_Life

14 Rian Johnson
How would you describe the film to someone who hasn’t seen it?
Johnson: Annie Hall is a neurotic romantic comedy about a comedian
named Alvy Singer, who’s played by Woody Allen. It’s a fragmented chronicle
of his failed relationship with this woman, Annie Hall, who is played by
Diane Keaton. It’s told in a very nonlinear way, hopping around to various
points in the relationship, from when they first meet to when they eventually
break up. It’s a bittersweet, subjective memory of a relationship.
Can you tell me when you saw the film and how you saw the film?
Johnson: I think most people saw the film in theaters. I have an experience
that approximated that, even though I’m too young to know Woody Allen
through his wackier comedies and then be hit by this, which is how most
people had it. I grew up in high school watching Bananas and Sleeper; those
happened to be the Woody Allen films my dad had on his shelf. It was only
when I got to film school that I watched Annie Hall for the first time. It’s
one of a couple films that I can vividly remember exactly how it affected me
when it was done. I watched it in film school at this horrible place—well,
it was a wonderful place—but, looking back on it now, it was pretty terrible.
They called it the “Cinema Study Center,” and it was basically thirty
televisions with LaserDisc machines and VCRs hooked up to them in this
little basement. You were crowded in these little cubicles next to thirty other
smelly film students, and that’s where I first saw Annie Hall.
I remember sitting there after the final notes of the song go away and
that shot of the empty street cuts off. I was in a state of suspended animation
after that. That, for me, is the big thing with Annie Hall to this day.
There’s so many technical things you can say about it in terms of how
it uses nonlinear storytelling or in terms of the photography. Even more
than that it’s the emotional impact brought about by this variation on traditional
storytelling.
Even Woody Allen recognizes this as a departure. He says, “I finally
had the courage to abandon just clowning around, and the safety of
complete broad comedy.” There’s also the influence of Ingmar Bergman’s
The Passion of Anna here, because the actors in that film stop and
explain their actions and roles to the audience.