The_Film_That_Changed_My_Life

Annie Hall
23
Johnson: Split screen itself was being used quite a bit in the ’60s and the
early ’70s, but there was a way that Allen was using it tonally. There was a
dryness, a matter-of-factness to it. Split screen is something that I identify
with the wackier tone of his previous films.
It’s a very audacious dash of style to use split screen. It was used in
pedestrian scenes, like the one at the dinner table, and it was used almost
intentionally imperfectly. It’s not like the two sets line up exactly, and they
cut somebody off halfway through. It almost feels offhanded. For some
reason that helps to integrate it into the film, and make it seem less a gimmick
and more a genuine use of film language to contrast these two different
worlds.
When Woody Allen and Diane Keaton are talking to their therapists,
and it’s going back and forth between them, you don’t feel the split screen as
the point of the shot. It is a tool they are using to contrast what’s happening
in both of their heads.
And that’s one of the best jokes, when their therapists ask, “How often
do you sleep together?” He says, “Hardly ever! Three times a week!” And
she says, “Constantly. Three times a week!” which is a very male/female
perspective, I think. Speaking of which, do you have a favorite line?
Johnson: One of the funniest jokes, or the hardest I laughed in the whole
film, is actually from his first wife, played by Carol Kane. He’s talking about
the Kennedy assassination and she says, “You’re using this conspiracy theory
as an excuse to avoid sex with me,” and, “Oh my God! She’s right!” There’s
something so deeply true, when you’ve been in a relationship for a while,
about the layers of self-deception that are so obvious that you will still somehow
fool yourself into not seeing. For some reason that line got the biggest
belly laugh from me.
Talking about film tricks here, what effect does direct address have?
Johnson: It’s that tightrope act that this movie pulls off. On the one hand it’s
an audacious, wacky, and self-conscious gambit. You can definitely see that
he was drawing inspiration from Bergman, from that audacious use of film
language, breaking the fourth wall. It manages to pull it off without feeling
self-indulgent or like a wacky splash.