10. Manhattan (1979) (Dir. Woody Allen)
Woody Allen’s most highly-regarded picture of his “great period” is the wonderful Annie Hall, though Manhattan – which Allen made two years later – is arguably a more complex and accomplished cinematic work. Throwing out the fragmented structure he employed for the latter, Allen tells the story of TV writer Issac Davies against the wondrous backdrop of black-and-white New York (shot by Gordon Willis) – his characters are deluded, neurotic and searching for answers, though the picture succeeds both dramatically and comedically, and shows Allen working at the top of his game as an actor, writer and director. The film’s final sequence – in which he races through the streets of New York to proposition a lost love amidst the sounds of George Gershwin – is exactly the kind of thing that cinema was invented for.
Published: Dec 5, 2012 05:37 pm