TMS Discussion: It's 2022, Why Am I Still Watching Woody Allen's Manhattan?

(United Artists)

One of my favorite movies to watch during November, to appropriately fit Thanksgiving time, is Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters (1986). Not only because it’s one of the few movies centered on the holiday, but also because it’s one of Woody’s best and made right before his dated cliché of regularly pairing himself opposite younger women. The biggest age gap in the movie is between Max von Sydow [56] and Barbara Hershey [37]. Which contrasts another classic by the comedian-filmmaker, Manhattan (1979), and his most controversial. Whenever Manhattan is brought up, people usually gush about Gordon Willis’ stunning B&W cinematography, or the wonderfully arranged classic George Gershwin compositions that make up the music score. Or Diane Keaton’s range from playing the adorable title character of Woody’s Annie Hall (1977) two years earlier to the antithesis of Annie as Manhattan’s Mary Wilkie. Or maybe you’ll find some people discussing how the romantic comedy/satire fully captures the zeitgeist of the ‘me’ generation and baby boomers [as confirmed by my mother]. But a lot of the time, people are joking or focusing on the fact that one of Woody’s love interests in Manhattan is 17-year-old Mariel Hemingway, also playing 17 in character.

For whatever reason, Mariel’s age on screen and off didn’t affect Manhattan’s success and acclaim in 1979. The film earned two Academy Award nominations, one for Mariel as Best Supporting Actress and one for Best Original Screenplay to Woody and Marshall Brickman. It wasn’t until over a decade later people started openly being like, “hey…what’s up with Woody Allen’s girlfriend in Manhattan literally being a teenager?” It especially hit a little too close to home once the artist’s scandalous origin and relationship with Soon-yi Previn blew up in 1992. Now, you can say, “Well, it was a different time. People matured faster back then, teens took on responsibility sooner in the past,” and so on. But it’s really hard to ignore how inappropriate the movie pairing is no matter how you try to spin it, especially with how many famous women have admitted in recent years their own regret on previously dating an adult man when they were a teenager.

Not surprisingly, Woody’s never commented much on Manhattan as a film or its reputation, even upon release. We know that he bluntly considers it his biggest misfire as a filmmaker, despite the movie being a hit and imperfect classic. Is it because he regretted making Mariel’s Tracy so young? Or that the fictional relationship also loosely reflected a real-life fling Woody had with local New Yorker Stacey Nelkin when she was either 17 or 18? Because the ending is so somber and almost pathetic for Woody’s role? The characters a little too ‘real’ and conceited and not endearing enough? We’ll never know, because Woody won’t expand on why he’s disappointed the most with Manhattan.

(United Artists)

In 2015, Mariel revealed in her memoir, Out Came the Sun, shooting the movie was an incredibly divisive experience. She felt mature for the first time playing love interest Tracy and discovered what it’s like to work with a director who has an artistic vision. Yet the romantic scenes were also overwhelming and made her self-conscious since she was really young at the time. Right after Manhattan came out, Mariel was disappointed Woody asked her out in real life, but was even more disappointed her parents didn’t seem to care and were only impressed she caught the attention of a genius. Despite this, Mariel still thought highly enough of the writer-director professionally to later reunite with him on his dark comedy Deconstructing Harry (1997).

So the answer to the question of my own article title is…I really don’t know. I’ve written [probably too much] about my past attachment to Woody’s career and public persona as a longwinded defense because I naively had him as my celeb crush when I was in high school and college. I’ll admit, even after the hard blow in 2014 when Dylan Farrow personally accused Woody of molesting her as a child, I could still enjoy his classics and my favorites by him. Not right away and there are still periods where I go without them, and I was disheartened enough to not follow Woody’s newer movies since 2017. But revisiting Annie Hall, Hannah, The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Everyone Says I Love You (1996), and Midnight in Paris (2011) for 90-100 minutes all alone at home can take me back two decades when I was young and stupid in an instant. When I catch Manhattan on TCM or my DVD/Blu-ray player, I still laugh and smile, catch my breath during the opening sequence, and even still cry at the last scene. Maybe out of habit, or because I’m just too familiar with the movie. I can even pretend Woody Allen the actor is different than Woody Allen the person in reality. Am I complicit in normalizing art over unethical behavior? I feel like it sometimes. For the record, I’m not exactly proud of this and don’t hype his movies up on social media as much anymore. I guess what I’m saying is art doesn’t instantly become objectively bad once the artist is exposed and shamed publicly. At least for me, obviously everyone is different.

Annie Hall is still my favorite movie, I’ll still watch Hannah and Her Sisters near Thanksgiving and still enjoy most of Manhattan. Just with a disclaimer and slight grimace at myself now.