Vote on this title
Click on a gene to vote or discover related titles.
-
Mood:
- CleverContemplativeWittyHumorousSentimental
-
Plot:
- Writer's LifeIntrospectionCouple RelationsLooking for LoveLove TriangleDishonestyLove and RomanceMind and Soul more...
-
Genres:
- DramaRomanceComedy
-
Time/Period:
- 20th Century70s
-
Place:
- New YorkUSAUrban
-
Audience:
- Date Night
-
Praise:
- ClassicCritically Acclaimed
-
Style:
- Ensemble CastTalky
-
Attitudes:
- Semi SeriousRealisticSlow
-
Look:
- B&W
Does this gene fit Manhattan?
Find it on:
| IMDb | |
| Rotten Tomatoes |
Manhattan, 1979
English
USA
Profile of Manhattan
The mood of Manhattan is clever, contemplative, and witty. The plot centers around the life of a writer, looking for love, and introspection. It is a drama, romance, and comedy movie. Stylistically, Manhattan stars an ensemble cast and is talky. In approach, it is realistic. The pacing is slow. Manhattan takes place, at least partly, in an urban environment. The setting is New York. It happens in the 20th century. Visually, Manhattan is black and white. The movie is known for being a classic and critically acclaimed. It is especially suggested for a date night.
Summary of Manhattan
Woody Allen finished his first decade of filmmaking, the 1970s, with one of his greatest and most deliberately artistic films, the love song to his home city Manhattan. Allen plays Isaac Davis, another one of his thinly veiled self-portraits, who finds himself suffering from a mid-life crisis. Unhappy in his career as a variety show comedy writer and newly divorced from a woman who has since come out as a lesbian, Isaac waffles between two relationships: that with emotionally honest and open, but far too young, Tracy (Mariel Hemingway in an Academy Award nominated performance) and with pseudo-intellectual, neurotic Mary (Diane Keaton). Allen uses these two women to contrast the naiveté and lack of pretension of youth with the growing cynicism of middle age.
Although the acting and writing is some of the sharpest of Allen's filmmaking career, what is truly memorable and endearing about Manhattan is its romantic view of New York. Whereas the character relationships in the film are largely dysfunctional and fueled by a vision of perfection, by contrast the city itself is envisioned by Allen as an object of perfection. In order to create aesthetically pleasing images of the city, Allen and his longtime cinematographer Gordon Willis decided to shoot the film in black and white and in the 2.35:1 widescreen ratio, the first time that Allen had used either format. The images are backed by the songs of quintessential New York composer George Gershwin, setting a tone of romanticism and grandeur that underlies Isaac's (and Allen's) inherent dissatisfaction with the mundane aspects of his life. The magnificence of the city of New York is the backdrop to the search for a similar splendor in human relationships in Manhattan.
Details
| Language: | English |
| Country: | USA |
| Release date: | 25 April 1979 |
| Runtime: | 96 min |
Cast and Crew
as Mary Wilkie
as Isaac Davis
Photos
Critics Reviews
Time
- |
- by: Vincent Canby
TV Guide
- |
- by: Staff (Not Credited)
Users Reviews
- 20.March.2009
- |
- by: sethdellinger
- sethdellinger rated this movie
0/10
