Post by Capo on Jan 1, 2007 18:03:14 GMT
Hannah and Her Sisters
Woody Allen 1986 USA
Three sisters' love lives intertwine over a two-year period: one of them has an affair with the other's husband, while the third falls for the second's ex-husband.
It is very interesting to note that while many films made in the eighties have dated rather badly, this masterpiece seems to have been made a decade earlier alongside the director's Annie Hall or Manhattan. It has a deceptively complicated visual structure, that looks on the surface very austere but to a keen eye is very stylised and significant in creating meaning; most of the scenes are not only in long-take, but with the characters filmed in long- or medium-shot, which is interesting in itself, but heightened even more by the lengths to which Allen goes to maintain a real sense of space for his actors to be swamped in - the camera tracks and pans so eloquently that it often goes unnoticed. Narrative shows Allen at his best, too; he rarely gets credit for experimenting with the medium, but there are plenty of things to be found here: various characters offering internal monologues that contradict the actions being played out, which allows the film to be funny and psychologically perceptive simultaneously. His best film...?
Woody Allen 1986 USA
Three sisters' love lives intertwine over a two-year period: one of them has an affair with the other's husband, while the third falls for the second's ex-husband.
It is very interesting to note that while many films made in the eighties have dated rather badly, this masterpiece seems to have been made a decade earlier alongside the director's Annie Hall or Manhattan. It has a deceptively complicated visual structure, that looks on the surface very austere but to a keen eye is very stylised and significant in creating meaning; most of the scenes are not only in long-take, but with the characters filmed in long- or medium-shot, which is interesting in itself, but heightened even more by the lengths to which Allen goes to maintain a real sense of space for his actors to be swamped in - the camera tracks and pans so eloquently that it often goes unnoticed. Narrative shows Allen at his best, too; he rarely gets credit for experimenting with the medium, but there are plenty of things to be found here: various characters offering internal monologues that contradict the actions being played out, which allows the film to be funny and psychologically perceptive simultaneously. His best film...?
