Customer Reviews

Four Films: Annie Hall, Interiors, Manhattan, Stardust Memories

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you're a cineaste, it can be quite enlightening and entertaining to read the original shooting script that a favorite film was based on. In addition to the screenwriter's comments and directions, you usually get several scenes that were cut from the finished movie as well as occasional odd little changes in dialogue sprinkled throughout and an overall peek at some aspects of the creative process that a film goes through from inception to completion. Unfortunately, that's not the case with this book, since the four "screenplays" included are merely transcriptions from the finished films. VCRs were generally available when this book was first published in '82, so even back then this book was a pointless rip-off. Watch the films, skip the book.

This book contains "screenplays" of Woody Allen's most famous films including Manhattan and Annie Hall. It doesn't say screenplays on the cover, but that's what I figured it would be. Instead, what I got was a book that's not even script formatted. The publisher also adds his notes whenever he pleases to explain what's going on 'from the film' to the reader.

Its hard to imagine now that there was a time when you couldn't just go out and buy a film. So a book like this that contains the complete screenplays for four Woody Allen films seems a little bit redundant. But in fact its a great volume.

Annie Hall and Manhattan are two of Woody Allens greatest films. They are funny, and full of great one-liners, but there is also a serious undertone to them. So having the chance to flick from one great scene to another on the page is actually very satisfying. As well as the dialog a description of the action is provided by the Publisher.

The dialog is 100% accurate so every pause and mumble by the cast is captured on the page. In Annie Hall for example (Annie talking about photograhy):

"Well, well, I...to me - I... I mean, it's-it's-it's all instinctive, you know. I mean, I just try to uh, feel, you know? I try to get a sense of it and not think about it to much."

Interiors is a Bergman inspired film, which to date I have not seen, but I am hoping that this volume will encourage me to see it now. Stardust Memories is Allen's take on celebrity and is well worth reading.

So if you are a fan of Woody Allen you will enjoy this volume, even if you already own the films (as I do now).

.
I treasure this book. If the apartment were on fire and I could only rescue one trade paperback, FOUR FILMS OF WOODY ALLEN would be it. Here we find two of Woody Allen's very best screenplays, ANNIE HALL and MANHATTAN (for both of which, Allen had a co-writer, Marshall Brickman), followed by one pretty good one (the quasi-autobiographical STARDUST MEMORIES), and one disappointment which I won't even condescend to label a "brilliant failure": INTERIORS.

While any Woody Allen screenplay or movie contains satire and a moral message, it's far more fun to read the screenplays for MANHATTAN and ANNIE HALL than the average screenplay, if for no other reason the proportion of killer jokes is so high. STARDUST MEMORIES is kind of comedy, a black comedy, and like Fellini's 8-1/2 a film about a successful filmmaker who can't create another successful film. Even so, a useful and worthy movie if only to learn some of Allen's own history and artistic frustrations.

The next film out after the preceding trio was INTERIORS. Oh, golly. One critic whose name I don't remember remarked that only a born humorist like Allen could write a screenplay so utterly devoid of humor. Sad but true! When I saw INTERIORS in theaters (twice), some of the audience laughed at one character's remark that he only took up with his ditsy girlfriend because she was so good-looking. That isn't funny; it was a protestation of despair. Well-crafted screenplay on a structural level but definitely many people's candidate for feel-bad movie of the year. You want funny? In MANHATTAN, Ike (Allen) remarks to Jill (Meryl Streep) that he ignored his shrink's warning about her lesbianism: "You're so beautiful I got another therapist." Now, that's funny! Perhaps the budding screenwriter can analyze INTERIORS for its total absence of comic relief and think of a few cases in the script where a little lessening of tension thru comedy would have helped.

You may or may not count it a plus that these screenplays really are transcriptions from the actual recorded movies, including Allen and the other character's stammering, repetitions and ad-libs. I myself found it fun to observe how much artistic freedom Allen as director gave himself and his fellow actors to depart from the official screenplay during filming. Now, for the price of this book would you really sit down and transcribe nearly eight hours of feature film? I didn't think so. One can argue that even better Woody Allen films came along in the future (HANNAH AND HER SISTERS comes to mind), but nonetheless FOUR FILMS OF WOODY ALLEN is an irreplaceable gem among Allen's works, and in my opinion every fan can benefit by owning a copy.
.

This great book includes the screenplays of two of Woody's best films, "Annie Hall" and "Manhattan." There's also "Stardust Memories" which is good, and "Interiors" which is, well...ok. Well worth the money.

This book cheered me along during a stay in hospital and so I will always remember it fondly.
To me, the scripts represent the best of Woody Allen as they are truthful and realistic. Humour is
sharp in the scripts (except for Interiors of course) as it exposes pretenses, hypocrisies & other human fallibilities. There is so much more
to this than clever lines. This should be a text for
aspiring scriptwriters. To any publishers reading
this, how about another compilation which has
"Husbands & Wives" and "Mighty Aphrodite" in it?!

I bought this while studying screenwriting, assuming that owning ANNIE HALL and MANHATTAN would somehow deliver upon me some kind of ability, perhaps a bit of greatness via osmoseous (sp?).

I was wrong.

I also realized that MANHATTAN is based more on the visual than I had realized--the script, while great, isn't on the same level as ANNIE HALL; INTERIORS, which dissapointed me on the screen is a very good script; and--this just confirmed what I already knew--ANNIE HALL is a great great GREAT film.

Did I mention that ANNIE HALL is a great film?