Manhattan

Manhattan (1979) is the most beautiful film Woody Allen made and the most uncomfortable one to watch now. It was shot in black and white and widescreen. Gordon Willis's photography turns New York into a character, and the Gershwin score makes the opening one of the best known sequences in cinema. The story: Isaac is forty two and writes for television. He is in a relationship, and the person he is in it with is Tracy, a seventeen year old still at school. The film does not present this as a problem; Isaac's actual concern is his attraction to his friend's girlfriend Mary. Watching it now is a different thing. Mariel Hemingway, who plays Tracy, was sixteen going on seventeen during production. After the allegations against Allen surfaced the film was re-examined, and Hemingway described in her own memoir a proposal Allen made to her after filming. It should be watched with that known. Allen did not like the film either. It is recounted that he asked United Artists not to release it and offered to make another film for free instead. Its place in film history is not in question, and that place does not remove the discomfort. It runs 96 minutes. Good for: film history, black and white, and films about New York. Less good for: a relationship between an adult and a minor sits at the centre and the film does not treat it as a problem. Many viewers no longer watch Allen's films at all.