Annie Hall (Movie)

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    The Friendship Behind ‘Annie Hall’ and ‘Manhattan’

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    In a Q&A, Woody Allen describes the years spent collaborating with his friend Marshall Brickman on beloved movies. Mr. Brickman died on Friday.In the mid-1970s, the writer and director Woody Allen was known for farcical movies about subjects like the search for the world’s best egg salad, but by then he felt he was done “just clowning around,” as he later told the film critic Stig Björkman.As he headed in a new artistic direction, he took a friend along for the ride: a folk musician-turned-humorist named Marshall Brickman.Together they worked on “Annie Hall” (1977), a comic but wistful remembrance of a failed relationship, and “Manhattan” (1979), which focused on characters struggling to find themselves in work and romance. The films came to be widely considered the two essential Woody Allen movies.Reviewers noticed that Mr. Allen had worked out a new style. In his review of “Manhattan,” the New York Times film critic Vincent Canby wrote, “Mr. Allen’s progress as one of our major filmmakers is proceeding so rapidly that we who watch him have to pause occasionally to catch our breath.”He didn’t achieve that progress by himself. After Mr. Brickman died on Friday, Mr. Allen spoke with The New York Times about their collaboration — a rare moment in his life, he said, when writing was not lonesome but rather comradely, pleasurable. A Q&A, lightly edited and condensed for clarity, is below.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      Marshall Brickman, Woody Allen’s Co-Writer on Hit Films, Dies at 85

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      The duo won an Oscar for “Annie Hall.” Mr. Brickman went on to write Broadway shows, including “Jersey Boys,” and make movies of his own.Marshall Brickman, a low-key writer whose show business career ranged across movies, late-night television comedy and Broadway, with the hit musical “Jersey Boys,” but who may be best remembered for collaborating on three of Woody Allen’s most enthusiastically praised films, including the Oscar-winning “Annie Hall,” died on Friday in Manhattan. He was 85.His daughter Sophie Brickman confirmed the death. She did not cite a cause.Mr. Brickman and Mr. Allen first teamed up on the script for “Sleeper” (1973), a science fiction comedy set in a totalitarian 22nd-century America whose protagonist, a cryogenically unfrozen 20th-century man, poses as a robot servant to save his life and then sets out to overthrow the government.“Annie Hall” (1977), the Oscar-winning romance about urban neurotics, was their second project. Two smart, insecure, witty singles meet at a Manhattan tennis club, consciously couple, measure their lives in psychotherapy sessions, find lobster humor in the Hamptons and disagree about whether Los Angeles is beyond redemption. It won four Academy Awards: for best picture, best actress (Diane Keaton), best director (Mr. Allen) and best screenplay.The two men then wrote the screenplay of “Manhattan” (1979), a contemporary black-and-white romantic comedy hailed at the time as a love letter to New York. It is now most often remembered because of its central relationship: a middle-aged man’s affair with a high school girl (Mariel Hemingway), mirroring Mr. Allen’s own scandal-tarnished later years.“Manhattan” won BAFTAs, the British film and television awards, for best film and best screenplay. At the Césars, France’s equivalent of the Oscars, it was named best foreign film.In a Writers Guild Foundation interview in 2011, Mr. Brickman described his collaboration with Mr. Allen as “a pleasure and a life changer.” And if Mr. Allen, who directed and starred in all three films, dominated the process, he said, that was for the best.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      Stream Shelley Duvall’s Greatest Performances: ‘The Shining,’ ‘Popeye’ and More

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      In “The Shining,” “Popeye” and more, her unusual presence jumps off the screen. That’s true even in small roles in “Annie Hall” and “Time Bandits.”Shelley Duvall, who died on Thursday at 75, had one of the most thrilling and complicated careers in modern cinema history. Discovered by the director Robert Altman, who became her greatest collaborator, Duvall fell into acting almost by accident. But her screen presence was so beguiling and irresistible that she became one of the defining stars of the 1970s and ’80s.Her layered and detailed performances in the likes of “3 Women” and “The Shining” made her a celebrated star. And yet she never fit easily into Hollywood, remaining always decidedly herself. In later life, Duvall retreated from acting and the public eye, but left behind a remarkable and diverse body of work. Here’s where you can stream some of her best.1970‘Brewster McCloud’Buy or rent on most major platforms.Duvall in her first onscreen role, as an optimistic tour guide in “Brewster McCloud.”MGMWhen Duvall was discovered by Robert Altman and the actor and casting director Bert Remsen, in Houston, she had no intention of becoming a performer. “I wanted to be a great scientist, not an actress. Madame Curie was my heroine,” she once told Roger Ebert. But Altman and Remsen had other plans, putting her in their strange delight of a movie about a boy, played by Bud Cort, who lives in the Houston Astrodome and wants to build wings to fly. Once she appears onscreen as the tour guide Suzanne, it’s clear she is one of the most unusual presences ever to grace the screen. With her oversize eyelashes, a staple of her personal style that highlighted her features, she’s intriguingly cheerful as she chirps away about diarrhea. Her optimism seduces Cort’s Brewster, and with him the audience, even if she turns out to be fickle.1971‘McCabe & Mrs. Miller’Stream on Tubi; buy or rent on most major platforms.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More