Hannah and her sister research

Leonardo Da Vinci created awe inspiring paintings, Beethoven composed genius

symphonies and Woody Allen writes the best dialogue on the planet, each man is
a god in their field, but only one of them can boast 14 Oscar script nominations to
his name. You talk about the Last Supper, I talk about Annie Hall and Hannah and
her Sisters. Woody Allens perennial love affair with Ingmar Bergman once again
manifests itself in one of his films; Hannah and her Sister can draw great
parallels with Bergmans seminal Fanny and Alexander, both films provide a
turbulent decent into the lives of a dysfunctional family over the course of couple
of years bookend by family gatherings, here in the shape of Thanksgiving while
in Fanny and Alexander it is Christmas. In Hannah and her Sister we focus
primary on the characters of three sisters Hannah, Holly and Lee, all connected
by blood but in terms of personalities and success in life they are all
diametrically opposed. Hannah (Mia Farrow) is the oldest, most successful and
strong willed; while Holly (Dianne Wiest) on the other hand is in constant flux in
life, never begin able to find her true calling, while Lee (Barbara Hershey) the
youngest is an ex-alcoholic, student who always wears her heart on her sleeve.

The film opens up during Thanksgiving dinner, on the surface everything seems
upbeat and festive, however Elliot (Michael Caine) the husband too Hannah finds
himself deeply infatuated with her sister Lee God she is Beautiful are very first
words spoken in the film, however even when we do find out that Lee harbors
similar desires towards him in return and thus begins a secret love affair. It is
never made abundantly clear where her feelings are true or if she is merely using
Elliot as a stop gap for the whole left in her life during the decaying of her own
relationship to Fredrick a self absorbed painter. But it isnt only Lee whose life is
experiencing upheaval. Holly who never seems to be able to quite find herself,
has lived in the shadow of her much more successful older sister Hannah,
causing major underlining tension between the two characters. This tension
eventually boils to the surface in probably the most distinct scene in the film
where all three sisters sit down in a restaurant; with the main topic of discussion
being Hollys need money from Hannah for what seems like the 100
th
time to
fund her latest career path. Despite Hannah obligingly agreeing to do so, Holly
still finds an excuse to play the victim stating that her sister only ever saw her as
a Loser. What I love the most about this scene, is that it deviates greatly from
Allens traditional technical approach to filmmaking, which is always subvert and
naturalistic and rarely drawing attention to itself, however in this scene the
camera slowly rotates around all three sisters as if circling the event horizon in a
black hole before being engulfed by the dark abyss that is these sisters
relationship. Unfortunately the only ever time Allen display this type of flare is in
Annie Hall as we have the pleasure of seeing split screens, subtitles of the subtext
of scenes and even breaking the fourth wall, which uses all these components so
effectively and innovatively something regularly lacking in his work.

The last major plot element of the film features Woody Allen making his usual
appearance in his own productions, playing here Hannahs ex-husband Mickey, a
hypochondriac TV producer who finds himself in an existential life crises
concerning the point and meaning of life, during his latest health scare.
Unfortunately whilst his usual appearances are effective such as is Manhattan
and in Play it Again Sam, which he delivers wonderful performances which are
integral for each particular films, yet in Hannah and her Sisters I found his
narrative arc to being rather to preachy, self-righteous and ultimately
unnecessary because it would have served better to have delved even deeper
into the sister dynamics, and we need to see a lot more from Hannah who
appeared to be more of a boot sale ornament in each scene rather than an actual
character.

When you consider Hannah and her Sister was attributed with two three of the
big Oscars; both supporting Oscars a fete only equated by The fighter and Julia,
whilst also receiving the Oscar for best original screenplay, it really defines
Wood Allen as a director and writer, hes a fantastic actors director who can
illicit some of the most wonderful performances from his actors, and working
with him is always a career highlight, just ask Penelope Cruz and Mariel
Hemingway. Then you just have to look at the fact that he has been nominated 14
times for best screenplay to show adept he is at writing dialogue, however while
Hannah and her Sister demonstrates his fantastic acting directing and
sensational writing, for me the film doesnt break into my all time five best Allen
pictures. This is mainly due to his inclusion into the story, which played to
Allens usual hypochondriac role that we have seen him playing way to many
times before. I also felt his story also greatly subtracted from the time we should
have been spending with the three main actresses, and despite drawing the film
out to a mind numbing 2 hours +, I never felt we were ever able to see enough of
them Hannah and her Sister ironically.