Annie Hall: Classic or Dud?

Marshall McLuhan was not Allen's first choice. Federico Fellini and Luis Buñuel were asked first.

ok so call me dumb but anyone want to explain this line?

ANNIE (Smiling) What's so great about New York? I mean, it's a dying city. You read Death in Venice.

What does Death in Venice have to do with New York?

Sub-plot of Death in Venice is that people still go there although there is a disease rampant in the city. So it's dying but still people love it?

I mean whole thing is about death obviously but I think that's what that is referring to. Indeed it's more like a celebration of decay...maybe...possibly.

Joey Five-Cents!

Annie Hall is neither classic nor dud. It is just hopelessly irrelevant.

HOPELESSLY

Shh! Some of us still need the eggs, ok?

It can still be classic and hopelessly irrelevant (although I don't think it is that either).

what the hell is an irrelevant movie? it's not relevant to your life as a spanish fighter jet pilot? it's not relevant to deregulation legislation of the 1980s? what?

i'd like to know what that line abt death in venice means also. i mean if ned's right, that it's at ppl loving a city despite the decay, wouldnt annie then love new york? rather than asking why ppl love it?

The line is there mostly to set up the joke that follows it. He says you didn't read it until I gave it to you, she says he only gave her books with death in the title. Or something like that.

This is true of course! We shouldn't overanalyse but...

I think she saying that people (in the novel) are kind of oblivious to the dangers of the city (or they know about them but don't care) and Annie is saying but we're cleverer than they - we KNOW it's a dying city and we should get out and move to L.A.

And don't forget that later Alvy says "A relationship is like a shark. It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we have here is a dead shark" (I'm paraphrasing here). Which could also apply to, um, New York in the late 1970s, early 80s and so, er, is sub-consciously agreeing with Annie's earlier comment.

I think the "New York is dying, let's get out" meme was big in the seventies, as was Visconti's Death in Venice so it might have been a more obvious parallel then than it is now... Annie = realist, Woody = hopelessly morbid romantic, ie set-up of all Woody Allen films of the period...

They would make a great double bill.

New York (certainly Manhattan) is now essentially dead for anyone except the demographic that populates Woody's urban comedies.

also Aimless, yer a dope.

Aimless might be a lot of things but dope isn't one of them, I don't think.

However your first sentence is pretty OTM.

I love it when they go to L.A.

ok, Aimless' "remock" (as Woody wd say) was dopey.

I've still never been to LA, partly cuz AH warned me about it.

By the way, while I was googling that line from Annie Hall, I came across a great thing. The New Yorker digital reader gives you searchable access to every single issue of the New Yorker from 1925. While it's in beta, it's free - you just have to put in an email address. After beta they're charging but it's good for now.

http://archives.newyorker.com/

dayum

calling this movie hopelessly irrelevant is either dopey or just meaningless. it's not irrelevant, either as a love story or as a film... i mean, i guess if you're looking at it as a guide to new york city living, maybe!

influence in the genre, whether you feel it to be positive or negative, at least proves 'relevance'