Annie Hall

In many ways Woody Allen’s Annie Hall represents a narrative text maleable to the format of television.  In this hour-and-a-half “episode” we are introduced to the character, and gently thrown into the dramatic world that the viewer suspects is Woody Allen’s life.  What makes this film seem episodic to me is the narrative perspective of Allen’s depressed character, leading his audeince into past, present and future events.  While  MTV’s The Real World had yet to be created, as a contemporary viewer I made numerous conscouious and subconscious connections to the show.  As Annie Hall begins in such a Real World confessional manner I remeber feeling a hieghtened sense of reality attached to the words Allen spoke.  As we know the film does in fact have a streak of reality in it, and a distinctly Woody Allen feel.  From this perspective than I beleive that Annie Hall could be turned into a T.V. show much like The Real World meets Curb Your Enthusiasm.  Every episode could have that classic confessional style shot with Woody narrating his crazy day/week/month and from their we cut into his wacky Larry David style adventures.  The first person narrative style of Annie Hall lends itself to the creation of a belivable, yet artistcally creative space as it allows for moments of “reality” as it appears to the world and “reality” as it appears to a single person within the  text.  With these two perspective accounted for the audeince is given a good sense of not only the actual events happening in a characters life, but also how that character feels and interprets these events.

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