Manhattan, by Woody Allen.

Manhattan was directed by Woody Allen in 1979. The film is ninety six minutes long and it is produced by United Artist.

Its main characters are Woody Allen as Isaac Davis, Diane Keaton as Mary Wilkie, Michel Murphy as Yale Pollack, Meryl Streep as Jill Davis, Mariel Hemingway as Tracy, and Anne Byrne as Emily Pollack. 

The film was nominated for two Academy Awards in 1979: best supporting actress (Mariel Hemingway) and Best Writing. It also won the BAFTA award for Best Film and the National Board of Review award, Best Film too, both in 1979.

This film was set in the borough with the same name: Manhattan in New York City. To the director, this city is his home and almost his movies have been set her but the latest ten years, because Woody Allen has recorded in Europe, for example in London, Rome, Barcelona, …  

Manhattan is in black-and-white. At the beginning, Woody Allen opens his film with a montage of images of Manhattan, these around four minutes, are one of the reasons that the film is on the list of “100 Years… 100 Laughs” of American Film Institute. The voice of Woody Allen is describing his love to New York City. This moment is a tribute from Woody Allen to New York and here appears all best well-known to the city.

In the film we can see typical places of Manhattan like Chinatown, Washington Square Park with its galleries, bridges which connect the different boroughs, and a lot of street with brownstone where upper-class families used to live and tenements in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where lived racial or cultural groups. The place which Woody Allen shows us much more is Central Park in the center of the city.

However, we can’t see in Manhattan typical sites as Madison Square Garden, Rockefeller Center, Times Square or the Statue of Liberty. Perhaps it happens because the film is shot in Manhattan.

The film is about a man, Isaac Davis (Woody Allen), twice-divorced, who works in television but he wants to be a writer. He has a relationship with a seventeen-year-old- girl, Tracy (Mariel Hemingway). However, he doesn’t love this girl. His ex-wife, Jill (Meryl Streep) is writing a book about their marriage and he doesn’t like this idea. She comes out of the closet and she lives with her girlfriend, Connie (Karen Ludwing) and his son. His best friend is Yale (Michael Murphy) who is married to Emily (Anne Byrne) although he is having an affair with Mary (Diane Keaton).

Yale decides to break up with Mary because he loves his wife. Isaac falls in love with Mary and he breaks up with the young girl and he says to her she has to go to London to study. Mary and Isaac start a relationship.

Emily wants to know the Isaac’s new girlfriend, and after a several meetings, Yale and Mary are falling in love again. In a meeting, Emily says to Isaac he introduced Mary to Yale, and Isaac doesn’t tell the truth but he says he is thinking in Tracy again.

He goes to see Tracy but she is leaving for London. He doesn’t want to she goes to London, but she says to him if their love is true, they will be together when she comes back.

I recommend Manhattan because it is an interesting film where you can see New York City. The soundtrack is beautiful, because Woody Allen thought in George Gershwin’s music to make this film, and it has an extraordinary picture.

As a Woody Allen’s film, it is a special film and you can find his personality around the main characters, over all in his character.

In my point of view, Manhattan is a very good film because it is shot in black-and-white and it provide with a beautiful atmosphere to the film.

Nowadays Manhattan has changed, because this film was shot in 1979, but I love going there because I like visiting Central Park and the galleries in Washington Square Park, besides other places like Chinatown, Times Square or Madison Square Garden.