Hannah and Her Sisters

There was some talk over at Gone Elsewhere over the relative strengths of the recent decades, film-wise. I mentioned that I have not seen as good a film in the last twenty-five years as Hannah and Her Sisters, which prompted fellow GE contributor Nick to see it for the first time. Discussing it made me want to see it again, even though I must have seen it a dozen times. I did so yesterday. It never fails to charm me.

This, even though I don't think it's Woody Allen's best film (I actually rank it third, behind Annie Hall and Manhattan). But it's certainly he hasn't approached it since, and it's my choice for best film of the 80s, as well as the best movie in the last twenty-five. It's one of those films that tackles big subjects in small details, and manages to be uproariously funny as well as beautifully touching, with an ending that puts a tear in my eye.

From the beginning of the film, we're in Allen's world. Of course there's the signature font (Windsor EF light condensed) of his credits, with actors in alphabetical order, but also we get the strains of Harry James playing "You Made Me Love You." Allen's world is firmly steeped in the romance of the great American song book, and the film is chock full of songs by Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer and Sammy Kahn. There's also Bach and e.e. Cummings, for good measure. In fact, in one scene he contrasts contemporary music (he doesn't want to watch musicians who kill their mothers) with the genteel world of Bobby Short singing "I'm in Love Again" (gently sent up, but Allen clearly prefers this world).

We then meet the women of the title. Hannah (Mia Farrow) is a rock of stability, with younger sisters Lee (Barbara Hershey) and Holly (Dianne Wiest, winning an Oscar for the role). Lee is adrift, in a relationship with a much older man (Max Von Sydow), a misanthropic artist. Holly, a former drug addict, still has aspirations to be an actress, and frequently borrows money from Hannah, and then resents her for it. For her part, Hannah seems to have a compulsion to be needed by others, but her husband (Michael Caine, who also won an Oscar), begins to think that he is not needed by her. He is enchanted by the needier Lee, and the two awkwardly begin an affair.

Meanwhile, Hannah's ex-husband (Allen), a producer of a show suspiciously like Saturday Night Live and a hypochondriac, has a brush with death, which sends him spiralling downward into depression, as he can't come to grips with his own mortality. Allen's scenes give the film it's comic brio, especially in the sequences where he goes shopping for a meaningful religion. When I saw the movie for the first time in New York City, a full house exploded with laughter at a sight gag that showed Allen revealing his purchases to be an ideal goy: crucifix, prayer book, white bread, and mayonnaise.

There are some other great comic lines, too numerous to mention but these are my favorites: in discussing the philosophy of Nietschze, Allen recalls the German philosopher's theory of the repeated life, and adds: "Great, that means I'll have to sit through the Ice Capades again." Or when Allen asks his father why there were Nazis, and gets the reply, "How do I know why there were Nazis, I can't even work the can opener." Or when told that his sperm count is too low to father children, Allen asks if there's something he can do, like push-ups.

There's also great Chekhovian drama here, particularly the tension between the siblings. A scene where the three have lunch, the camera swirling around them, is brilliantly done, and I really sensed the authenticity in their relationship. He further mixes in the sisters' parents (Lloyd Nolan and Farrow's real-life mother, Maureen O'Sullivan) a pair of Broadway legends who are always battling.

The film delves deeply into the realm of love and death, two of Allen's favorite subjects (he once wrote, "I don't want to become immortal through my work, I want to become immortal by not dying.") Von Sydow's monologue about channel-surfing, where he reasons that the question isn't how something like the holocaust could happen, but why it doesn't happen more often, is funny, but also edged. And then there's the climax of the film, in which Allen finds salvation at a Marx Brothers' film, and is perhaps the best summation of why art matters and a must-see for anyone contemplating suicide.

Seeing the film age also offers other pleasures. There are lots of actors in bit parts who have become more famous; in one short scene we see Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Lewis Black, J.T. Walsh and John Turturro. The film also is a glimpse of nostalgic New York. An architect (Sam Waterston), leads a tour of his favorite buildings of New York, and then there's a moment near the end of the film where Allen runs into Wiest at a Tower Records store, with the Regency Theater in the background. The Regency is now gone, as is Tower Records, and it so happens that I worked in an office right above that store shortly after this film was made. That was a magic time for me, and for Allen as well. Hannah and Her Sisters is one of my all-time top ten films, a treasure in my life.