Best Picture and Director 1979

[Big Magilla]

Why was LAFCA cooler on Woody overall during the 1970's?

Maybe it was just an L.A. vs N.Y. thingee? Silly as it may sound Woody did make fun of L.A. in Annie Hall.

Magilla or Mister Tee might have some more details.

Yes to both you and danfrank (who said the same thing almost simultaneously). Remember the line in Annie Hall about LA -- "Who wants to live in a city where the only cultural advantage is getting to turn right on red?" (a long-outmoded joke, as right turn on red became national policy -- though still not in NYC). I was honestly shocked Annie Hall won the Oscar, with all the ridiculing it did of the locals. But AMPAS had a better sense of humor than the LAFCA.

If you look at the early (mid-to-late-70s) years, the LA folk were almost determinedly different-from-NY -- going with Cuckoo's Nest/Dog/Day Afternoon and Network/Rocky, where the NY groups had been solidly with Nashville and All the President's Men. It wasn't just Woody-avoidance: they were trying to carve out their own West Coast esthetic. They were the only critics' group that even considered Star Wars as best picture.

As documented in Inside Oscar and elsewhere, Annie Hall was in heavy rotation on L.A.'s early Pay-TV station, Channel Z, during Oscar season which was believed to be the reason it did so well at the Oscars.

[Sonic Youth]

In a 2015 interview to promote her upcoming memoir, Mariel Hemingway spoke up about the how the role that won her an Academy Award nomination was in some ways an uncomfortable experience. At the time of filming, she was a 16-year-old virgin who'd never even really made out with anybody. She worried about her kissing scene with Woody Allen for weeks, repeatedly asking how long the scene was going to be. She was scared and even asked her mother, "How do I make out?" When they finally shot it, Hemingway said Allen attacked her like she was a linebacker. After the first take she ran over to the film's cinematographer, Gordon Willis, and asked, "I don't have to do that again, do I?" But everybody just laughed.

If she wrote this in her memoir I suppose it must be true. Although three years before Manhattan she appeared in Lipstick (her film debut when she was 14 or 15 in 1976). The film had intense scenes where both Margaux and Mariel Hemingway are brutally raped. In a 2001 interview with Larry King she said she had no idea that her character and that of her sister's were raped until she saw the film. Was she drugged during the shoot or was a double used that she had no idea about the rape during the shoot? Extremely hard to believe she was unaware - the rape scenes with both actresses are graphically filmed.
So after that particular shoot she, three years later, still feels worried about a mere kissing scene which by the way was very tastefully shot. A bit hard to believe her so called innocence.

So there's no way being photographed for a gropey rape scene in a studio full of men watching her at the age of 14 could have made the idea of being "attacked like a linebacker" by an ugly man 25 years her senior even more repulsive and intimidating? Her previous experience should have just softened her up?

Let's say there were 100 14 to 16 year old actresses who had the same experience Hemingway did in Lipstick and Manhattan. You think Hemingway would be an outlier?

[Mister Tee]

Why was LAFCA cooler on Woody overall during the 1970's?

Maybe it was just an L.A. vs N.Y. thingee? Silly as it may sound Woody did make fun of L.A. in Annie Hall.

Magilla or Mister Tee might have some more details.

Yes to both you and danfrank (who said the same thing almost simultaneously). Remember the line in Annie Hall about LA -- "Who wants to live in a city where the only cultural advantage is getting to turn right on red?" (a long-outmoded joke, as right turn on red became national policy -- though still not in NYC). I was honestly shocked Annie Hall won the Oscar, with all the ridiculing it did of the locals. But AMPAS had a better sense of humor than the LAFCA.

If you look at the early (mid-to-late-70s) years, the LA folk were almost determinedly different-from-NY -- going with Cuckoo's Nest/Dog/Day Afternoon and Network/Rocky, where the NY groups had been solidly with Nashville and All the President's Men. It wasn't just Woody-avoidance: they were trying to carve out their own West Coast esthetic. They were the only critics' group that even considered Star Wars as best picture.

[Reza]

Why was LAFCA cooler on Woody overall during the 1970's?

Maybe it was just an L.A. vs N.Y. thingee? Silly as it may sound Woody did make fun of L.A. in Annie Hall.

Magilla or Mister Tee might have some more details.

[danfrank]

Why was LAFCA cooler on Woody overall during the 1970's?

Maybe because of the LA-NY rivalry thing. Woody’s films were about as New York-centric as you could get.

[Reza]

In a 2015 interview to promote her upcoming memoir, Mariel Hemingway spoke up about the how the role that won her an Academy Award nomination was in some ways an uncomfortable experience. At the time of filming, she was a 16-year-old virgin who'd never even really made out with anybody. She worried about her kissing scene with Woody Allen for weeks, repeatedly asking how long the scene was going to be. She was scared and even asked her mother, "How do I make out?" When they finally shot it, Hemingway said Allen attacked her like she was a linebacker. After the first take she ran over to the film's cinematographer, Gordon Willis, and asked, "I don't have to do that again, do I?" But everybody just laughed.

If she wrote this in her memoir I suppose it must be true. Although three years before Manhattan she appeared in Lipstick (her film debut when she was 14 or 15 in 1976). The film had intense scenes where both Margaux and Mariel Hemingway are brutally raped. In a 2001 interview with Larry King she said she had no idea that her character and that of her sister's were raped until she saw the film. Was she drugged during the shoot or was a double used that she had no idea about the rape during the shoot? Extremely hard to believe she was unaware - the rape scenes with both actresses are graphically filmed.
So after that particular shoot she, three years later, still feels worried about a mere kissing scene which by the way was very tastefully shot. A bit hard to believe her so called innocence.

[Sabin]

Mister Tee wrote
And, yeah, as to the whole "wokeness is destroying us"...if you can't brush aside some annoying people on Twitter (who, as Sabin well documents, have no special power to punish their objects of scorn), get off the field. Honestly, my feeling about latter-day converts to this stance (like Bill Maher or Jeff Wells) is, they know they have a metoo or two out there waiting to drop on them, and this is their preemptive strike to get past it. The real damage to society is coming from the people who are, as we speak, intimidating librarians into banning Anne Frank's diary. The whole wokeness thing is a convenient distraction from that.

Not anymore it's not. I don't know when the bottom fell out of the "anti-woke" movement. Maybe it was when that one author of an anti-woke book couldn't define the woke. Or maybe it's just that all of these people sound unhinged. Whether on social media or interpersonally, when these people go mask off with how they really feel about "woke issues," they look and sound somewhere between pretty mean, a little unhinged, or like bullies. Even if a lot of Americans share some of their beliefs, they don't think about them 24/7. These people do and it shows. It's off-putting.

There is a lot that could be said about the systemic problems in this country but I know this: most Americans don't like it when individuals takes every opportunity to complain, and to shit on society, certain people, etc. If anyone reads this and their first thought is "Yes, and that's why people hate people on the woke-left because they always... " all I can say is "thank you for playing."

Back to the film:

Mister Tee wrote
There were individuals who questioned the age gap in Manhattan, but not remotely enough to cancel out the raves and the box-office success. The film was widely considered a triumph, and subject matter wasn't so monitored then as now.

Just took a quick look at the critic's scene of the time. Manhattan won the National Board of Review Award. I think it's interesting that NYFCC and NSFC both agreed that the three best films of 1979 were Breaking Away, Kramer vs. Kramer, and Manhattan, with Woody taking Best Director from both groups, Kramer taking Best Picture from one and Breaking Away taking Best Picture from the other. At LAFCA, Manhattan didn't even show up besides as one of Meryl Streep's three films cited for Best Supporting Actress. They cited Breaking Away, Kramer vs. Kramer, and Apocalypse Now. Looking backwards to 1977, Annie Hall had a stronger showing with NYFCC and NSFC (taking Film, Actress, and Screenplay from both, Director from NYFCC) but a similarly weak showing at LAFCA with only Screenplay (no runners up available). Why was LAFCA cooler on Woody overall during the 1970's?

[Mister Tee]

To address a few questions:

There were individuals who questioned the age gap in Manhattan, but not remotely enough to cancel out the raves and the box-office success. The film was widely considered a triumph, and subject matter wasn't so monitored then as now.

Hemingway's treatment in that instance explains why Intimacy Coordinator became a job. For most of Hollywood history, getting-the-shot in any way possible was considered the imperative, and probably far worse things were done, especially in that decade or so after the Production Code collapsed and more graphically sexual matters were depicted on screen with more frequency. If anyone's read Shooting Midnight Cowboy, Jennifer Salt describes feeling absolutely violated by how her rape flashbacks were shot -- but also says she felt bad about feeling this way, because it was the time of sexual liberation, and she feared she was just reflecting an uptight upbringing. (As I believe I've mentioned here before, the early years of sexual liberation -- which were definitely a tonic after the squeamish 50s -- mostly concentrated on male pleasure; the concept mostly that guys should be able to get laid without so much effort. The feminist side of all this was a later tag-on, and, one could argue, didn't really get sufficient traction until the MeToo years.)

By the way, Salt had her father nearby as the screenwriter, and Jon Voight as boyfriend, and still had these feelings. Imagine how isolated Hemingway must have felt.

As for Allen's later behavior...yuck. Which doesn't negate the greatness of his best films, but makes me feel like I don't care to ever share a sitdown with him.

And, yeah, as to the whole "wokeness is destroying us"...if you can't brush aside some annoying people on Twitter (who, as Sabin well documents, have no special power to punish their objects of scorn), get off the field. Honestly, my feeling about latter-day converts to this stance (like Bill Maher or Jeff Wells) is, they know they have a metoo or two out there waiting to drop on them, and this is their pre-emptive strike to get past it. The real damage to society is coming from the people who are, as we speak, intimidating librarians into banning Anne Frank's diary. The whole wokeness thing is a convenient distraction from that.

[Big Magilla]

I agree, Allen's behavior was not okay, and neither was that of "everybody" else.

[danfrank]

We can all agree that's not okay, right?

It absolutely is not okay. For me it creates cognitive dissonance only because for decades I was—and am with an asterisk—a big admirer of Woody Allen’s films. I suppose it’s up to the individual whether they want to separate the art from the human who created the art. We’ve had this conversation on this board before. As to this specific behavior, it’s exploitative, abusive, and atrocious.

[Sabin]

Sonic Youth wrote
I must admit I haven't really been keeping track. Are there recent movies that have been picketed and called out to be banned? The only possibility is maybe something like the new Little Mermaid because it cast a black actress as Ariel.

That kind of boycott only exists on the right. It happened with The Little Mermaid, Strange World (gays in a PIXAR film), Lightyear (more gays. no Tim Allen), Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (too woke), I could go on, to varying effect. The right does it every year. It's never picket lines, but it's emails, Facebook groups, and calls for action. Oh, also, the media tried to keep Sound of Freedom from them but they got together and proved them wrong. All of this definitely counts as boycott activity. Lord knows, they take credit whenever they can for a woke movie bombing.

Social media has been a boon to Bircherism.

But I really don't think boycotts exist on the left. There are arguments to be made that the left is too censorious from positions of power but that's a different thing, also I don't really buy it but that's a separate conversation. There have been plenty of movies that have dominated left social media discourse before and during their release (remember when Joker was about an incel comic?) but it resulted in zero boycotts. Someone online stating that they won't be watching so-and-so in whatever-the-fuck again isn't a boycott. These days, the left reserves boycott/picket energy for women's reproductive rights, labor (holy shit, has that picked up!), and protesting right-wingers on college campuses.

I wouldn't know about the reception Manhattan received at the time (I'd like to know more) but I know Joan Didion wasn't a fan of it or the treatment of Mariel Hemmingway's character. I apologize, I can't find anything past a paywall.

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1979/0 ... manhattan/

Big Magilla wrote
In a 2015 interview to promote her upcoming memoir, Mariel Hemingway spoke up about the how the role that won her an Academy Award nomination was in some ways an uncomfortable experience. At the time of filming, she was a 16-year-old virgin who'd never even really made out with anybody. She worried about her kissing scene with Woody Allen for weeks, repeatedly asking how long the scene was going to be. She was scared and even asked her mother, "How do I make out?" When they finally shot it, Hemingway said Allen attacked her like she was a linebacker. After the first take she ran over to the film's cinematographer, Gordon Willis, and asked, "I don't have to do that again, do I?" But everybody just laughed.

I didn't include the rest of your quote mainly for length but also because I wanted to just address this. We can all agree that's not okay, right? Or at the very least, it could have been handled on set very differently to make her more comfortable. I say this as someone who loves the film. When someone responds with derision or indignation to the idea of an intimacy coordinator, that tells me everything I need to know about them. It's empathy hiding behind ignorance or both of them in a race to the bottom.

[Big Magilla]

Mariel Hemingway was actually 16, not 17, at the time of filming. Although there some criticism of the Allen-Hemingway relationship at the time, it was not widespread.

From the film's trivia page at IMDb.:

While this is Woody Allen's least favorite of the movies he has directed, this was the most commercially successful film of his career. He said years later that he was still in disbelief that he "got away with it".

According to Jeff Stafford at the TCMDb, "When 'Manhattan' was first released, there was some criticism leveled at the film for its depiction of a romance between a teenager and a 42-year-old man, but several biographical sources have suggested that the relationship had a real-life parallel in Woody Allen's two-year romance with actress Stacey Nelkin. Reportedly, Allen met Nelkin on the set of Annie Hall (1977) when she was a mere 17-year-old extra (her small part ended up on the cutting room floor). Certain aspects of the Isaac-Tracy relationship may also have been inspired by Allen's real-life correspondence with 13-year-old pen pal Nancy Jo Sales".

In a 2015 interview to promote her upcoming memoir, Mariel Hemingway spoke up about the how the role that won her an Academy Award nomination was in some ways an uncomfortable experience. At the time of filming, she was a 16-year-old virgin who'd never even really made out with anybody. She worried about her kissing scene with Woody Allen for weeks, repeatedly asking how long the scene was going to be. She was scared and even asked her mother, "How do I make out?" When they finally shot it, Hemingway said Allen attacked her like she was a linebacker. After the first take she ran over to the film's cinematographer, Gordon Willis, and asked, "I don't have to do that again, do I?" But everybody just laughed. She also states in her memoir that in other ways the film enormously boosted her self-confidence. Hemingway details in her memoir that once she turned 18, Allen flew out to her parents' home in Idaho and repeatedly asked her to go to Paris with him. Hemingway told her parents that she didn't know what the sleeping arrangement was going to be, and that she wasn't sure if she was even going to have her own room. She wanted them to put their foot down, but they didn't. In fact, though Allen was in his mid-forties at the time, they kept lightly encouraging her to go. Allen left Idaho via private jet the next morning after Hemingway informed him if she wasn't getting her own room, she couldn't go with him. She states in her memoir that she continued to "love him as a friend" and she stayed in touch with him for several years including giving her opinion of rough cuts of later films.

[Sonic Youth]

Now THAT'S a very interesting question. I don't know, and of course there's no way I'd remember. And I would like to know that myself. But I doubt it looked anything like the rallies and book-burnings the loathesome Republican reactionaries are engaging in today regarding printed literature in schools and libraries. It was probably accepted at face value on its own fictional terms much the same way open-minded audiences were cool with Call Me By Your Name today. I'm sure there was more griping over CMBYN over a much smaller age gap than there was over Manhattan, but no picketing or calls for banning.

I must admit I haven't really been keeping track. Are there recent movies that have been picketed and called out to be banned? The only possibility is maybe something like the new Little Mermaid because it cast a black actress as Ariel.

[Reza]

I refuse to believe you haven't had this conversation several times in your life already. You already know what the answers will be. You probably have some very clever counter-arguments you want to try out, too. Sometimes trolling's fun, I get it.

Ok let me rephrase my question. Was there an uproar over the Woody-Mariel relationship in Manhattan when the film first came out? Picketing the film? Hysterical screams of banning it? People writing angry critiques of the film and Woody Allen that he had committed the ultimate sin.....that sin would ofcourse come to fruition 13 years later over Soon-Yi.

I may recall a mention or two of the age discrepancy between the two characters in the film....maybe not, but nowhere at the level of hysteria today over such age-disparate coupling.

[Sonic Youth]

I refuse to believe you haven't had this conversation several times in your life already. You already know what the answers will be. You probably have some very clever counter-arguments you want to try out, too. Sometimes trolling's fun, I get it.