Woody Allen and Diane Keaton struggle with domestic bliss in ANNIE HALL
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
September 8-9
Series runs through September 17
212-415-5500
www.bam.org
“We enjoy your films, particularly the early, funny ones,” an alien tells Sandy Bates in Woody Allen’s vastly underrated 1980 Fellini homage, Stardust Memories. Allen stars as Bates, a very serious director being honored at a film festival where everyone raves about his early stuff, much as fans and critics did after the Woodman shocked his public with the Bergmanesque Interiors in 1978. But what early stuff it was, with Allen and real-life partner Diane Keaton teaming up to become one of the greatest comedy duos of them all, right up there with Tracy and Hepburn, Powell and Loy, Martin and Lewis, and Cary Grant and any number of leading ladies. BAMcinématek is honoring Allen and Keaton (as well as all those others) as part of the fabulous series “American Gagsters: Great Comedy Teams,” screening four of their best films this weekend. In 1977’s Annie Hall (Saturday at 2:00 & 6:50), Allen plays Alvy Singer, a Jewish television writer who has fallen in love with the ultimate goy, Annie (a never-better Keaton, whose real name is Diane Hall). As their relationship ebbs and flows, they discuss major spiders, lobsters, sharks, and other creatures while driving through Plutonium and meeting Marshall McLuhan. (Alvy: “What’s the difference? It’s all mental masturbation.” Annie: “Oh, well, now we’re finally getting to a subject you know something about.” Alvy: “Hey, don’t knock masturbation. It’s sex with someone I love.”) In 1973’s Sleeper (Saturday at 4:30 & 9:15), Allen is Miles Monroe, a cryogenically preserved liberal who has woken up two hundred years later to find a very different world as poses as a robot butler for the snooty Luna Schlosser (Keaton), tests out an orgasmotron, and becomes a revolutionary. (Luna: “Oh, I see. You don’t believe in science, and you also don’t believe that political systems work, and you don’t believe in God, huh?” Miles: “Right.” Luna: “So then, what do you believe in?” Miles: “Sex and death — two things that come once in a lifetime . . . but at least after death, you’re not nauseous.”)
Diane Keaton and Woody Allen fight for Mother Russia in intellectual slapstick comedy
In 1979’s Manhattan (Sunday at 2:00 & 6:50), a celebration of Gershwin and New York City, Allen plays Isaac Davis, a forty-two-year-old television writer who starts dating seventeen-year-old Tracy (Mariel Hemingway), much to the consternation of the snobby Mary Wilkie (Keaton), who is having an affair with Isaac’s best friend (Michael Murphy). (Mary: “What are you thinking?” Isaac: “I dunno, I was just thinking. There must be something wrong with me, because I’ve never had a relationship with a woman that’s lasted longer than the one between Hitler and Eva Braun.”) And in 1975’s absolutely riotous Love and Death (Sunday at 4:30 & 9:15), a hysterical parody of classic Russian literature, Allen takes on the role of the less-than-heroic Boris Grushenko, who finds himself dueling with a gentleman and going after Napoleon with Sonja (Keaton), the cousin he is madly in love with. (Sonja: “And I want three children.” Boris: “Yes. Yes. One of each.”) Allen went on to make some terrific films with his future partner, Mia Farrow, but it his work with Keaton that cemented his reputation and is likely to be best remembered now, in 2173, and beyond.