Cinema Experts

“I'm not afraid of dying . . . I just don't want to be there when it happens.”
To raise money he began writing gags for the agent David O. Alber, who sold them to newspaper columnists. According to Allen, his first published joke "was in a gossip column. It read: 'Woody Allen says he ate at a restaurant that had O.P.S. prices - over people's salaries.'"
At sixteen, he started writing for stars like Sid Caesar and began calling himself Woody Allen, which would remain his moniker (although it's unclear if Allen ever legally adopted the stage name). He was a gifted comedian from an early age and would later joke that when he was young he was often sent to inter-faith summer camps, where he "was savagely beaten by children of all races and creeds".
After high school, he went to New York University where he studied communication and film, but, never committed as a student, he was thrown off his course due to lack of punctuality and commitment. He later briefly attended City College of New York.
After his false starts at NYU and City College, he became a full-time writer for Herb Shriner, earning $75/week at first. At age 19, he started writing scripts for The Ed Sullivan Show, The Tonight Show, Caesar's Hour and other television shows. By the time he was working for Sid Caesar, he was making $1500/week; with Caesar he worked alongside Danny Simon, whom Allen credits for helping him to structure his writing style.
In 1961, he started a new career as a stand-up comedian, debuting in a Greenwich Village club called the Duplex. He contributed sketches to the Broadway revue From A to Z, and began writing for the popular Candid Camera television show, even appearing in some episodes. Together with his managers, Allen turned his weaknesses into his strengths, developing his neurotic, nervous, and intellectual persona. He quickly became a successful comedian, and appeared frequently in nightclubs and on television. Allen was popular enough to appear on the cover of Life in 1969 when Play It Again, Sam opened on Broadway.
Allen started writing short stories for magazines (most notably The New Yorker) as well as plays, the best known of which are the Broadway productions Don't Drink the Water (1966) and Play It Again, Sam (1969).
His first movie production was What's New, Pussycat? in 1965, for which he wrote the initial screenplay. He was hired by Warren Beatty to re-write a script, and to appear in a small part. Over the course of the re-write, Beatty's part grew smaller and Allen's grew larger. Beatty was upset and quit the production. Peter O'Toole was hired for the Beatty role, and Peter Sellers was brought in as well; Sellers was a big enough star to demand many of Woody Allen's best lines/scenes, prompting hasty re-writes. This experience with meddling producers, egotistical stars, and directors ruining jokes, along with a similar experience on the James Bond spoof Casino Royale (for which he did uncredited rewrites of his own scenes), led Allen to decide that the only way filmmaking was worthwhile was if he was in control of the film.
Allen's first directorial effort was What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966), in which an existing Japanese spy movie was redubbed in English by Allen and his friends with completely new, comic dialogue.
His first conventional effort was Take the Money and Run (1969), which was followed by Bananas, Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask), Sleeper, and Love and Death.
In 1972, he also starred in the film version of Play It Again, Sam, which was directed by Herbert Ross. All of Allen's early films were pure comedies that relied heavily on slapstick, inventive sight gags, and non-stop one-liners. Among the many notable influences on these films are Bob Hope, Groucho Marx (as well as, to some extent, Harpo Marx) and Humphrey Bogart. In 1976, he starred in, but did not direct, The Front, a humorous and poignant account of Hollywood blacklisting during the 1950s.
Annie Hall marked a major turn to more sophisticated humor and thoughtful drama. Allen's 1977 film won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture - an unusual feat for a comedy. Annie Hall set the standard for modern romantic comedy, and also started a minor fashion trend with the unique clothes worn by Diane Keaton in the film (the offbeat, masculine clothing, such as ties with cardigans, was actually Keaton's own).
While in production, its working title was "Anhedonia," a term that means the inability to feel pleasure, and its plot revolved around a murder mystery. Apparently, as filmed, the murder mystery plot didn't work (and was later used in his 1993 Manhattan Murder Mystery), so Allen re-edited and re-cut the movie after production ended to focus on the romantic comedy between Allen's character, Alvy Singer, and Keaton's character, Annie Hall. The new version, retitled Annie Hall (named after Keaton's grandmother), still deals with the theme of the inability to feel pleasure. Ranked at No. 35 on the American Film Institute' s "100 Best Movies" and at No. 4 on the AFI list of "100 Best Comedies," Annie Hall is considered to be among Allen's best.
Manhattan, released in 1979, is a black-and-white film that can be viewed as an homage to New York City, which has been described as the true "main character" of the movie. As in many other Allen films, the main characters are upper-class academics, literati, and occasional twits. Even though it makes fun of pretentious intellectuals, the story is packed with obscure references that makes it less accessible to a general audience. The love-hate opinion of cerebral persons found in Manhattan is characteristic of many of Allen's movies including Crimes and Misdemeanors and Annie Hall. Manhattan focuses on the complicated relationship between a middle-aged Isaac Davis (Allen) and a seventeen-year-old Tracy (Mariel Hemingway) - which presages Allen's complicated personal relationship with under-aged Soon-Yi Previn.
Between Annie Hall and Manhattan Allen wrote and directed the gloomy drama Interiors (1978), in the style of the late Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, one of Allen's major influences. Interiors is considered by critics as a significant breakthrough past Allen's "earlier, funnier comedies" (a line from 1980s Stardust Memories).
Allen's 1980s films, even the comedies, have somber and philosophical undertones. Some, like September and Stardust Memories, are often said to be heavily influenced by the works of European directors, most notably Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini.
Stardust Memories features a main character, a successful filmmaker played by Allen, who expresses resentment and scorn for his fans. Overcome by the recent death of a friend from illness, the character states, "I don't want to make funny movies any more", and a running gag throughout the film has various people (including a group of visiting space aliens) telling Bates that they appreciate his work, "especially the early, funny ones".
However, by the mid-1980s, Allen had begun to combine tragic and comic elements with the release of such films as Hannah and Her Sisters (winner of three Academy Awards) starring British actor Michael Caine, and Crimes and Misdemeanors, in which he tells two different stories that connect at the end. He also produced a vividly idiosyncratic tragi-comical parody of documentary, titled Zelig.
He also made three films about show business. The first movie is Broadway Danny Rose, in which he plays a New York manager; then, The Purple Rose of Cairo, a movie that shows the importance of the cinema during the Depression though the character of the naive Cecilia. Lastly, Allen made Radio Days, which is a film about his childhood in Brooklyn, and the importance of the radio. Purple Rose was named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 best films of all time, and Allen has described it as one of his three best films, along with Stardust Memories and Match Point (It is worth noting that Allen defines them as "best" not in terms of quality, but because they came out the closest to his original vision).
Before the end of the eighties he made other movies that were strongly inspired by Ingmar Bergman's films. September is a remake of Autumn Sonata, and Allen uses many elements from Persona in Another Woman.
His 1992 film Shadows and Fog (1992) is a black and white homage to German expressionists and features the music of Kurt Weill. He then made his critically acclaimed drama Husbands and Wives (1992) which received two oscar nominations; Best Supporting Actress for Judy Davis and Best Original Screenplay for Allen. His film Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993) combined suspense with dark comedy, and starred Diane Keaton, Alan Alda and Anjelica Huston.
In the late 1990s he returned to lighter movies, such as Bullets Over Broadway (1994), which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Director. The musical Everyone Says I Love You (1996) was Allen's first (and, to this point, only) musical.
The singing and dancing scenes in Everyone Says I Love You are similar to the musical starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, but the plot is comical. The comedy Mighty Aphrodite (1995), in which the Greek and Roman tragedies play a large role, won an Academy Award for Mira Sorvino. Allen's 1999 jazz mockumentary Sweet and Lowdown was also nominated for two Academy Awards for Sean Penn (Best Actor) and Samantha Morton (Best Supporting Actress). In contrast to these lighter movies, Allen veered scathingly dark and satirical towards the end of the 1990s with Deconstructing Harry (1997) and Celebrity (1998). Allen made his only sitcom "appearance" via telephone in the 1997 episode, "My Dinner with Woody" of the show Just Shoot Me!, an episode paying tribute to several of his films.
Small Time Crooks (2000) was his first film with DreamWorks SKG studio and represented a change in direction: Allen began giving more interviews and made an apparent return to his strictly comedy roots. Small Time Crooks was a relative success, grossing over $17 million domestically, but Allen's next 4 films foundered at the box office, including Allen's most expensive film to date, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (with a budget of $33 million). Hollywood Ending, Anything Else, and Melinda and Melinda were given "rotten" ratings from film-review website Rotten Tomatoes and each earned less than $5 million domestically. Most critics agreed that Allen's films since 1999's Sweet and Lowdown were subpar, and some critics expressed concern that Allen's best years were now behind him.
Match Point (2005) was one of Allen's most successful films in the past ten years and generally received very positive reviews. Set in London, it starred Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and Scarlett Johansson. It is also markedly darker than Allen's first four films under the DreamWorks SKG banner. Match Point earned more than $23 million domestically (more than any of his films in nearly 20 years) and earned over $62 million in international box office. Match Point earned Allen his first Academy Award nomination since 1998 for Best Writing, Original Screenplay and directing and writing nominations at the Golden Globes, his first Globe nominations since 1987. In an interview with Premiere Magazine, Allen stated this was the best film he has ever made.
Allen returned to London to film Scoop, which also starred Johansson, as well as Hugh Jackman, Ian McShane, Kevin McNally. The film was released on July 28, 2006, and received mixed reviews. He has also filmed Cassandra's Dream in London. Cassandra's Dream stars Colin Farrell, Ewan McGregor, and Tom Wilkinson and is expected to be released in November 2007.
After finishing his third London film, Allen headed to Spain. He reached an agreement to film his current project in Barcelona, where shooting started on July 9th 2007. The movie will star international and Spanish actors and actresses, including Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem, Patricia Clarkson, and Penélope Cruz.
Allen has said that he "survives" on the European market. Audiences there have tended to be more receptive to Allen's films, particularly France, a country where he has a large fan base (something joked about in Hollywood Ending). "In the United States things have changed a lot, and it's hard to make good small films now," Allen said in a 2004 interview. "The avaricious studios couldn't care less about good films - if they get a good film they're twice as happy, but money-making films are their goal. They only want these $100 million pictures that make $500 million". It has been rumoured he will write/direct a segment for the upcoming film New York, I Love You.

"I think that people who are famous tend to be underdeveloped in their humanity skills."
After being nominated for a Tony Award for Play It Again, Sam, Keaton made her film debut in 1970s Lovers and Other Strangers. She followed with guest roles on the television series Love, American Style and Night Gallery. Between films, Keaton appeared in a series of deodorant commercials.
Keaton's breakthrough role came when she was cast as Kay Adams, the girlfriend of Michael Corleone (played by Al Pacino) in Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 blockbuster The Godfather. Coppola noted that he first noticed Keaton in Lovers and Other Strangers, and cast her because of her reputation for eccentricity that he wanted her to bring to the role (Keaton claims that at the time she was commonly referred to as "the kooky actress" of the film industry). Her performance in the film was loosely based on her real life experience of making the film, both of which she has described as being "the woman in a world of men". The Godfather was an unparalleled critical and financial success, and won the Best Picture Oscar of 1972.
Two years later she reprised her role in The Godfather, Part II. She was initially reluctant to reprise her role, stating that, "At first, I was skeptical about playing Kay again in the Godfather sequel. But when I read the script, the character seemed much more substantial than in the first movie." In Part II her character had changed dramatically, becoming more embittered about her husband's activities. Even though Keaton received widespread exposure from the films, her character's importance was minimal. Time wrote that she was "invisible in The Godfather and pallid in The Godfather, Part II."
Keaton's other notable films of the 1970s included many collaborations with Woody Allen. Although by the time they made films together their romantic involvement had ended, she played many eccentric characters in several of his comic and dramatic films including Sleeper, Love and Death, Interiors, Manhattan, and the film version of Play It Again, Sam, directed by Herbert Ross. Allen has gone on to credit Keaton as his muse during his early film career.
In 1977, Keaton starred with Allen in the romantic comedy Annie Hall, in which she played one of her most famous roles. Annie Hall was written and directed by Allen, her paramour at the time, and the film was believed to be autobiographical of his relationship with Keaton. Allen based the character of Annie Hall loosely on Keaton ("Annie" is a nickname of hers, and "Hall" is her original surname). Many of Keaton's mannerisms and her self-deprecating sense of humor were added into the role by Allen. (Director Nancy Meyers has claimed "Diane's the most self-deprecating person alive").
Keaton has also said that Allen wrote the character as an "idealized version" of herself. The two starred as a frequently on-again, off-again couple living in New York City. Her acting was later summed up by CNN as "awkward, self-deprecating, speaking in endearing little whirlwinds of semi-logic", and by Allen as a "nervous breakdown in slow motion." The film was both a major financial and critical success, and won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Keaton's performance also won the Academy Award for Best Actress. In 2006, Premiere magazine ranked Keaton in Annie Hall as 60th on their list of the "100 Greatest Performances of All Time":
Keaton's eccentric wardrobe in Annie Hall, which consisted mainly of vintage men's clothing, including neckties, vests, baggy pants, and fedora hats, made her an unlikely fashion icon of the late 1970s. Most of the clothing seen in the film came from Keaton herself, who was already known for her tomboyish clothing style years before Annie Hall, though Ruth Morley and Ralph Lauren reportedly worked on the movie's costume.
Soon after the film's release, men's clothing and pantsuits became popular attire for women. She is known to favor men's vintage clothing, and usually appears in public wearing gloves and conservative attire. (A 2005 profile in the San Francisco Chronicle described her as "easy to find. Look for the only woman in sight dressed in a turtleneck. On a 90-degree afternoon in Pasadena.") Keaton would later reprise her Annie Hall appearance when she attended the 2003 Academy Awards presentation in a men's tuxedo and a bowler hat. Keaton also became a frequent target of fashion critic Mr. Blackwell, having made his annual "Worst Dressed List" on five occasions.
Her photo by Douglas Kirkland appeared on the cover of the September 26, 1977, issue Time magazine with the story dubbing her "the funniest woman now working in films."
Later that year, she departed from her usual lighthearted comic roles when she accepted a role in the drama Looking for Mr. Goodbar, based on the novel by Judith Rossner. In the film she played a Catholic schoolteacher for deaf children who lives a double life, spending nights frequenting singles bars and engaging in promiscuous sex. Keaton became interested in the role after seeing it as a "psychological case history."
In addition to acting, Keaton has stated that "(I) had a lifelong ambition to be a singer." She had a brief, unrealized career as a recording artist in the 1970s. Her first record was an original cast recording of Hair, in 1971. In 1977 she began recording tracks for a solo album, but the finished record never materialized.
Keaton met with more success in the medium of still photography. Like her character in Annie Hall, Keaton had long relished photography as a favorite hobby, an interest she picked up as a teenager from her mother. While traveling in the late 70s she began exploring her avocation more seriously. "Rolling Stone had asked me to take photographs for them, and I thought, 'Wait a minute, what I'm really interested in is these lobbies, and these strange ballrooms in these old hotels.' So I began shooting them," she explained in 2003. "These places were deserted, and I could just sneak in anytime and nobody cared. It was so easy and I could do it myself. It was an adventure for me." Reservations, her collection of photos of hotel interiors, was published in book form in 1980.
After Manhattan in 1979, Keaton and Woody Allen ended their long working relationship, and the film would be their last major collaboration until 1993. In 1978 Keaton became romantically involved with Warren Beatty, and two years later he cast her to play opposite of him in Reds. In the film she played Louise Bryant, a journalist and repressed housewife in 1917, who flees from her husband to work with radical journalist John Reed (Beatty), and later enters Russia to locate him as he chronicles the Russian Civil War. The New York Times wrote that Keaton was, "nothing less than splendid as Louise Bryant - beautiful, selfish, funny and driven. It's the best work she has done to date." Keaton received her second Academy Award nomination for the film.
Beatty cast Keaton after seeing her in Annie Hall, as he wanted to bring her natural nervousness and insecure attitude to the role. The production of Reds was delayed several times since its conception in 1977, and Keaton almost left the project when she believed it would never be produced. Filming finally began two years later. In a 2006 Vanity Fair story, Keaton described her role as "the everyman of that piece, as someone who wanted to be extraordinary but was probably more ordinary ... I knew what it felt like to be extremely insecure." Assistant director Simon Relph later stated that Louise Bryant was one of her most difficult roles, and that "(she) almost got broken."
In 1984, The Little Drummer Girl, Keaton's unsuccessful first excursion into the thriller and action genre. The Little Drummer Girl was both a financial and critical failure, with critics claiming that Keaton was miscast for the genre, such as one review from The New Republic claiming that "the title role, the pivotal role, is played by Diane Keaton, and around her the picture collapses in tatters. She is so feeble, so inappropriate." Two years later she starred with Jessica Lange and Sissy Spacek in Crimes of the Heart, adapted from Beth Henley's Pulitzer Prize-winning play into a moderately successful screen comedy. She starred in her first commercial vehicle with 1987's Baby Boom, her first of four collaborations with writer-producer Nancy Meyers. In Baby Boom Keaton starred as a Manhattan career woman who is suddenly forced to care for a toddler. That same year she made a cameo in Allen's film Radio Days as a nightclub singer. 1988's The Good Mother was a misstep for Keaton. The film was a financial disappointment (According to Keaton, the film was "a Big Failure. Like, BIG failure"), and some critics panned her performance, such was one review from The Washington Post: "her acting degenerates into hype - as if she's trying to sell an idea she can't fully believe in."
In 1987, Keaton directed and edited her first feature film, a documentary named Heaven about the possibility of an afterlife. Heaven met with mixed critical reaction, with The New York Times likening it to "a conceit imposed on its subjects." Over the next four years, Keaton went on to direct music videos for artists such as Belinda Carlisle, two television films starring Patricia Arquette, and episodes of the series China Beach and Twin Peaks.
By the 1990s, Keaton had established herself as one of the most popular and versatile actresses in Hollywood. Now middle-aged, she shifted to more mature roles, frequently playing matriarchs of middle-class families. Of her role choices and avoidance of becoming typecast, she said: "Most often a particular role does you some good and Bang! You have loads of offers, all of them for similar roles ... I have tried to break away from the usual roles and have tried my hand at several things."
She began the decade with The Lemon Sisters, a poorly received comedy/drama that she starred in and produced, which was shelved for a year after its completion. In 1991, Keaton starred with Steve Martin in the 1991 family comedy Father of the Bride. She was almost not cast in the film, as the commercial failure of The Good Mother had strained her relationship with Walt Disney Pictures, the studio of both films. Father of the Bride was Keaton's first major hit after four years of commercial disappointments.
Keaton reprised her role four years later in the sequel, as a woman who becomes pregnant in middle age at the same time as her daughter. A review of the film for the San Francisco Examiner was one of many in which Keaton once again received comparison to Katharine Hepburn: "No longer relying on that stuttering uncertainty that seeped into all her characterizations of the 1970s, she has somehow become Katharine Hepburn with a deep maternal instinct, that is, she is a fine and intelligent actress who doesn't need to be tough and edgy in order to prove her feminism."
Keaton reprised her role of Kay Adams in 1990s The Godfather, Part III. Set 21 years after the events of The Godfather, Part II, Keaton's part had evolved into the estranged ex-wife of Michael Corleone. Criticism of the film and Keaton again centered on her character's unimportance in the film. The Washington Post wrote: "Even though she is authoritative in the role, Keaton suffers tremendously from having no real function except to nag Michael for his past sins." In 1993 Keaton starred in Manhattan Murder Mystery, her first film with Woody Allen since 1979. Her part was intended for Mia Farrow, but Farrow dropped out of the project after her notorious separation from Allen.
In 1995, Keaton directed Unstrung Heroes, her first theatrically released narrative film. The movie, adapted from Franz Lidz's memoir, starred Nathan Watt as a boy in 1960s whose mother (Andie MacDowell) becomes ill with cancer. As her sickness advances and his inventor father (John Turturro) grows increasingly distant, the boy is sent to live with his two eccentric uncles (Maury Chaykin and Michael Richards). In a geographic switch, Keaton shifted the story's setting from the New York of Lidz's book to the Southern California of her own childhood. Though it played in a relatively limited release and made little impression at the box office, the film and its direction were well-received critically.
Keaton's most successful film of the decade was the 1996 comedy The First Wives Club. She starred with Goldie Hawn and Bette Midler as a trio of "first wives": middle-aged women who had been divorced by their husbands in favor of younger women. Keaton claimed that making the film "saved [her] life." The film was a major success grossing US$105 million at the North American box office, and even developed a cult following among middle-aged women. Reviews of the film were generally positive for Keaton and her co-stars, and she was even referred to by The San Francisco Chronicle as "probably [one of the] the best comic film actresses alive."
Also in 1996, Keaton starred as a woman with leukemia in Marvin's Room, an adaptation of the play by Scott McPherson. Meryl Streep played her estranged sister. Roger Ebert stated that "Streep and Keaton, in their different styles, find ways to make Lee and Bessie into much more than the expression of their problems." Keaton earned her third Academy Award nomination for the film. Although critically acclaimed, the film was not released on a wide scale, possibly costing Keaton the Oscar. Keaton said that the biggest challenge of the role was understanding the mentality of a person with terminal illness.
Keaton's first film of 2000 was Hanging Up with Meg Ryan and Lisa Kudrow. Keaton also directed the film, despite claiming in a 1996 interview that she would never direct herself in a film, saying "[as a director] you automatically have different goals. I can't think about directing when I'm acting." The film was a drama about three sisters coping with the senility and eventual death of their elderly father. Hanging Up rated poorly with critics, and grossed a modest US$36 million at the North American box office.
In 2001 Keaton co-starred with Warren Beatty once again in Town & Country, a critical and financial fiasco. Budgeted at an estimated US$90 million, the film opened to little notice and grossed only $7 million in its North American theatrical run. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone claimed that Town & Country was, "less deserving of a review than it is an obituary ... The corpse took with it the reputations of its starry cast, including Warren Beatty [and] Diane Keaton".
In 2001 and 2002 Keaton starred in four low-budget television films. She played a fanatical nun in the religious drama Sister Mary Explains It All, an impoverished mother in the drama On Thin Ice, and a bookkeeper in the mob comedy Plan B. In Crossed Over she played Beverly Lowry, a woman who forms an unusual friendship with the first and only woman executed while on death row in Texas, Karla Faye Tucker.
Keaton's first major hit since 1996 came in 2003's Something's Gotta Give, directed by Nancy Meyers and co-starring Jack Nicholson. Nicholson and Keaton, aged 66 and 57 respectively, were seen as bold casting choices for leads in a romantic comedy. Twentieth Century Fox, the film's original studio, reportedly declined to produce the film, fearing that the lead characters were too old to be bankable. Keaton commented about the situation in Ladies' Home Journal: "Let's face it, people my age and Jack's age are much deeper, much more soulful, because they've seen a lot of life. They have a great deal of passion and hope- why shouldn't they fall in love? Why shouldn't movies show that?" Keaton played a middle-aged playwright who falls in love with her daughter's much older boyfriend. The film was a major success at the box office, grossing US$125 million in North America. Roger Ebert wrote that "[Nicholson and Keaton] bring so much experience, knowledge and humor to their characters that the film works in ways the screenplay might not have even hoped for." The following year, Keaton received her fourth Academy Award nomination for her role in the film.
Most recently, Keaton starred in the moderately successful 2005 comedy The Family Stone with Sarah Jessica Parker. Her latest film, Because I Said So, co-starring Mandy Moore, opened on February 2, 2007 to poor reviews.
Keaton has also served as a producer on films and television series. She produced the FOX series Pasadena, which was cancelled after airing only four episodes in 2001 but later completed its run on cable in 2005. In 2003 she produced the Gus Van Sant drama Elephant, about a school shooting. On why she produced the film, she said: "It really makes me think about my responsibilities as an adult to try and understand what's going on with young people."
Outside of the film industry, Keaton has continued to pursue her interest in photography. As a collector, she told Vanity Fair in 1987: "I have amassed a huge library of images - kissing scenes from movies, pictures I like. Visual things are really key for me." She has published several more collections of her own photographs, and has also served as an editor for collections of vintage photography. Works she has edited in the last decade include a book of photographs by paparazzo Ron Galella, an anthology of reproductions of clown paintings, and a collection of photos of California's Spanish Colonial and Mission-style houses.
Keaton has also established herself as a real estate developer. She has resold several mansions in Southern California after renovating and redesigning them. One of her clients is Madonna, who purchased a US$6.5 million Beverly Hills mansion from Keaton in 2003. She will receive the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Gala Tribute in 2007.

“After that it got pretty late, and we both had to go, but it was great seeing Annie again. I... I realized what a terrific person she was, and... and how much fun it was just knowing her; and I... I, I thought of that old joke, y'know, the, this... this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, "Doc, uh, my brother's crazy; he thinks he's a chicken." And, uh, the doctor says, "Well, why don't you turn him in?" The guy says, "I would, but I need the eggs." Well, I guess that's pretty much now how I feel about relationships; y'know, they're totally irrational, and crazy, and absurd, and... but, uh, I guess we keep goin' through it because, uh, most of us... need the eggs.”
The film that bested Star Wars for the 1977 Best Picture Oscar, Annie Hall is a remarkable achievement in filmmaking that transcends its simple, romantic premise to create a stunning portrait of not only 70's pop culture, but of human nature cumulative. Directed and co-written by Woody Allen, who has since directed other gems such as Hannah and Her Sisters and The Purple Rose of Cairo, Annie Hall also stars Allen as Alvy Singer, a neurotic, death-obsessed comedian who seems unlucky in love and life. That is until he meets Annie, brilliantly played by Diane Keaton, who is beautiful, fashion-savvy, carefree (she likes using expressions like `la di da'), and a terrible driver.
Annie and Alvy's relationship is an unlikely one. She's a Midwestern girl, straight out of white-bread Wisconsin; he's a life-long New York Jew who grew up (literally) under the Coney Island roller coaster. He's been seeing a therapist for the past 15 years; she only `needs' one once she meets him. She's an extroverted aspiring singer; he's an introverted, world-despising imp. Yet Allen and Keaton are so perfect in their roles, they improbably make this couple one of the most memorable ever.
The plot revolves around Alvy's chronicles of loves lost and a retrospective on his relationship with Annie, with whom he has since parted ways. At the end of the film, we see Alvy try his hand at stage-writing - he writes a play about his relationship with Annie, but gives it a happy ending. Yes, Annie and Alvy don't have a fairy tale ending to their relationship, but Alvy certainly wishes they had, even though he learns to live with the acknowledgment it has failed.
The best part of Annie Hall is its incredible screenplay – one of the best ever to be written. Not a word is wasted nor a line unquotable. Except here, while Allen's early films had thrived on streams of one-liners, Allen doesn't go for cheap laughs - each line is simultaneously hilarious and poignant. Everything is part of a greater whole. We laugh because it's funny, but there's a greater dynamic at work in Annie Hall. This is a story not exclusively about a relationship between two people, but also a musing on 70's politics, drugs, East Coast/West Coast rivalry, narcissism, religion, celebrity, and several other topics with which Allen deals with extraordinary ease.
Yet Annie Hall would not be among my favorite films of all-time if it were just Woody Allen ranting and raving about what he likes and dislikes. There are other Allen films that serve that purpose. What separates Annie Hall is its grace, the believable chemistry between Keaton and Allen, the unique direction (ranging from split-screens to cartoon imagery to on-screen subtitles of what the actors are thinking), but mostly because it's the rare film to find a perfect balance between sheer entertainment, humor, and poignancy.When the dust had settled, Diane Keaton deservedly won an Academy Award for her performance, Allen took home Oscars for direction and writing, and the film beat out Star Wars for Best Picture, which most people consider a complete sham. Evidently, those people didn't see Annie Hall … 10/10