Side By Side: Annie Hall & (500) Days of Summer

After posting a Side by Side comparison of Antonioni’s L’eclisse and Miranda July’s Me and You and Everyone We Know, I couldn’t resist starting a whole new category of posts around the idea.

The next pair of films I would like to compare is Woody Allen’s 1977 romantic comedy Annie Hall and Marc Webb’s 2009 indie rom-com (500) Days of Summer.  It’s a topic I talked about last year on my college’s radio station as part of the show Spectrum.  Anyone interested in listening can go to the Spectrum media archives and download the September 3rd episode.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say (500) Days of Summer is the modern-day Annie Hall.  It places similar themes about love and relationships into a more modern context, and utilizes similarly unconventional storytelling techniques.

First, in terms of mere plot, it’s hard not to recognize the similarities between Annie (Diane Keaton) and Summer (Zooey Deschanel), both of whom lend their names, at least in part, to the titles of their films.  It may be argued that they’re both representative of a stock character called the “Manic Pixie Dream Girl,” a term coined by critic Nathan Rabin and inspired by Kirsten Dunst in Elizabethtown (an underrated dramedy, I might add).  Since the term was coined, movie buffs have made lists of which female characters embody this concept, dating from screwball comedies all the way to recent releases.  A recent Cracked video even poked fun at a fictional institution named after Annie Hall which houses Manic Pixie Dream Girls.  The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is a free-spirited, often flighty, young woman who brings the main male character out of his shell and turns his world upside down.  Other than this obvious stock character similarity, Annie and Summer are both artsy girls who’ve moved to a big city from the midwest.  Both of them sing, Annie as a bar singer and Summer at a karaoke bar.

Despite the importance of the female characters, both films align the audience with the male protagonists.  Alvy (Woody Allen) and Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) are both rather neurotic men who find it impossible to go out with anyone else but the title women.  In both films, the friends and confidantes of the protagonists act as substitutes for the audience, allowing us to understand the hero’s feelings.

Still, a lot of movies feature Manic Pixie Dream Girls and quiet, neurotic men.  What makes (500) Days of Summer so closely related to Annie Hall is the film’s unconventional style of storytelling.  Both films are told in a nonlinear format.  We cut back and forth between time periods throughout the couples’ relationships.  It is evident from the start of both films that the couples are breaking up, and the stories then explain to us how they got to that point.  We get representations of the protagonists’ subjectivity, through fantasy sequences and split screens.  Both films feature some form of animation at one point or another.  Both films feature interviews with the protagonists’ family and friends.  In (500) Days of Summer these interviews are also reminiscent of When Harry Met Sally.  And don’t forget that we see the characters as kids in both movies.

There are two scenes, one from each film, which I think of as representing the unique, experimental style which connects the two films.  In Annie Hall, there is a scene in which Annie and Alvy are getting to know each other.  As they struggle to make themselves sound interesting, we see their thoughts appear as subtitles at the bottom of the screen.  It’s a smart, funny way of letting the audience know what the characters are really feeling.  A similar scene occurs in (500) Days of Summer.  After their breakup, Tom goes to Summer’s house for a party.  In a split screen scene, we see on one side Tom’s expectations of what will happen at the party, involving the pair talking alone for most of the time and eventually kissing.  On the other side of the screen we see the reality.  Summer ignores him for most of the party.  Such experimental techniques for revealing the characters’ subjectivity are what make these two films so closely related.  There’s also a notable split screen scene in Annie Hall which shows the difference between male and female perspectives on relationships.

Ultimately, both films convey similar themes about the end of a relationship.  As both films express, not all love lasts, but that doesn’t mean the experience wasn’t worthwhile.  Often it doesn’t make sense, but we partake in it anyway.

Anyone who loves (500) Days of Summer but who is unfamiliar with Annie Hall should check it out, and vice versa.  Both films are funny, unconventional takes on romance.

Fashion on Film: Annie Hall

Alvy: I love what you’re wearing.
Annie: You do? Well, uh, this tie was a present from Grammy Hall.

Alvy: Grammy Hall? What’d you do, grow up in a Norman Rockwell painting?

When Woody Allen’s Best Picture-winning Annie Hall hit theaters in 1977, Diane Keaton started a fashion revolution.  By wearing men’s ties and tomboyish vests and jackets, she inspired women to borrow from the boys.  Annie’s outfits are a interesting blend of masculine and feminine.  Her long hair falls over her shoulders as she sports baggy, boyish pieces mixed with softer scarves and blouses.  It’s kind of what J.Crew likes to do these days.  Have I mentioned that I love J.Crew?

If you want even more of an idea of how much Annie Hall influenced fashion (and how much she was influenced by it), check out the cool blog Tomboy Style, which I discovered yesterday and am now obsessed with.  It distracts me from studying at least once an hour.

Anyway, back to Annie.  Why is she so stylish?  Well, just look at her tennis outfit.  Crisp white shorts, collar popped.  If I were going to play tennis, I can assure you I would not look that put together and sporty-chic.

And what about her  high-waisted trousers or her vests?  And those sunglasses are so perfect.  They’re oversized but not too buglike.

And I love how she manages to mix in more feminine pieces, like scarves.  I’m a big fan of scarves, and Annie wears them well.

Above is one of my favorite outfits in the film.  I liked it so much, I recreated it using Polyvore (a really great site for the fashion-obsessed).  Check it out below, and click on the image to view the product information.

And it wouldn’t be a fashion-related post by me without a mention of horizontal stripes.  Behold the outfit below, which I’m pretty sure didn’t make it into the film.  It looks great, though.  There’s nothing better than a striped tee shirt.

Another thing that I love about Annie Hall is that Diane Keaton continued wearing these kinds of clothes in the years after the film came out, and she still dresses like it today.  Granted, it’s an updated look, but I respect the fact that she found a style she loved and stuck with it.  She’s a true fashion icon.