| Hannah and Her Sisters | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Woody Allen |
| Written by | Woody Allen |
| Produced by | Robert Greenhut |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Carlo Di Palma |
| Edited by | Susan E. Morse |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Orion Pictures |
Release dates |
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Running time | 106 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $6.4 million |
| Box office | $40.1 million[1] |
Hannah and Her Sisters is a 1986 Americancomedy-drama film written and directed byWoody Allen. It tells the intertwined stories of an extended family over two years that begins and ends with a familyThanksgiving dinner. Allen also stars in the film, along withMia Farrow as Hannah,Michael Caine as her husband, andBarbara Hershey andDianne Wiest as her sisters. Alongside them, the film featuresCarrie Fisher,Lloyd Nolan,Maureen O'Sullivan,Max von Sydow,Daniel Stern,John Turturro,Lewis Black (debut), andJulie Kavner.
Hannah and Her Sisters was, for a long time, Allen's biggest box office success, with a North American gross of US$40 million. The film wonAcademy Awards forBest Original Screenplay (for Allen),Best Supporting Actor (for Caine), andBest Supporting Actress (for Wiest). It is often considered one of Allen's major works, with critics continuing to praise its writing and ensemble cast.
The story is told in three mainstory arcs, with most of it occurring during a 24-month period beginning and ending at Thanksgiving parties, held atThe Langham, hosted by Hannah, and her husband, Elliot. Hannah serves as the stalwart hub of the narrative; most of the events of the film connect to her.
Elliot becomes infatuated with one of Hannah's sisters, Lee, and eventually begins an affair with her. Elliot attributes his behavior to his discontent with his wife's self-sufficiency and resentment of her emotional strength. Lee has lived for five years with a reclusive artist, Frederick, who is much older. She finds her relationship with Frederick no longer intellectually or sexually stimulating, in spite of (or maybe because of) Frederick's professed interest in continuing to teach her. She leaves Frederick after admitting to having a dalliance with Elliot. For the remainder of the year between the first and second Thanksgiving gatherings, Elliot and Lee carry on their affair despite Elliot's inability to end his marriage to Hannah. Lee finally ends the affair during the second Thanksgiving, explaining that she is finished waiting for him to commit and that she has started dating someone else.
Hannah's ex-husband Mickey, a television writer, is present mostly in scenes outside of the primary story. Flashbacks reveal that his marriage to Hannah fell apart after they were unable to have children because of his infertility. However, they had twins who are not biologically his, before divorcing. He also went on a disastrous date with Hannah's sister Holly, when they were set up after the divorce. A hypochondriac, he goes to his doctor complaining of hearing loss, and is frightened by the possibility that it might be a brain tumor. When tests prove that he is perfectly healthy, he is initially overjoyed, but then despairs that his life is meaningless. Hisexistential crisis leads to unsatisfying experiments withreligious conversion toCatholicism and an interest inKrishna Consciousness. Ultimately, a suicide attempt leads him to find meaning in his life after unexpectedly viewing theMarx Brothers'Duck Soup in a movie theater. The revelation that life should be enjoyed, rather than understood, helps to prepare him for a second date with Holly, which this time blossoms into love.
Holly's story is the film's third main arc. A former cocaine addict, she is an unsuccessful actress who cannot settle on a career. After borrowing money from Hannah, she starts a catering business with April, a friend and fellow actress. Holly and April end up as rivals in auditions for parts in Broadway musicals, as well as for the affections of an architect, David. Holly abandons the catering business after the romance with David fails and decides to try her hand at writing. The career change forces her once again to borrow money from Hannah, a dependency that Holly resents. She writes a script inspired by Hannah and Elliot, which greatly upsets Hannah. It is suggested that much of the script involved personal details of Hannah and Elliot's marriage that had been conveyed to Holly through Lee (having been transmitted first from Elliot). Although this threatens to expose the affair between Elliot and Lee, Elliot soon disavows disclosing any such details. Holly sets aside her script, and instead writes a story inspired by her own life, which Mickey reads and admires greatly, vowing to help her get it produced and leading to their second date.
A minor arc in the film tells part of the story of Norma and Evan. They are the parents of Hannah and her two sisters, and still have acting careers of their own. Their own tumultuous marriage revolves around Norma's alcoholism and alleged affairs, but the long-term bond between them is evident in Evan's flirtatious anecdotes about Norma while playing piano at the Thanksgiving gatherings.
By the time of the film's third Thanksgiving, Lee has married a literature professor she met while taking random classes atColumbia University. Hannah and Elliot have reconciled their marriage. The film's final shot reveals that Holly is married to Mickey and that she is pregnant.
(in order of appearance)
| Tony Roberts | Norman, Mickey's former partner in writing sitcoms |
| Sam Waterston | David, the architect who points out to April and Holly his favorite buildings |
| Soon-Yi Previn | Thanksgiving guest |
Part of the film's structure and background is borrowed fromIngmar Bergman'sFanny and Alexander (1982). In both films, a large theatrical family gather for three successive years' celebrations (Thanksgiving in Allen's film, Christmas in Bergman's). The first of each gathering is in a time of contentment, the second in a time of trouble, and the third showing what happens after the resolution of the troubles. The sudden appearance of Mickey's reflection behind Holly's in the closing scene also parallels the apparition behind Alexander of the Bishop's ghost. Additional parallels can be found withLuchino Visconti's 1960 filmRocco and His Brothers, which, besides the connection to its name, also uses the structural device of dividing sections of the film for the different siblings' plot arcs.[2]
The film was originally about a man who fell in love with his wife's sister. Woody Allen then re-read the novelAnna Karenina "and I thought, it's interesting how this guy gets the various stories going, cutting from one story to another. I loved the idea of experimenting with that."[3]
He was particularly intrigued by the character of Nicholas Levin "who can't seem to find any meaning to life, he's terribly afraid of dying. It struck home very deeply. I thought it would be interesting to do one story about the relationship between three sisters and one story about someone else and his obsession with mortality."[3]
Allen admits the role of Hannah was based on Farrow being "a romanticized perception of Mia. She's very stable, she has eight children now, and she's able to run her career and have good relationships with her sister and her mother. I'm very impressed with those qualities, and I thought if she had two unstable sisters, it would be interesting."[3]
Allen says he was also inspired by the title. "I thought I'd like to make a film calledHannah and Her Sisters", he said, saying this prompted him to give Hannah two sisters.[3] He was interested in making something about the relationship between sisters which he felt was more complex than that between brothers. "Maybe that comes from childhood; my mother had seven sisters and their children were female so all I knew were aunts and female cousins."[3]
Shooting began in October of 1984 in New York City, with Mia Farrow's real-life apartment being used.
Mia Farrow later wrote that Allen had been intrigued about the subject of sisters for a long time. His earlier co-starsJanet Margolin andDiane Keaton both had two sisters each, and Farrow had three. She says Allen gave her an early copy ofHannah and Her Sisters saying she could play whatever sister she wanted, but that "he felt I should be Hannah, the more complex and enigmatic of the sisters ... whose stillness and internal strength he likened to the qualityAl Pacino projected inThe Godfather".[4]
Farrow wrote, "It was the first time I criticized one of his scripts. To me, the characters seemed self-indulgent and dissolute in predictable ways. The script was wordy but it said nothing." She claims "Woody didn't disagree and tried to switch over to" an alternative idea, "but preproduction was already in progress, and we had to proceed".[5]
She later elaborated:
It was my mother's stunned, chill reaction to the script that enabled me to see how he had taken many of the personal circumstances and themes of our lives, and, it seemed, had distorted them into cartoonish characterizations. At the same time he was my partner. I loved him. I could trust him with my life. And he was a writer: this is what writers do. All grist for the mill. Relatives have always grumbled. He had taken the ordinary stuff of our lives and lifted it into art. We were honored and outraged.[6]
Farrow admitted "a small sick feeling ... deep inside me" which "I shared with nobody was my fear thatHannah and Her Sisters had openly and clearly spelled out his feelings for my sister. But this was fiction, I told myself ... So I put those thoughts out of my mind."[6]
The film premiered at theUS Film Festival in Utah on January 25, 1986.[7]
The film was screened out of competition at the1986 Cannes Film Festival.[8]
Hannah and Her Sisters opened on February 7, 1986, in 54 theaters, where it grossed $1,265,826 ($23,441 per screen) in its opening weekend, the first time an Allen film had debuted in theaters in cities other than New York City.[9] When it expanded to 761 theaters on March 14, it garnered a respectable $2,707,966 ($3,809 per screen). It went on to gross $40,084,041 in the United States and Canada (including a re-release the following year), and remains one of the highest-grossing Woody Allen films.[10] Adjusted for inflation it falls behindAnnie Hall (1977) andManhattan (1979), and possibly also one or two of his early comedies.[11]Midnight in Paris (2011) surpassed its box office as well.
OnRotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 91% based on 56 reviews, with an average rating of 8.40/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "Smart, tender, and funny in equal measure,Hannah and Her Sisters is one of Woody Allen's finest films."[12] OnMetacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 90 out of 100, based on 12 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[13] The film received sevenAcademy Award nominations includingBest Picture. Allen received two Academy Award nominations, winning one forBest Screenplay, Original and he earned a nomination forBest Director. His work on the film was also recognized with twoBAFTA Awards.
CriticsSiskel and Ebert each rated the film among the top three of the1986 film year;Roger Ebert's 1986 review of the film called it "the best movie [Woody Allen] has ever made".[14][15] Three years later when the two critics discussed their lists of the 10 best films of the 1980s, Ebert, who had included no comedies on his list, stated that had he been required to include one, it would have beenHannah And Her Sisters.
Vincent Canby, ofThe New York Times, gave the film a highly favorable review, going as far as to say that it "sets new standards for Mr. Allen as well as for all American movie makers".[16][17]
A poll of 100 film critics namedHannah and Her Sisters the best film of the year, after it appeared on 71 individual top ten lists.[18]
In 2005, theWriters Guild of America, West named Allen's script the 95th best film screenplay ever written.[19]
In October 2013, the film was voted by readers ofThe Guardian as the fourth best film directed by Woody Allen.[20]
In 2014, Calum Marsh ofSlant Magazine namedHannah and Her Sisters as Allen's greatest film, praising its ensemble cast and Allen's "dense, heady script" for its "balancing act of conflicting desires and feelings".[21] It was also listed as Allen's finest work in a joint article byThe Daily Telegraph film criticsRobbie Collin and Tim Robey, who compared its structure with the works ofAnton Chekhov and lauded it as "perhaps the most perfectly assured braiding of comedy and drama in mainstream American film. It feels like the miraculous sweet spot between all of its filmmaker's many modes and tones – biting without being cruel, profound without seeming sanctimonious, warmly humane without collapsing into goo."[22] It was ranked third among Allen's films in a 2016 poll ofTime Out contributors, with editor Joshua Rothkopf singling out the character of Holly as "the kind of desperate, flailing Manhattanite that future director-writers would spin entire careers out of".[23]
Michael Caine andDianne Wiest wonAcademy Awards forBest Supporting Actor andBest Supporting Actress for their portrayals of Elliot and Holly, respectively.Hannah and Her Sisters was the last film to win in both supporting acting categories untilThe Fighter in 2011. The film was also nominated forBest Art Direction-Set Decoration andBest Film Editing.
Allen received the 1986 award forBest Director from the U.S.National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, Dianne Wiest wonBest Supporting Actress, and the film was nominated forBest Film.[24]
In France, the film was nominated for aCésar Award for Best Foreign Film.
In 1986,Mad magazine satirized the film as "Henna and Her Sickos" which was written by Debbee Ovitz with art byMort Drucker.
In 2016,Olivia Wilde directed a live table reading ofHannah and Her Sisters atThe New York Times' small and packed-outTimes Center theatre.[25] The cast included, Wilde as Hannah,Rose Byrne as Lee,Uma Thurman as Holly,Michael Sheen as Elliott,Bobby Cannavale as Mickey, andSalman Rushdie as Frederick withMaya Rudolph,Jason Sudeikis andJustin Long filling out the supporting parts.[26]Questlove served as the musical director who cued the musical selections ranging from jazz renditions of the Great American Songbook to Bach.[26]
Note: not all of these selections appear on the soundtrack issued byMCA Records.
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