It's one thing for the main character to break the fourth wall regularly. It's another thing when a complete stranger shows up and shatters it further at the same time!
@josephkelley8641: So did I. - until it came out that he had taken pornographic pictures of his stepdaughter. That totally turned me off from Woody Allen.
@tarstarkusz: In case you didn’t explore this. She was the step child of Mia Farrow who Woody Allen married. I’m pretty sure remembering Mia Farrow being horrified when finding the photos. - and Woody Allen ended up marrying his stepdaughter. - and they have been together ever since. Quite a long time.
I think Annie Hall got the most awards and made the most money of all his films. It was one of those bolts of lightning where he was maturing to making a bittersweet comedy, and the audience was totally ready for that kind of film.
This scene, not the famous opening scene, in my opinion is one of the best scenes in Annie Hall. What makes the humour so subtle is that Woody,in a way, is parodying himself. He complains that the other guy is screaming opinions in his ears, although he happens to be doing the same thing. remember how the two ladies, (with woody and the other guy) could barely say anything in the conversation, as both these men are continuously obsessed about their feelings. Later, when the two indulge in a conversation, it becomes about who is more familiar with the filmmaker's works, reflecting their sense of self-importance
Poxow - constantly talking about “high-brow stuff” with really abstract blowhard phrases, with a weird tone like they’re giving a public speech. I had a few friends like that in college, mostly they were actors and self-appointed “poets.”
@Picklejam08 Did you? Cool. Oh, well. At least you actually went and did it, then provided feedback. Most people would have just dismissed my recommendations out of hand. Kudos to you.
So glad my Rhetoric teacher mentioned this film in her lecture on McLuhan. Never heard of this before, but I could barely hold it together watching this scene. Absolutely hilarious.
At one point they talk about Federico Fellini and some of his films. Fellini himself was originally supposed to appear in this scene instead of McLuhan.
@@davidsheriff9274Yea I've wondered about that, and how it somehow made it into production without a re-take. It suggests it was somehow deliberate so that even McLuhan is wrong
I had a school teacher tell me he watched this clip and didn't find it funny. My reply was, "you know nothing of Woody Allen's work. you mean his whole comedy approach is wrong. How you got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing."
I was in the "business" long ago and screened this in three places. In NYC they chuckled. In Hollywood they laughed. In Denver they didn't get it. (but all three cities laughed at the cocaine scene)
For those interested, the actor playing the man in line is Russell Horton, you can enjoy his fine voice in several CBS Mystery Theater episodes, The Black Door is one of them.
Just priceless ! I have never ever forgotten this scene from the first time that I saw it. How many times in your life have you wanted to be able to do something just like THIS ?! HA !!!!
The professor leans on his credentials to win an argument. "How you got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing!" (Woody's words going through the artist, in his fantasy)
1:39 I like the lady right behind Woody, who manages to keep the most deadpan face the entire skit - with the one exception of the slightest "sigh" at 1:39 .. but that's as far as she goes off pan!
If only life could be so perfect as to arguing with a pseudo-intellectual, having them passionately defend their point, then instantly crush their argument with an perfect response to their disguised nonsense. If this movie was filmed today Woody Allen would “drop the mic” .
It is honestly super impressive that in a long single take they had the non-professional actor do the button at the very end. I wonder if they had to do this several times. You never know when a non pro will flub or have bad timing but this whole scene was just so smooth and built up beautifully
I had finally gotten to see 'Annie Hall' in a film class for a humanity grade- Family Guy interweaves everything that is hilarious, smart and otherwise amusing! LOL!
I had a guy doing this at a major league ballgame recently... and he knew nothing about the game. It was making me crazy and my reaction was annoying my niece next to me. But it is like nails on a blackboard.
I like how McLuhan is paraded out while trying to keep a straight face and delivered his lines in a tone so humble and unassuming, yet forceful at the same time.
Woody has been gracing us with his genius for decades and the cowards at Hachette should be ashamed of themselves but without a conscience that’s impossible.
Those same people had no issue publishing books by a war criminal and a guy once charged with sexual battery the previous year but as soon as their idol Ronan got upset they were all up in arms, embarrassing stuff all round
Well, in times of Twitter life is exactly like this. I had a discussion with some guys about covid and rapid testing and suddenly commendable epidemiologist Michael Mina joined in to support my point of view :-D
"What I wouldn't give for a large sock with horse manure in it..." The visual right there and then, if suddenly, Woody was holding such a sock, blinked toward the camera, and quickly released the sock... but I am no screen-writer - this scene is so delightfully relatable.
In my opinion, Woody was always at his best when he broke film conventions and toyed with postmodernist ideas (early comedies, Annie Hall, Zelig, Deconstructing Harry, etc). This scene destroyed the fourth wall like a ballbreaker.
Have seen it at least 50 times. First saw it in the theatre in 1977. Loved it then and to this day. I will continue to watch it as I grow older. It never gets old. Still as funny as ever.
fourth-wall breaks are the most obnoxious and over-used thing in modern media (though there's several contenders for that crown). but it works in this scene because the joke is that Woody Allen is such a neurotic narcissist that even though he's the writer, director and lead actor, and therefore constructed every aspect of this scene to be in his favor, he still needed to stop the movie and directly address the audience to make **sure** that they were on his side, even using his directorial powers to summon the subject of their argument to also side with him. this scene was the birth of meta-irony
I was 15 when I first saw this, when it it was new. It blew me away when he walks out and talks to the camera. It simply wasn't done then. Still catches me by surprise.
Despite this scene's brilliance, Mcluhan got his lines wrong didn't he ? 'You mean my whole fallacy is wrong'. Eh ? A fluff surely ? Surely he meant to say something like 'my whole theory is a fallacy'. (Of course Fellini himself was meant to appear and pulled out at the last minute, so Marshal was a replacement.) The actor playing the nuisance said this took at least 18 takes because of Mcluhan's inability to get it right - so possibly this was the nearest he got.
Allen is such a perfectionist. This scene is one continuous shot. If McLuhan couldn't get the line right, you'd think they'd film his15-second part at the end of the scene separately, so that they didn't have to keep repeating the 2 1/2 minutes leading into it. But no, this had to be one shot!
No, McLuhan would regularly throw out witticisms like "you mean my whole fallacy's wrong?". He would often makes remarks such as "I don't agree with everything I say" and "if you don't like those ideas, I've got others!". He had a very playful, Cheshire cat attitude towards his own thought and often implied he was deliberately exaggerating or making provocative claims to elicit thought from his hearers and readers that weren't strictly logical (from the perspective of the trivium, he favored grammar and rhetoric over dialectic). So this wasn't a flubbed line; it was a standard McLuhanism. ....oh, gosh, I sound just like the guy in line behind Allen, don't I? :-S
@@brettfawcett9391 LOL thanks for your interest ! Well, I suppose only Woody knows the truth, and to my knowledge he hasn't told it. I'm going to stick to my (admittedly weakened) guns, by saying that the point of the scene was to brutally destroy Mr Knowledgeable, and to do that and justify the glorious final line to camera word play from McLuhan wasn't comedically appropriate.....oh dear...... Perhaps my whole fallacy is wrong.
He preferred the word fallacy and this was a common phrase he used. He didn’t take criticism of his thinking very seriously. He told more than one skeptic, « you don’t like my ideas? I’ve got others! »
i used to practice aikido with a guy by the name of jason read, a teacher of philosophy at a small local college in maine. he could well be the real life version of the guy in this scene: pontificating on what he perceives to be his areas of expertise, commenting on culture, politics, and economics using a strange interpretation of the philosopher baruch spinoza, filtered and alchemized through the thought and works of marx, the frankfurt school, deleuze, althusser, and critical race theory, impervious to the reality that he may be completely wrong.
Interesting trivia - the know it all Columbia Professor in this scene - was one of the students in one of Rod Serling’s best Twilight Zone Episodes titled “The Changing of The Guard”.
Truly incredible film! One of the best scenes for sure! The family guy reference to this scene is also priceless where he brings out Jesus Christ when George Bush says he answers to higher power, def recommend it!
I was eating in a theater food court and heard two Hipsters analyzing a movie like that professor, only it was about a, DISNEY PIXAR movie. "Are you serious?!?"
Mate i've heard people analyze Marvel movies with the same amount of scrutiny and passion as the professor in this scene, talk about ridiculous!! It's a bunch of action figures bumping into each other for 2 hours!!
I was ushering in 1977 when this was released. It won Best Picture that year, as well as Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay and Best Director, so San Bernardino audiences had high expectations. Let me just speculate that these people didn't really grok New York culture. Some claimed that "it wasn't a real movie," and demanded refunds.
In Hungary, an actor named András Kern gave his voice for Woody Allen. Phenomenal, better than the original. When it was shown to Woody, he said significantly: This name Kern is not Hungarian either...
I believe Shakespeare was the first-or one of the earliest-to “break the fourth wall” in a sense with his “asides”, where the character would speak directly to the audience whilst probing his inner thoughts, motives, demons. Think of Hamlet commiserating and seeking sympathy from the audience “O, that this too too solid flesh would melt and thaw itself into a dew…!”
