Manhattan and "The Gaze"

Woody Allen’s “Manhattan” is a humorous black and white film that is about, Isaac, a 42 year old divorced man, who is dating, Tracy, a 17 year old high-school student. He learns that his ex-wife, who left him for another woman, is writing a book about their marriage and his best friend confesses that he is having an extra-marital affair with a woman that Isaac eventually gets involved with. From the very beginning of the film, Woody Allen, as Isaac, encourages the viewer to question everything from relationships, love, marriage and life while poking fun at religion.

 Throughout the film, Allen really uses analytic dialogue to push the plot forward. Using camera angles and close-up shots of the actor’s faces, the viewer is engaged in “active viewing” and participates in what feels like the “spectator’s gaze” with a partial “extra-diegetic gaze” from Isaac. Montages are used several times throughout the film to show changes in both Isaac’s growth and understanding as well as physical changes, like him moving to a smaller apartment after deciding to quit his job to pursue writing a book. In several scenes, music is used, in lieu of dialogue, to emphasize the growing tension between--and in--the emotional responses of the characters to each other.

Allen uses all the aforementioned elements to invite the viewer to take a deeper look at a few neurotic lives/confused individuals and question why people really do and say the things in relationships that they do. When he is discussing an issue with another character, though he does not “break the fourth wall,” the viewer senses that Allen, through Isaac, is really speaking directly to the viewer. In the beginning of the film he convinces himself that Tracy is much too young for him, only to conclude in the end the very possible theme of the movie: love really knows no bounds (age).