Episode 7: Café Society and Manhattan

Our discussion of these two Woody Allen films touches on Allen’s films touring around the world, female characters used as a trope to motivate the male characters, the laws of relationships in Allen’s films, bad use of voiceover, quantity producing quality, Allen’s storytelling style, the beautiful photography in both films, the complication of reading a film in a disconnected way from the director’s private life, our commitment as teachers to young people and how that impacts on our reading of the films, the different expectations of relationships from the 1970s to now, whether or not Allen’s characters are designed to be likeable, the manic-pixie-dream-girl trope, and the endings of both films. William Chen, Jeremy Downing, Max Tarrant and Sarah Watt discuss the films Café Society (2016) and Manhattan (1979).