Annie Hall

When watching Annie Hall, not many things cinematographically stood out to me, but there was something that I thought was very interesting - the way Woody Allen filmed flashbacks. He didn't film them like they were filmed in Casablanca or Citizen Kane, where they were achieved through dissolve, but instead as if his older self was still in the scene, observing himself in younger years. I thought this filming technique was very innovative an extremely original even for 2014. Also, instead of just observing himself, he also had himself and the other characters with him at the time actually interact with the characters of the past.

For example, when he gets invited for the first time to Annie's house to have dinner with her family, there is a scene in which the screen splits into two halves and Annie's family interacts with Alvy's family. I thought this was incredibly interesting because the two families were not actually in the same room to actually talk, but they still had dialogue.

There are many scenes of this sort: for example when Alvy and Annie go to two separate psychiatrists, the split-screen method was used to show contrasts between the two. For example, Annie's room was completely white and everything in her setting was illuminated by light. We know that her psychiatrist is a woman, because we hear her voice, but we don't know what she looks like. Annie is sitting, wearing business-casual clothing, and talking about her problems. Alvy's room, on the other hand, was dark and gloomy. We actually see his psychiatrist, but he does not speak. This shows to us the complete polar opposites of Alvy's and Annie's crisis, although they are mutually experiencing not only difficulties in their relationship, but as revealed later, the discomfort they feel that they are paying for two very unhelpful psychiatrist sessions.

There are also other tidbits of this similar technique in other parts of the movie: when Alvy is in his childhood classroom as an adult but observes his classmates and himself as small children, and when Alvy witnesses a family gathering in the 1940s with his crazy "nickel" uncle are both examples of this.