Background Check

Woody Allen can look back at a career spanning over four decades, where he has written, directed and starred in movies of various genres. However, he is best known for those movies that feature famous film cities like New York, Paris or Rome. This book explores how Allen has created an idiosyncratic type of comedy, where the city influences and shapes the narrative, thus perpetuating the decisive role of the metropolis since the birth of the medium film. After an introduction to the historical relationship between film and the city, as well as to the methods and tools used to analyse the city as a map of emotion and constructed memory for the viewer, these theories are illustrated in the second part of the book with examples from Allen¿s city films, such as 'Manhattan', 'Hannah and Her Sisters', 'Midnight in Paris' and 'To Rome with Love'.