Hannah and Her Sisters is my all-time Woody Allen favorite, a comedy with serio overtones which is a career summation work, bringing together all of his thematic concerns and visual devices into one cohesive feature.
But even if it’s not your personal favorite, you would have to agree that it is one of the very best films Woody Allen has directed An ensemble-driven, sipremely mounted feature, “Hannah and Her Sister” is an ambitious, intricate family saga, for which Allen won the Original Screenplay Oscar, “Hannah and Her Sisters,” is framed by two family holiday celebrations, from one Thanksgiving to the next one, during which we get to meet three disparate sisters, played by Mia Farrow, Barbara Hershey, and Dianne Wiest.
Woody Allen makes an invaluable contribution to the picture as an actor, playing Mickey, a TV producer, essentially a variation of his Jewish neurotic character, hypochondriac and fearful of deathexcept that here, for a change, there’s happy ending.
Formerly married to Mickey, the eldest sister, Hanna (Farrow), is married to Elliott (Michael Caine), a business manager for rock stars, who’s fooling around with her beautiful sisters Lee (Hershey), who’s living with Frederik (Max Von Sydow), an older, bitter SoHo artist.
The youngest of the trio is Holly (Wiest), an insecure woman and former drug-addict, who changes profession by the day, and resents the most her oldest, most respectable, “perfect” sister, who seems (but only seems) to have everything.
Unfortunately, “Hannah and Her Sisters,” a huge critical and commercial hit, the film signaled the end of the Allen’s position as the foremost American director, an era that began with the 1977 Oscar-winning “Annie Hall,” during which Allen was not only the most famous Jewish director but the most famous and most acclaimed American filmmaker.
Oscar Alert
Oscar Nominations: 7
Picture: produced by Robert Greenhut
Screenplay (Original): Woody Allen
Director: Woody Allen
Supporting Actor: Michael Caine
Supporting Actress: Dianne Wiest
Art Direction-Set Decoration: Stuart Wurtzel; Carol Joffe
Film Editing: Susan E. Morse
Oscar Awards: 3
Screenplay
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actress
Oscar Context
In 1986, Woody Allen’s serio-comedy “Hannah and Her Sisters,” competed for the Best Picture Oscar with the drama “Children of Lesser God,” Oliver Stone’s Vietnam combat film “Platoon,” which won, the dull historical epic “The Mission,” and Merchant-Ivory period adaptation “A Room With a View.”
The nominations caused a scandal when the helmer of “Children of a Lesser God,” Randa Haines, failed to receive a Best Director nod, probably because of the gender; similar discrimination occurs when both Penny Marshall and Barbra Streisand were snubbed by the Director Branch, despite the fact that their pictures, “Awakenings” and “The Prince of Tides,” respectively, did get Best Picture nominations.
Claire Simpson won the Editing Oscar for “Platoon,” and Gianni Quaranta, Brian Ackland-Snow, Brian Savegar, and Elio Altamura the Art Direction-Set Decoration award for “A Room With a View.”
Orion
(Jack Rollins and Charles H. Joffe Production)
