Wednesday 7 July 2010

Was that apartment in "Manhattan"?

Near the beginning of Woody Allen's new film, Whatever Works, in the scene when Boris talks to his first wife at 4am, the spiral staircase reminded me of the apartment in Manhattan (0:10:45-0:12:20) in which Isaac and Tracy (Woody Allen and Mariel Hemingway) have a long conversation about their relationship in an apartment which also features a spiral staircase.

The two scenes are shot very differently: Whatever Works has a moving camera with various different angles; Manhattan has a single, static long take in long-shot.

Did anyone else make this connection? I thought at first it might be the same apartment, but now I don't think it is.

Manhattan (1979)

Update: OK, so it's not the same staircase. Compare image below.

Whatever Works (2009)

1 comment:

  1. Very interesting. There's a scene in "Hannah" where he wakes up and thinks he's dying and walks down the stairs. Totally looks like the one in "Whatever Works." Was this Woody's real penthouse?

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