Manhattan

Throughout this movie, I was thinking about how many relationships that were talked about or were forming in the movie. There seemed to be a lot more relationships in this movie than in the earlier comedy of remarriage films. Isaac talks about his first wife, who is currently a kindergarten teacher, and his second wife, Jill. He also mentions Jill's relationship with another woman and we see her later in the film. Yale and his wife are obviously in a relationship, but Yale also has another relationship with Mary and he mentions several other times that he cheated on his wife before Yale. Isaac is in a relationship with Tracy at the beginning of the film, and later in the film he is in a relationship with Mary. Tracy says that she has been in other affairs, even though she is only seventeen. Mary talks about Jeremiah, her first husband, and he has a small appearance in the film, who is none other than the man in The Princess Bride who is famously known for saying "Inconceivable!" It seems like so many relationships for one film.
I loved the music throughout the film. I thought Woody Allen carefully placed each George Gershwin song appropriately and they seem to connect with the scene and what actions the characters were doing at the time of the song. "Someone to Watch Over Me" is played as Isaac and Mary are walking through New York. "He Loves and She Loves" comes on when Isaac and Tracy are taking a carriage ride around the city. "Swonderful" and "Embraceable You" are also inserted in romantic scenes throughout the movie. "He Loves and She Loves" and "Rhapsody in Blue"are played twice in the film. I love when directors play a song in a movie more than once.
I found Isaac's morality fascinating. He says, "I think people should mate for life, like pigeons and Catholics". He could not understand why Yale had another relationship with Mary when he has a beautiful wife that he loves. I found his attitude refreshing because in many films today, people do not question others when they are cheating on their spouses or significant others. Yale even tells Isaac, "You think you're God". Isaac also says that the people laughing at the television show were raised on television and they automatically laugh at something that he did not consider funny. This statement reminded me of Benjamin. Isaac tells Tracy that her generation grew up on drugs and the Pill, and that his childhood was not like that. He seems to have a fascination with cancer also. At the beginning of the movie, he is smoking, even though Tracy informs the audience that he does not smoke, but he says he does not inhale because that causes cancer. He tells Willie that Frankfurter's causes cancer and he informs Mary that taking half of a valium will cause cancer, although he admits he has no research that proves that, it is just his opinion.
The child was also present in this film which was unique to the others we had been watching. Isaac tries to make his son more "masculine" or what our society tells us is masculine, by playing football with him and talking about women and that a woman was checking him out. Later in the film, Julie's girlfriend said that Willie is in a dance lesson and I can imagine that Isaac was not too thrilled about that.
Isaac says that "I can't express anger. That's one of the problems I have. I grow a tumor instead". The most angry viewers see him in this film is when he visits Yale when he is teaching and they argue around the dead skeletons about how they are both in love with Mary. And yet, Julie and her partner seem to think that he tried to run Julie's partner over and Isaac tells Julie, "I came here to strangle you". I think it is funny that he said and did these things but he says he cannot express anger.
I loved the line from Casablanca that Isaac tells Tracy, "You know we'll always have Paris". I think these characters will always have moments from all of the relationships they were in and that they will not be able to let them go.