If Annie Hall and Alvy Singer were followed two years after the end of their relationship that was documented in the film bearing her name, their lives would very closely resemble those of Isaac (Allen) and Mary (Keaton), two of the featured characters in Manhattan. Like Isaac, Alvy would have become even more cerebral, neurotic and convinced of his inferiority through his observations of others actions spinning away from him like the words of some sordid and comical novella. Like Annie, Mary would have become more confident, knowledgeable and opinionated yet somehow still subordinated under the weight of more powerful men as demonstrated in her on again, off again relationship with Isaac's married friend Yale (Michael Murphy).

Taking its theme from the idea of a city symphony, Manhattan is a lullaby to the eponymous city Isaac loves as the TV writer-turned-novelist through whose eyes we know the film's world. In it we meet the characters of Isaac's life including Yale and his wife Emily (Anne Byrne), Isaac's 17-year old high school student girlfriend, Tracy (Mariel Hemingway) and his ex-wife-turned-lesbian-memoirist Jill (Meryl Streep).

Told in linear fashion after a breathtakingly beautiful credit sequence of Manhattanite images intercut to Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue", the movie opens to a double date with Isaac and Tracy hosting Yale and Emily for dinner and drinks. After the meal Yale confesses his secret adultery with Mary to Isaac who then happens to meet her a few days later while museum trolling.

Immediately smitten, Isaac begins sabotaging his relationship with Tracy while simultaneously quitting his job as a TV writer to concentrate on writing his first novel. Increasingly he becomes attracted to Mary until Yale breaks off their romance thereby opening the door for Isaac to become her lover.

Meanwhile Jill is offered a publishing deal to write a tell-all book about her adulthood outing and marriage to Isaac that has him all in a dither about what might be exposed for public consumption. He's troubled by her candor but he's also troubled by the way Yale and Mary continue to have a deep hold on one another that he can't seem to overtake.

Breaking up with Tracy to concentrate on Mary, Isaac is burned when Yale leaves Emily to resume his affair with her as well. He's hurt and angry with his old friend sweeping away his new flame but he finally feels rejuvenated when remembering Tracy's innocent beauty only to find her but mere moments from leaving the country to study abroad. As Yale and Mary begin anew, Tracy looks forward to early adulthood and Jill's book turns into a publishing phenomenon leaving Emily and Isaac to remain alone.

While Isaac's reluctant maturation gives him greater clarity he finds no comfort because the one thing he's always craving in companionship is denied him just when he finally seems ready to accept romantic responsibility. He's smitten but unfulfilled, excited but well contained, happy yet somehow left behind the changing tides of relationships being built or crumbling all around him.

Even so, Isaac's journey is a commitment to Manhattan through glimpses of the cityscape in traveling shots of cars rolling along highways, characters walking down sidewalks and static shots captured through windows giving a sense of wild spaces in the midst of urban containment and order. The film is a travelogue of New York City's most well known borough complete with a compelling, character-driven drama and plenty of good jokes. Making itself a gem at 96 minutes running time nothing in its duration requires omission or a look askance because of overlong misfires or mistakes.

Though Annie Hall was Allen's breakthrough film as far as Academy voters and the movie going public were concerned, Manhattan is his very best work up through the broadening of his palette and the increasing number of his hits and misses from the '80s onwards. It's a terribly funny movie with a never ending banter of conversation and jokes that occasionally tip the scales of self-immolation dangerously in the direction of unseemly confession making Allen seem like both the film's prime mover but also its embarrassingly personal subject.

The argument about how all Woody Allen movies are about Woody Allen would do well to focus several dissertations on Manhattan standing all by itself as the test case. In its length one finds familiar Allen motifs like a fascination with sexual performance, an antipathy towards arbitrary intellectual authority, a celebration of the body, an ambivalence mixed with pride on the subject of Jewish ethnicity, fear of powerful womanhood, a pederast's fascination with youthful women and the setting of New York City as the locus of anything and everything important. His world is hermetically sealed with chance encounters, his likes and dislikes and the culturally important artifacts that play supporting roles in his career like aspects of an authorial stamp.

Because Allen is a New York-based filmmaker, clarinetist and writer, his movies involve the city he calls home and are defined by it to a far greater degree than most any other filmmaker in memory. It's not so much that he's incapable of filming outside his preferred circumstances so much as he seems disproportionately attached to the looming possibilities of his home in a way that limits the appeal of his work while also sharpening its focus.

Likely this edge that both marginalizes his films and occasionally makes them excellent stem from his being unconcerned with the largest possible mainstream audience. Perhaps it's also the result of Allen's artistic arrogance in producing work for only a limited sliver of hardcore fans that will support virtually anything he offers them. It might also be that his films, aside from being his annual projects as writer, director and star to keep himself busy and build up his personal fortune, may also be the therapeutic method he most easily pursues as an eccentric, talented and trouble-ridden man.

By now it's widely known how Allen and ex-wife Mia Farrow conceived natural children while also expanding their family through the unselfish practice of adoption. It must also be widely known that Allen left Farrow in the early '90s for one of his adopted children, Soon Yi Previn, then a painfully young adult, which only gives the romance between Isaac and Tracy an eerie prescience into the filmmaker's future libidinal proclivities.

Of course it's no consolation to his domestic partners and extended family members but his interests, fascinations and personal ticks have long been put on display in the rich body of work he's left behind for us to enjoy. Although this kind of interpretation through the lens of a moviemaker's filmography can lend itself to false impressions or outright lies at the extreme, sometimes it lends itself to a greater understanding of the filmmaker's intent. Maybe it even proves how the act of creation can itself be a kind of healing process like performance therapy.

All this may be overstating the case about Woody Allen and his corpus of films and TV specials but Manhattan is undeniably one of the great American movies. Its technical accomplishments and high level of craftsmanship is beyond dispute and begins with its lack of original music in exchange for the liberal use of Gershwin standards to enliven on-screen events and give them new meaning. Gordon Willis's black and white cinematography in the widescreen aspect ration further contributes to setting and gives the actors ample space within which to yield their stories.

Plus there are the charms of history's artifacts peppered throughout the film to be noticed by the discerning eye. Little details like the taxicabs we glimpse circa 1979 or references to then-dominant politicians and public figures, the use of rotary phones and answering services, the existence of now bulldozed movie theaters and restaurants and the view of Manhattan before the 1980s and '90s saw it recover from the severe economic troubles of the mid '70s.

From the standpoint of the Oscars 1979 was the year of Kramer vs. Kramer, also starring Meryl Streep, which ran against All That Jazz, Apocalypse Now, Breaking Away and Norma Rae for top honors. For my sense of revisionism Manhattan was an easy candidate to fill this list of movies of the year but it's also my suspicion that Academy voters were beginning to tire of Allen's outsider sensibility. His disinterest in attending their annual awards showcase, even to pick up his earlier wins for Annie Hall, didn't go noticed and still his work set the nomination process ablaze with distinction for his writing and Hemingway's precocious performance.

Academy voters were beyond the charms of being impressed with Allen's considerable wit that had already seen him win writing nominations for Annie Hall, Interiors and Manhattan, with a win for Annie Hall, alongside two directing nominations for Annie Hall and Interiors, with another win for Annie Hall, and one acting nomination for Annie Hall. Despite his reserve and New Yorker's sensibility the man who began the '70s as an outsider ended the decade as part of the Hollywood establishment as firmly fixed as Billy Wilder to whose accomplishments Allen's work bears a striking resemblance.

By singling out Manhattan as his best film of the '70s, perhaps of all time, I mean to protect and affirm three things at once. First, the picture's black and white glimpses of Manhattan in 1979 are an historically important record worth repeat viewing simply for recording the period's material reality. Second, the film itself making these glimpses is a treasure of screen entertainment. Third, the melancholic comedy of Isaac's universe is memorable precisely because its characters and situations remain legendary in their everyday frailty yet obviously human when considering their sincere struggle to find happiness.

Manhattan's lessons may not be quite universal but they're certainly far from trivial or unimportant.