I’d seen this movie once before, but forgotten most of it by the time we watched it in class.
I was intrigued by the idea that Manhattan could be thought of as a “main character” in the movie–now, after watching it again, this idea made more sense to me. It’s not that Manhattan is a character that participates in dialogue (or is it?) but it definitely takes center stage in scenes where the main characters and their immediate surroundings are in silhouette, but the city is illuminated. This is even more striking given the fact that the entire movie is shot in black and white–it becomes all about contrast.
The black and white scenes coupled with George Gershwin’s music sets us up for a kind of nostalgia, which I think relates to the nostalgia Isaac feels for New York. The monologue at the beginning exemplifies this: Isaac struggles to write a novel with a main character as “tough and romantic as the city he loved … New York was his town.” The monologue is comical both to us and to Isaac, who throws away his drafts and starts over, because we realize no place can be quite as “romantic” as the New York he’s envisioning.
But yet Isaac still sees New York as the center of the universe. When he and Mary run out of the rain and into the planetarium, they are in shadow, set against a backdrop of space. In this scene, instead of the New York backdrop being highlighted, the entire moon is–which, as I see it, is symbolic for at least two things: One, the fact that the world revolves around New York in the mind of Isaac and Mary. Two, the fact that feelings of lust and love can become a person’s universe–their mate is the center of their world.
