Nick Naber - Final Project

In viewing both Annie Hall and Coming Home a person cannot help but notice the many themes running through the individual films. The nineteen seventies was a time of great change for America. The country was dealing with the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, illicit drug use, and waves of protest for feminism and other human right groups. These events made a huge impact on the art scene especially in film. We get movies such as Apocalypse Now and All the Presidents Men who specifically deal with Vietnam and Watergate. We also get films like Straw Dogs and Easy Rider that deal with the issues of the seventies in a more abstract way. Annie Hall and Coming Home deal specifically with feminism and Vietnam, and through drawings I hope to convey those meanings.

Coming Home deals specifically with Jane Fonda’s character Sally Hyde and Jon Voight’s character Luke Martin and the relationship that they have. Sally’s husband Bob Hyde is in Vietnam and Sally has an affair with Luke after working in the VA Hospital. As she is working in the VA she realizes that the vets are not being treated as they should be and becomes an advocate for the vets rights. As this happens she also becomes less and less of a homemaker and more of her own woman. She stops wearing a bra she also stops straightening her hair. For the rest of the film she has become a activist as well as a feminist. As in the drawing for this I show Sally on the upper left and an interpretation of a feminist protest. The protest could be for equality in the workplace, for affirmative action excreta. The theme of feminism is quite apparent in the film. As we have discussed in class there is a rise in feminism in the nineteen seventies and it is shown in many films. Sally does a total change in the way she thinks dresses and acts after meeting Luke and becoming more informed about Vietnam and the world around her. I chose the image of Sally standing alone with her hair uncombed and her not wearing a bra to show how she has changed as a person. It also represents a change in the conscience of Americans toward women, and even the war. I have paired that with a protest scene of women fighting for equality because this is what Sally is doing. Protesting in the seventies was something commonplace, and people did it to get their point across. The second suite of drawings is of Sally’s husband Bob and her at a bar. She goes to see him while he’s is on leave. She asks him what is Vietnam like, and he replies with “there is no what it is like, but what it is.” He is upset with her for prodding him about the war. Bob has changed too since he went to fight in the war. The second drawing in the suite depicts a bombing on a path through the jungle and people being killed and injured. This kind of guerilla warfare had huge impact on vets who came back maimed, with posttraumatic stress or even in body bags. Bob surely has seen this sort of thing and is forever a changed man because of it. Vietnam was an overriding factor in film and in the arts of the seventies as we have discussed numerous times in class. Quite a few films reference Vietnam, and many actually depict it like Coming Home and Apocalypse Now. The choice to show a graphic scene like this helps the viewer of my work to understand the great heartache and violence war causes and the many victims that it has. The drawing also helps contextualize for the viewer a “what war is, and not what it is like.”

Annie Hall deals with feminism and the roles of men and women in relationships. Annie, played by Diane Keaton, is a modern feminist woman and Alvy Singer, played by Woody Allen, is a neurotic mess and is quite needy. The fist suite of drawings shows Annie and Alvy waiting in line at a movie theater.

Alvy starts to discuss their sex life and Annie gets quite upset with him because she missed her therapy session. She says that all he can think about is how it affects him. Sex is a big theme in the seventies; many films depict sex in the seventies that could not have happened before then in Old Hollywood films. The second drawing in the first suite depicts a woman with her hand up to signify that she’s not going to sleep with anyone.

This shows women’s power and their right to say no to sex. Annie does this to Alvy and it drives him crazy. I picked this scene from the film because it is a reoccurring element throughout the film. Alvy only wants sex while the female characters are striving for something else that has nothing to do with sex. The second suite of drawings shows Annie and Alvy outside her apartment, he compliments her on her tie and she says it’s a gift from her grandmother.

Her clothing in this scene is quite masculine as is her wardrobe in many other scenes. This scene got me thinking about women in the workplace and the rise of their rights there in. The second drawing depicts a woman in a pants suit in and office with her desk and nametag and her bosses door.

Her boss is not a man but a woman. Women in the seventies began to gain a larger role in American corporations and began to demand equality in the workplace. I am trying to signify a change in corporate America where women are starting to take the lead and starting to run businesses. This is something that gets its beginnings in the seventies and was a major step forward for equality of women in the workplace.

Through my drawings of Annie Hall and Coming Home I hoped to explain bigger issues of the films. Both films deal with major issues of the nineteen seventies. They mutually deal with women and the roles they played in the seventies. Annie Hall is a woman who is strong and independent and symbolizes the woman of the seventies. Annie is a symbol for the new modern woman self sufficient and self-reliant. Sally starts out as a housewife who does not know the horrors of war and she turns into an activist on behalf of vets, she also becomes a modern woman who thinks for herself. Vietnam is what Coming Home centers around. The war has a huge impact on every character in the film. By depicting a possible scene from the war in my drawings it tries to covey the horror of war and its many impacts. The seventies were a time of great turbulence and change and this is illustrated to us through the art and film of the period.

Works Consulted

Annie Hall. Dir. Woody Allen. DVD. MGM/UA Home Entertainment, 2000.

Coming Home. Dir. Hal Ashby. VHS. MGM/UA Home Entertainment, 1997.

Cook, David A. Lost Illusions: American Cinema in the Shadow of Watergate and Vietnam 1970-1979. New York: C. Scribner, 2000.

Schreiber, Michele. “Film 301: Conversations with Filmmakers and Critics.” University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Milwaukee. Fall 2007.