Manhattan (1979) | |
Plot Synopsis (continued) To the tune of Gershwin's "S'Wonderful," Mary and Isaac spent an idyllic afternoon in the country, walking across an old stone bridge with a waterfall. In bed and relaxing together in a country inn after having sex, she was pleasantly feeling better about herself, although Ike wondered if she was overacting: "Yeah, you were dynamite. Except I did get the feeling that, for about two seconds in there, you were faking a little bit - not a lot." She denied it, but then said: "I guess I'm a little nervous around you still." He confidently assured her - giving credence to accusations that he had an overblown sense of self:
She looked back and compared Isaac to her two previous male relationships:
When they hit the lights again for another bout of sex, Isaac exclaimed: "We'll trade fours." [Note: The musical expression, applied to the sex act, referred to soloists alternating or trading off by each taking four bars or measures of music.] There was a montage of their growing romantic relationship (to the tune of "Embraceable You"):
Later on Cranberry Street and Columbia Heights (in Brooklyn), Emily asked why Isaac had become so unavailable. He claimed he was "submerged, dedicated" to his new book venture, but she knew it was because he had a "serious" new dating partner that she wanted to meet. They watched as Yale, after dumping Mary and as part of his mid-life crisis, had experienced a "sudden urge" to bargain and buy himself an impractical Porsche - a fitting symbol for his shallow and continual self-gratification. Isaac advised against the purchase or use of any cars in Manhattan: "They should ban all cars from Manhattan...it screws up the environment." Yale thought otherwise: "It's a work of art." During an awkward double-date, the foursome attended a concert together. They were pictured in profile from left to right (Isaac, Mary, Yale and Emily), lined up in one row of seats during the playing of Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G Minor. As the modulations of the symphony progressed and shifted, Isaac also fidgeted restlessly and uncomfortably in his seat while glancing over to notice Mary's juxtaposition next to Yale. Walking along a sidewalk across from a construction zone where an older building was being demolished, Isaac and Mary were dismayed that one of the older city landmarks was almost destroyed ("The city's really changing"). Inside a trendy men's clothing store where Isaac was searching for a shirt, they ran into Mary's ex-teacher and ex-husband Jeremiah (Wallace Shawn) - contrary to Mary's description of him as an oversexed dynamo, he was short, chubby and balding, although he claimed he had lost weight. He was in town for only a few days, to attend a symposium on semantics. After a few brief words between them, Jeremiah departed - Isaac was shocked by his first glimpse of the puny man whom Mary had said was so dominating as a husband that she had to leave him:
One night in Isaac's apartment, he was in his bedroom writing long-hand on a pad, while Mary was in the living room typing a novelization of a movie - something he considered "another contemporary American phenomenon that's truly moronic." He criticized her for compromising her values and for wasting her writing talent ("You're much too brilliant for that. You know, you should be doing other stuff...like fiction"), but she said the work was "easy and it pays well." She was interrupted by a furtive phone call from Yale talking in a phone booth (on Park Avenue at East 68th Street), who invited her to join him for coffee ("I miss you and I thought maybe we could talk"), but Mary declined and hung up. When Ike asked who called, she claimed it was an offer for free dance lessons, and he quipped about being wary of free offers: "They give you one free lesson, and then they hook you for fifty thousand dollars' worth." Later, in Yale and Emily's apartment, Isaac told Emily that Viking publishers had responded favorably to the first four chapters of his book, with amusement and with compliments. Emily mentioned that Isaac's work might inspire Yale to finish his Eugene O'Neill biography. Isaac recalled that when Mary read his work, "she was just laughing out loud." They were interrupted by Yale's arrival, who was supposed to be home an hour earlier. He explained that he bought the unnecessary Porsche ("a meaningless extravagance") with the funds he might have used to start a magazine. In the next week, the four of them were crammed into Yale's new Porsche convertible, driving across the Queensboro Bridge. During an outing of the foursome to an antique store in Englewood Cliffs, across the Hudson River in New Jersey, Isaac spotted Jill's tell-all book prominently on display in a bookstore window (to the tune of "Oh, Lady Be Good") -- with the title Marriage, Divorce, and Selfhood, and his ex-wife Jill's full picture on the back cover. At the empty Englewood Cliffs' waterfront pier (the Alpine Boat Basin), the group walked into the frame, as Yale and Emily read various embarrassing excerpts outloud from the book, to Isaac's dismay, humiliation and consternation, while the others were thoroughly amused and entertained:
As the sequence was ending, three of the four walked off-frame, leaving Isaac physically (and existentially) alone on the pier. The scene ended with Isaac's exit and another shot of the empty pier. Shortly later, Ike entered Jill's apartment and vehemently complained about the "garbage" in the offensive memoirs: "I came here to strangle you...That book makes me out to be like Lee Harvey Oswald!" He said it was unfair to call him narcissistic, self-obsessed, misanthropic, and self-righteous, but Jill counter-claimed that nothing written was untrue ("It's an honest account of our marriage"). She told him that she wrote at least one nice thing about him: "You cry when you see Gone With the Wind." When Isaac overheard that Willie was taking ballet classes, he grimaced (he was forever fearful that Willie might not become heterosexual under the tutelage of the two lesbians). And then Jill also warned him: "I've had some interest in this book for a movie sale." When he arrived home to his apartment, he paused at his door - well-fortified with three locks and a security bar. He began to tell Mary about his "unbelievable" encounter with Jill regarding her hostile book, when she suddenly delivered a bombshell - with complete and direct openness: "I think I'm still in love with Yale....I started seeing him again....I think I've always been in love with him...he wants to move out of his place so that we can live together." She added that Yale had called her several times in a very "depressed and confused state," still confessing his love for her. Isaac was shocked, surprised, and stunned ("I'm too stunned to be furious"), without getting angry. And it was predictable that Mary's "unorthodox" and screwed-up therapist Donny had been of no use and was unavailable to help:
Isaac vainly attempted to convince Mary to change her mind: "I think you're making a big mistake here...because you're preferring Yale to me. I know that sounds egotistical, but...This guy's been married for twelve years to Emily. What'd you think's gonna happen? He'll be away from her for a month, he'll go crazy. And if he does commit to you, and you start to feel secure, you'll drop him. I know it. I give the whole thing four weeks, that's it.... I knew you were crazy when we started going out." Unbelievably, Mary said she had no foresight and couldn't even imagine four weeks in advance. Isaac departed and determinedly and promptly marched down a sidewalk into the university building where Yale was in the midst of teaching a class, to ask about the sudden betrayal. In a significant scene between them set in an across-the-hall, empty anthropology classroom (with "ANTHROPOLOGY CLUB" written on the blackboard), Yale stood before a wooden case of disembodied human skulls (a symbol of dead and disconnected cerebral rationalization), while around Isaac were four hanging displays of grinning, full-scale 5'4" ape-man skeletons. Isaac angrily chided and questioned his friend's "crazy" actions for choosing to be with an emotionally-immature female:
Almost like two children, they argued over who liked Mary first! Isaac was incredulous ("What are you, six years old?! Jesus"). He was livid with "sarcastic" anger over Yale's complete ambivalence, for stealing her away behind his back, and for undermining their friendship:
When the philandering Yale admitted he wasn't a "saint" and obviously wasn't "perfect," Isaac (who believed in striving for moral perfection and ideals rather than lowering himself to cultural norms and relativism) ripped into Yale's dishonesty, human weakness, self-serving hedonistic attitude, indulgence in unfaithfulness, and lack of personal integrity. He was especially miffed that Yale would not apologize for jeopardizing their friendship, and then refused to make any attempt to change his behavior. Yale took the offensive and complained that Isaac was acting too "self-righteous" and god-like. In the end, Isaac made references to death universally taking everyone someday:
A montage showed later developments:
In the film's ending, while sprawled across his sofa, Isaac was dictating his idea for a short story into a cassette tape recorder. He was describing one of the main themes of the film - his belief that involvement with unnecessary neuroses kept people from avoiding dealing with more serious universal problems. He then forced himself to recollect all the things that made life for him worth living, to the tune of "He Loves and She Loves":
Isaac's wide-ranging eclectic list of admired things included:
Impulsively, he sat up, and went over to a cabinet drawer and retrieved the present given to him by Tracy - the harmonica - a reminder of his lost love. After staring at it for a few moments, he decided to call Tracy on the phone, but then hesitated. He picked up the phone a second time and dialed her number, but was unable to reach her because of a busy signal. He grabbed his jacket, raced from his apartment and vainly searched for a vacant cab, to the marching tune of "Strike Up the Band."
During a long and desperate sprint downtown - seen with a side tracking shot (beginning on Second Avenue at East 44th Street, and running past Stuyvesant Square Park) to Tracy's apartment, he became winded. He made a second attempt to call from a phone booth, but the number was still busy. He finally arrived at the outer door to Tracy's apartment lobby, where an airport limousine was parked behind him on the curb. [Note: The soundtrack segued to "They're Writing Songs of Love, But Not For Me."] Through the outer door windows, he watched from his remote position as she handed her luggage to the chauffeur. He entered and confronted her next to the apartment's elevators. When he learned that she was leaving for a scheduled 6-month trip to London for theatrical studies, he abruptly stated: "I don't think you oughta go. I think I made a big mistake. And I would prefer it if you didn't go." When he demanded that she stay, and reaffirmed his love: "Do you still love me or has that worn off or what?", she scoffed and reminded him: "You pop up, you don't call me and then you suddenly appear. I mean, what happened to that woman you met?" Sheepishly, he answered: "I don't see her anymore.... I made a mistake. What do you want me to say? (Pausing) I don't think you oughta go to London." [Note: Unlike Yale who couldn't admit his duplicity and wrong-doing in the Anthropology classroom scene, Isaac apologized and confessed and acknowledged that he had made a mistake in leaving her for Mary.] She described how all her plans and arrangements couldn't be changed - there was a single reference in the whole film to her absent parents, who were said to be in London finding her an apartment. She also reminded him that a few days earlier, she had turned 18, and then chuckled: "I'm legal, but I'm still a kid." And then she admitted: "You really hurt me." As Isaac struggled to explain: "Uh, it was not on purpose, you know. I mean, I-I, uh, you know, I was, yeah, I mean, you know, it was just the way I was looking at things then," she announced her 6-month commitment to be in London:
The resonating film ended with a quizzical look and wistful, sheepish smile on Isaac's face as he stared at Tracy. She appeared to have finally convinced him to have hope and faith, and trust his own emotional instincts about people, rather than always relying on his very verbal, intellectual capabilities. He knew that her wise and deep words were right on target. He became reconciled to her departure - but also maintained some slim hope that she might possibly rekindle their relationship in six months because of their renewed trust in each other. It was equally likely, however, that she would have "attachments form" and come back "corrupted" - a very different person.
The Rhapsody in Blue musical theme was reprised once more, with a smash-cut to a view of the silhouetted Manhattan skyline at sunset (on the Upper West Side with apartment buildings next to Central Park). And, finally, there was a distant nighttime view of buildings flanked by the lighted towers of the George Washington Bridge, before a cut to the start of the end credits (white text on black). |