How is the influence of psychoanalysis found in the construction of characters and the plot in annie hall’s script?

Woody Allen is a name everyone is familiar with, and at the same time, none of them agree with where they have heard it from. Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1935, Allen has managed to reach all kinds of audiences with his multifaceted proposal. Musician, writer, comedian, and actor are some of the roles that Allen has played in real life, and somehow, managed to combine and successfully incorporate into his movies.

If we had to make his versatility disappear and focus on the greatest of his work, we would surely talk about one of his films, Annie Hall. With a filmography of 50 films and a career of more than 60 years, Annie Hall has won space in a lot of people’s minds as maybe one of the best films Woody Allen has ever made. In this film, Woody Allen covers love and the failure of relationships based on his real-life experience of always being faithful to his true self, where jazz music is Annie’s job, situations are sometimes exaggerated to get the laugh and the influence of psychoanalytic techniques are present in the script from beginning to end, for the New York Times “Allen at his best” (New York Times, 1977).

This investigation focuses on psychoanalytical techniques and their influence on the making of characters and the plot in one of Woody Allen's scripts. To answer the question: How is the influence of psychoanalysis found in the construction of characters and the plot in Annie Hall’s script? we will rely on Freud's papers to understand psychoanalysis as a concept and some other articles and books to talk about the literary decisions taken by the author that can, in one way or 5 another, be related to a psychoanalytic aspect. The analysis of the script will be based on pure individual interpretation, although considering the impact of psychoanalysis behind the making of the characters and the plot in Annie Hall.

Psychoanalysis is an instinctive current developed by Freud in the 1890s. Instinctive because it was based on human behavior. The basis of his discoveries together with pages of case studies and his notes were all published to give voice and importance to a part of the brain that was deliberately avoided, the unconscious. Psychoanalysis, as we know it today, was built from years of investigation and observation. However, what few people know, is that the merit of psychoanalysis, although given to him, could not have been received without another doctor. As Freud candidly states in The Origins and Development of Psychoanalysis, "granted that it is a merit to have created psychoanalysis, it is not my merit" (Freud, 1910).

A case of hysteria studied by Dr. Breuer was the trigger for years of research. The girl without any apparent reason suffered from severe thirst and was afraid of drinking water. One of the first diagnoses was hydrophobia, but a hypnosis session dismissed this theory. During the talk, she talked about her English governess, who she disliked pretty much, and finally told, how she had gone into the room of the governess and how that woman’s dog, who she hated, was drinking water from a water cup on the floor. That experience developed a “trauma” in the girl's mind, which was later named “psychic traumata”, which symptoms “originated in this way and could 6 be removed by the same method” (Freud, 1910). From this moment on, Freud incorporated hypnosis and Dr. Breuer's techniques in his practices, the doctors’ experiences coincided with his own and he came to the idea of psychoanalysis, that people could be cured by making their unconscious conscious, to release what was repressed and make it readable (Freud, 1910).
 

Many critics have praised the work of Woody Allen, they have seen the potential of the film, the depth of the script, and the unseen Woody Allen who moves beyond humor and focuses on other topics. They have noted the potential of a winning Oscar film, however, they have missed out on what makes this movie unique. Margaret Jordan, a doctor in philosophy makes this point. Everything behind the film is based on psychoanalysis, even its structure follows a therapy session where Alvy, the protagonist played by Allen, starts talking about how things are at the time “Annie and I broke up” (Allen & Brickman, 1977), he mentions his past, and then the story is told in a non-linear way, simulating his thoughts (Jordan, 2012).

When reading this narrative, one notices the complexity and uniqueness of its structure. “The scene on the divan”, where we see psychoanalysis as a direct influence, is built on a simultaneous conversation. Annie and Alvy are talking to their psychologist, and their dialogue appears interspersed. What we see with this arrangement is the contrast of opinions on their relationship 7 and their sexual life. If it were not for the structure, we would not be able to glance at the clash of views and lack of communication, which gains importance in understanding the ending.
 

Once the initial scene finishes, we are moved back to his past, with the use of dramatic displacements. The dramatic question “How will events unfold?” is altered with flashbacks. The script of Annie Hall revolves around a big flashback combined with punctual voiceovers, which are used to avoid a potentially disappointing ending. When the spectator reaches the end of the script, they cannot feel disappointed since they have already been warned, “It stops being about, what is going to happen? and becomes, how will it happen?” (Jiménez, 2012).

Beyond the main flashback that leads the plot, we see repetitive flashbacks to the character’s past. In psychoanalysis, every problem has an explanation in the patients’ childhood and past experiences. So, this script allows us to understand the characters through their past rather than the actions and decisions they take in the present. An illustrative example appears close to the end of the script, when Alvy shows his friends his childhood under the roller-coaster, “As the three friends watch Alvy’s old living room, the scene has suddenly shifted. A huge crowd stands around the room, laughing, eating, chatting and vibrating with the turns of the roller-coaster ride” (Allen & Brickman, 1977). Within this flashback, Alvy emerges as a participant commenting on the unfolding events “It-it-it’s the welcome-home party in nineteen forty-five, for my cousin Herbie” (Allen & Brickman, 1977), and showcases the character’s interactions with their own 8 memories. The script portrays the same character at two distinct points in their life, both the old Alvy reflecting on and revisiting memories “Look, look, there’s-there’s that one over there, that’s Joey Nichold, he was my- “ (Allen & Brickman, 1977) and the younger Alvy, an active participant in the memory “Young Alvy stands next to Joey Nichols, who’s sitting in one of the easy chairs” (Allen & Brickman, 1977). The characters from the present, like old Alvy and his friends, can see the events within the flashback but remain unseen within that past moment. It creates an unreal scenario replicating the main characteristics of a dream: retrospective, unconscious, incoherent, and from a first-person perspective.

Allen consciously acknowledged Freud’s theory of dreams and depicted the characters’ past using this approach to explain their present circumstances.

Alvy acts as the narrator of his own story. The script is a transcript of a therapy session, where the patient is talking about his life and his relationship with Annie. He has absolute insight into the context, the characters, the unspoken thoughts, etc. (Womack, n.d.) It plays a key role in the famous scene on the balcony where Annie and Alvy’s inner feelings and thoughts are subtitled while the characters keep on speaking. It allows us to see the difference between what they think and what they say, which proves the importance of an omniscient narrator sharing even the most intricate aspects to keep on with character development.

In a specific instance from the balcony scene, Alvy says, “Photography’s interesting, cause you know, it’s-it’s a new art form, and a, uh, a set of aesthetic criteria have not emerged yet” (Allen & Brickman, 1977) while he is thinking “I wonder what she looks like naked?” (Allen & Brickman, 1977). On the other hand, while Annie verbalizes “Well, well, I... to me-I.. I mean, it’s-it’s-it’s all instinctive, you know. I mean, I just try to uh, feel it, you know? I try to get a sense of it and not think about it so much” (Allen & Brickman, 1977) her thought is “God, I hope he doesn’t turn out to be a shmuck like the others” (Allen & Brickman, 1977). Though this conversation might seem like a mundane interchange of words between two individuals talking about photography, their thoughts reveal their mutual attraction. This approach highlights the importance of free association in psychoanalysis. By exposing the genuine thoughts and emotions of characters that might otherwise remain hidden in conventional dialogue, we gain a better understanding of the character’s emotional situation.

When Freud's patients entered his clinic, they were encouraged to talk. Whatever thought and idea that came from spontaneity, uninterrupted and sometimes even meaningless was thought to come from the unconscious. Getting to that part of the brain was challenging, but even at that time if you could not get to something you should let it get to you, and that is what Freud did. “He soon became convinced that physical contact was unnecessary, he realized the importance of granting absolute freedom to say whatever came to mind” (Coltrera & Ross, 1967). This way, 10 the role of psychologists took a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn. It was no longer necessary to incite people to speak, extract information, or even instill emotions that should be felt, psychoanalysts simply had to listen and decipher what was relevant to the problem and what was not. (Coltrera, & Ross, 1967).

In Annie Hall, the unconscious appears in two distinct ways. At times, the inner thoughts of certain characters enter the scene, providing us with insight into their minds. For instance, when Alvy is accused by his wife at the time, Allison, of incessant talking to avoid having sex, his immediate response is to deny it, but his unconscious reveals he was indeed using conversation as a shield. Similarly, when Annie’s inner self separates from her body in a spectral form, observing Alvy’s attempts at intimacy, it underscores Annie’s desire for rest, forcing her to disengage from her consciousness to accommodate his needs. The interaction between the conscious and the unconscious is also evident in the balcony scene, where the simultaneous appearance of Annie and Alvy’s thoughts during their conversation allows us to read both spoken words and unspoken reflections. This struggle between the unconscious and the conscious, influenced by societal expectations and the restraint of personal impulses, shows the challenge of hiding their deepest thoughts and opinions in response to social pressure.

This script is full of comical and ironic scenes that can be considered absurd. However, if analyzed in more detail, we could conclude it is the second way to represent the unconscious, the part of our brain led by chaos and nonsense. They sometimes feel unreal and unnecessary, as seen in 11 the instance when they were cooking, and a lobster escaped from the pot. The entire scene centered on Alvy attempting to catch the lobster, contributing little to the overall plot.

Letting the mind of the patient wander around freely was easier in theory than it was in practice. When they were under the effects of free association, they immediately experienced what Freud called “repression”. Their mind was protecting them from traumatic experiences that if exposed and released from the unconscious could inflict more damage than the symptoms that arose from them. Unfortunately, the experiences or thoughts that have more difficulty reaching the surface and entering the conscious mind, are destined to be the most valuable source of information that psychoanalysts have (Frink, 2011). Bruce Fink, a renowned psychoanalyst, addressed this idea when he said “Repression is our guiding light in psychoanalysis, our constant focus is on what is being left out of the equation, out of the story, out of the picture the analysand paints of himself and his life. Therefore, we give special attention to the details of a story that were "accidentally" left out the first time the story was told” (Frink, 2011).

In Annie Hall, defense mechanisms manifest more subtly. One night, during a New York magazine party attended by Alvy and his ex, Robin, Alvy grows tired of the party and attempts to run away from the company of "intellectuals" by hiding upstairs. When Robin discovers him, he tries using sex to divert her attention from the party “Alvy, don’t! You’re using sex to express hostility” (Allen 12 & Brickman, 1977). He employs the distraction of sex as a defense mechanism to evade the prospect of being pulled downstairs, thus sidestepping the need to address “his fear”.

We tend to emotionally invest in those to whom we tell our problems, creating an emotional bond based on trust and protection. Transference is based on unknowingly projecting feelings about someone else onto our therapist, like anger, selfishness, dependence, mistrust, or love. “Freud discovered that frequently the latent content of his patients' dreams entailed unconscious fantasies about himself” (Fancher, 1998). And realized over time, that this could be an advantage in the long run.

While the script does not explicitly address the professional-client relationship, therapy plays a crucial role in their lives. Annie finds happiness in therapy, considering it an essential part of her everyday life. Its significance is evident when she misses a session, leading to feelings of depression as she confesses, “I missed my therapy, I overslept” (Allen & Brickman, 1977). Her dependency on therapy is palpable. In Alvy’s case, therapy has been integrated into his life for the last fifteen years, making it challenging for him to recall life before it became a consistent element.

Psychoanalysis talks about sexuality as something progressive that appears at the same pace as human development. Freud’s psychosexual maturation is classified into 5 distinct stages, all related to a particular age group and body part. If these drives were repressed the child would be left unsatisfied, and Freud called it “fixation”. At the age of 0-1, the center of pleasure is the mouth (oral), babies are going to suck and taste trying to put something in their mouth. If the baby was for any reason exposed to fixation, habits like smoking, overeating, or nail biting will develop when they grow up. The period of 1-3 years is related to toilet training (anal) which shifts the pleasure from the mouth to the anal area. From 3 to 6 years old, children start to experience pleasure with their genitals (phallic). This is the period when the Oedipus complex (children's desire for the opposite-sex parent and jealousy for the same-sex parent) or the Elektra complex (female child falls in love with an older man searching for a paternal figure) develop. At age 6-12, feelings and pleasures are dormant (latency), and the child is focused on sports, relationships, etc. And finally, at ages 13-18, children are focused on their independence and forming healthy and stable relationships with other people, they are now sexually mature (genitals). Dysfunction during this time might lead to the child not forming healthy relationships in the future (Lantz, 2022).

At the age of six (latency period), Alvy discovered women. At this age, children normally have dormant feelings, however, Alvy was not functioning according to his age. After Alvy kissed a girl at her school the teacher made a subsection “for god’s sake, Alvy, even Freud speaks of a latency period” (Allen & Brickman, 1977), and Alvy answered, “Well, I never had a latency period. I can’t 14 help it” (Allen & Brickman, 1977). By showing how precocious the child is, the dialogue anticipates his inevitable future obsession with sex.

Freud believed human behavior was driven by two major instincts. “Eros” was the drive of love, creativity, and self-satisfaction and was related to the “energies expressed in erotic or sexual aims, referred to as the sexual instinct” (Moore & Fine, 1990). On the other hand, “Thanatos” was the drive of aggression, destruction, and violence, also known as the death instinct. Which made humans engage in activities that brought them closer to death.

In Annie Hall, there is a constant mention of sex and satisfaction, whether it’s portrayed during intimate moments in bed or in Alvy’s playful gestures of gifting lingerie to Annie for her birthday, joking about who will get more enjoyment from it. On the other hand, the theme of death emerges as Alvy mentions his preoccupation with it, saying that “life is divided up into the horrible and the miserable” (Allen & Brickman, 1977). The concept of Thanatos, associated with destruction, appears when Duane Hall, Annie’s brother, shares his impulse to turn the wheel and collide with another car during night drives. However, this destructive force does not directly impact the main characters.

According to Freud, the mind is divided into three parts. The Id represents the unconscious and governs basic impulses, often expressed through feral and wild behaviors. The Ego, existing in both the conscious and the unconscious, manages the Id’s primal urges, steering toward socially acceptable behavior by filtering our thoughts and actions. The Superego is where our ideals and values are. It influences our personality, mediating between the Id and the Ego, helping us to behave in a manner that aligns with our morals and values (social pressure vs. our instinct). These concepts, the focus of Freud’s studies, form the foundation for understanding personality and human behavior.

In the narrative, when Annie tells Alvy about missing her therapy session, he can only think about how it affects him, revealing the ego aspect of the character. This behavior can be interpreted as Woody Allen's ego being transferred into the script and represented by the character he portrays. Regarding the superego, a clear example is observed in a previously mentioned scene at the New York magazine party. When Robin finds Alvy upstairs and realizes he is not willing to go downstairs, her first concern is “What would they think?” (Allen & Brickman, 1977), illustrating the influence of social pressure over instincts.

Annie’s superego comes to light during a conversation with her psychiatrist, where she mentions that her decision to sleep with Alvy is influenced by guilt, as he is paying for his therapy sessions. She confesses, “I feel so guilty because Alvy is paying for it, so, you know, so I do feel guilty if I don’t want to go to bed with him” (Allen & Brickman, 1977). Finally, the Id comes towards the 16 end after Annie and Alvy break up. Alvy impulsively flies to Los Angelesto see her one more time, exhibiting a behavior driven by impulses, acting in an irresponsible and childlike manner.

Freud wanted to explain human behavior in terms of the repetition of interpersonal patterns that were located outside of an individual’s consciousness and had their origins in childhood experiences. (Holtz Deal, 2007). This meant that whatever an individual was experiencing may be caused by an experience or trauma, that was located outside the conscious awareness, making the patient unable to recall it. It was the psychoanalyst’s job to draw out that memory from the unconscious to the conscious to be later read and interpreted, as already explained in section 2 “psychoanalysis definition”.

If we had to take the main idea behind psychoanalysis and what it defends, we would mention the influence of childhood experiences. At the beginning of the script, Alvy delves into his past, remembering a time when he resided beneath a Brooklyn rollercoaster. The absence of tranquility in his living environment contributed to his neurotic tendencies, a correlation he mentions, “Maybe that accounts for my personality, which is a little nervous, I think” (Allen & Brickman, 1977). Alvy further explores the challenge of differencing reality from fiction, illustrating this struggle with flashbacks to a chapter in his childhood featuring three military men representing the Army, the Navy, and the Marines. The question is: were they genuine figures or mere theatrical enactments?

Through a comprehensive investigation into the influence of psychoanalysis on Annie Hall’s script, it becomes evident that the psychological theories and concepts put forth by Sigmund Freud have had a profound impact on the film’s narrative and character development. Woody Allen, the director, and writer of Annie Hall, skillfully weaves elements of psychoanalysis into the storyline, using them to explore the complexities of human relationships and delve into the inner workings of the characters’ minds.

The use of flashbacks and the non-linear narrative structure in Annie Hall are key in revealing the characters’ past experiences and their influence on their present relationships. By delving into the protagonists’ childhoods and their respective upbringings, the film highlights the significance of early life experiences in shaping their personalities and relationship dynamism. This aligns with psychoanalytic principles that attribute importance to childhood development and the impact of early experiences on adult behavior. It also illustrates the lack of success and the patterns that have emerged throughout the characters’ lives, which reinforces the predictability of the story’s ending, as it becomes apparent that the characters’ unresolved past issues and recurring patterns will impact their current relationship.

The chaotic scenes and the use of subtitles to expose the characters' inner thoughts demonstrate the presence of the unconscious. This technique, known as free association, differs from repression, used by the characters to evade unpleasant issues. From a character standpoint, the 18 psychoanalysis concepts of ego, superego, and id provide insights into the characters' personalities. Alvy's self-centeredness exemplifies the ego, whereas the superego emerges when societal pressures override instincts on many occasions throughout the plot. The id also makes its entrance whenever the characters make impulsive decisions. Eros and Thanatos, known to be an important part of psychoanalysis, appear in the plot on many occasions. By showing how precocious Alvy was from a young age, the dialogue anticipates his inevitable future obsession with sex. And while Eros represents a direct rule over the main characters’ life, Thanatos although mentioned, does not. Overall, these concepts made Annie Hall an insightful exploration of human nature and relationships through a psychoanalytic lens.

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