Woody Allen & Barbara Hershey (Seagull)

Dianne Wiest chews up this scene as a struggling would-be actress/writer in Hannah and Her Sisters, the 1986 Woody Allen classic. As stunning as she is, it is the presence of the irritable and undernourished youngest sister, played by Barbara Hershey, who sends this scene over the top.

Hershey was the greatest of the "hippie" actresses of the 1970s.

Note the movement of the camera as it relentlessly circles the sisters' lunch table, capturing the hideous banality of their privileged, spoiled lives.

Lunch transformed as Hades.

In my estimation, Woody Allen has never made a bad movie. Even his early slapstick adventures, such as Take the Money and Run and Bananas have lasting and silly appeal.

Venturing finally into grownup movies, Allen revealed a mocking, clairvoyant sensitivity that defined the American social drama/comedy genre in his image, starting with Annie Hall (1977).


TS