Daily Dialogue — December 4, 2013

Tracy: I’ll be back in six months.
Isaac Davis: Six months are you kidding? Six months you’re gonna go for?
Tracy: We’ve gone this long, well what’s six months if we still love each other?
Isaac Davis: Hey, don’t be so mature, okay? I mean, six months is a long time! Six months, you know you’re gonna be, you’ll be in, in, in, in the th — working in a theater there, you’ll be with actors and directors, you know you’re, you know, you go to rehearsal, and you, you hang out with those people, you have lunch a lot, and, and, before you even know it attachments form and, and, you know, I mean, you, you don’t want to be get into that kind a, I mean, you, you’ll change. You know, you’ll be, you’ll be, in six months you’ll be a completely different person.
Tracy: Well, don’t you want me to have that experience? I mean a while ago you made such a convincing case.
Isaac Davis: Ye, yeah of course I do, you know, but you — you know, you, I mean you, I, I just don’t want — that thing about you that I like to change.
Tracy: I’ve got to make a plane.
Isaac Davis: C’mon, you don’t — c’mon. You don’t, you don’t have to — go.
Tracy: Why couldn’t you have brought this up last week? Six months isn’t so long. Not everybody gets corrupted. You have to have a little faith in people.

— Manhattan (1979), written by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is Fear. Today’s suggestion by Alejandro.

Trivia: According to Jeff Stafford at the TCMDb, “When Manhattan (1979) was first released, there was some criticism leveled at the film for its depiction of a romance between a teenager and a 42-year-old man but several biographical sources have suggested that the relationship had a real-life parallel in Allen’s two-year romance with actress Stacey Nelkin (Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), 1983). Reportedly, Allen met Nelkin on the set of Annie Hall (1977) when she was a mere 17-year-old extra (Her small part ended up on the cutting room floor). Certain aspects of the Isaac-Tracy relationship may also have been inspired by Allen’s real-life correspondence with 13-year-old pen pal, Nancy Jo Sales”.

Takeaway: if done right, situations in your life can become the basis for great scenes — you already know the emotions that went through you at that moment.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Commentary from Alejandro: “Who better for fear than Woody Allen? This scene shows a kind of fear more relatable than being chased by an axe-wielding maniac, an alien or any other mad antagonist. Fear of losing your significant other. Fear of what will happen if you let her go — albeit just for six months. Easy to relate because most of all have been through those kind of moments and feelings, that unbearable uncertainty that sometimes ends up being the final chapter in that relationship.”

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