Woody Allen leapt to defend New York at a time when everyone else was running it down. During the 1970s and 1980s—the “rotting of the Big Apple” era—he made his most lasting works. Filmgoers then had great interest in accounts of New York’s decline, and filmmakers were generally happy to oblige. Allen pushed back.
His two most polemical movies were Annie Hall (1977) and Manhattan (1979).
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