Editing Annie Hall (section)

===Writing===
The idea for what became ''Annie Hall'' was developed as Allen walked around [[New York City]] with co-writer [[Marshall Brickman]]. The pair discussed the project frequently, sometimes becoming frustrated and rejecting the idea. Allen wrote a first draft of a screenplay within a four-day period, sending it to Brickman to make alterations. According to Brickman, this draft centered on a man in his forties, someone whose life consisted "of several strands." One was a relationship with a young woman, another was a concern with the banality of the life that we all live, and a third an obsession with proving himself and testing himself to find out what kind of character he had. Allen himself turned forty in 1975, and Brickman suggests that "advancing age" and "worries about death" had influenced Allen's philosophical, personal approach to complement his "commercial side".<ref name=rose274>{{harvnb|Rosenblum|Karen |1986|p=274}}</ref><ref name="baxter241"/> Allen made the conscious decision to "sacrifice some of the laughs for a story about human beings".<ref name="PBSdocumentary"/> He recognized that for the first time he had the courage to abandon the safety of complete broad comedy and had the will to produce a film of deeper meaning which would be a nourishing experience for the audience.<ref name="Björkman75"/> He was also influenced by Federico Fellini's comedy drama ''[[8½]]'' (1963), created at a similar personal turning point, and similarly colored by each director's [[psychoanalysis]].<ref name="baxter241"/>

Brickman and Allen sent the screenplay back and forth until they were ready to ask [[United Artists]] for $4&nbsp;million.<ref name="baxter241">{{harvnb|Baxter |1999|p=241}}</ref> Many elements from the early drafts did not survive. It was originally a drama centered on a murder mystery with a comic and romantic subplot.<ref name="Lax283">{{harvnb|Lax|2000|p=283}}</ref> According to Allen, the murder occurred after a scene that remains in the film, the sequence in which Annie and Alvy miss the Ingmar Bergman film ''[[Face to Face (1976 film)|Face to Face]]'' (1976).<ref name="Björkman79"/> Although they decided to drop the murder plot, Allen and Brickman made a murder mystery many years later: ''[[Manhattan Murder Mystery]]'' (1993), also starring Diane Keaton.{{Sfn|Mitchell|2001|p=123}} The draft that Allen presented to the film's editor, [[Ralph Rosenblum]], concluded with the words, "ending to be shot."<ref name=rose262>{{harvnb|Rosenblum|Karen |1986|p=262}}</ref>

Allen suggested ''[[Anhedonia]]'', a term for the inability to experience pleasure, as a working title,<ref name="baxter245">{{harvnb|Baxter |1999|p=245}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |first=Mel |last=Gussow |author-link=Mel Gussow |title=Woody Allen Fights Anhedonia |url=https://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/movies/bestpictures/annie-ar.html |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=April 20, 1977 |access-date=February 5, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170312025455/http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/movies/bestpictures/annie-ar.html |archive-date=March 12, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref> and Brickman suggested alternatives including ''It Had to Be Jew'', ''Rollercoaster Named Desire'' and ''Me and My Goy''.<ref name=rose289>{{harvnb|Rosenblum|Karen |1986|p=289}}</ref> An advertising agency, hired by United Artists, embraced Allen's choice of an obscure word by suggesting the studio take out newspaper advertisements that looked like fake tabloid headlines such as "Anhedonia Strikes Cleveland!".<ref name="rose289"/> However, Allen experimented with several titles over five test screenings, including ''Anxiety'' and ''Annie and Alvy'', before settling on ''Annie Hall''.<ref name=rose289/>