Mahler and Film: The Case of Woody Allen

This paper will examine the relationship between Mahler and ‘moving image’ in the case of Woody Allen. As we know, the American director has a long-standing love affair with classical music. His films foreground music in many and interesting ways. One example can be found in "Another Woman" (1988). Here the Symphony No. 4 by Mahler plays an intra-diegetic role, but it goes beyond the simple ‘informative function’ about the social milieu of the main character. Mahler’s music appears also in other films, but in a wider perspective it operates as a focal point of most of Allen’s filmography. Through the comparative analysis between emblematic scenes, I’ll try to explain the particular nature of the relationship between Allen and Mahler and in what sense this relationship constitutes an absolutely positive case of ‘Mahler reception’.