That term means "inability to feel pleasure," and well describes the lead character of Alvy Singer, played by (and evidently based on) the writer and director. Supposedly that title was nixed by the studio, probably for making a romantic comedy seem like a weird foreign art film. Even though, when spoken, it's a nice double pun, as the first syllables sound like "Annie." It also makes a good fit with the writer, the setting, and the unapologetically Artist story of futility and inability to change.
If you haven't been here before, please take a look at the Introduction to Generations, the Generational Attributes and the Four Stories in order to get up to speed on how all this works, and the terms being used.
An internet search for the film indicates that Anhedonia was not only an earlier name but an earlier vision for the film. It would have been a wide-ranging look at the life of Alvy Singer, of which the relationship with Annie was only one part. In a press conference many years later, Woody Allen said that everyone focused on that relationship, and that's how the film ended up as it did.
(His comments on Annie Hall are at about the 44 minutes point in that video.)
It's set in the mid-1970s, with topical references such as the near-bankruptcy of New York City, so Setting and Generations are simple. It's during the Consciousness Revolution, an Awakening period, and shows all the uncertainty and change happening around the characters. Since Alvy appears based on Woody Allen, using his 1935 birthdate seems reasonable, making him Silent generation, an Artist archetype. Diane Keaton is Boom generation, born 1946. Their on-screen disagreements appear generationally related, with Alvy dismissive of Annie's marijuana ("...will make a white woman more like Billie Holliday") and Annie not quite getting his interest in death and therapy.
(His comments on Annie Hall are at about the 44 minutes point in that video.)
It's set in the mid-1970s, with topical references such as the near-bankruptcy of New York City, so Setting and Generations are simple. It's during the Consciousness Revolution, an Awakening period, and shows all the uncertainty and change happening around the characters. Since Alvy appears based on Woody Allen, using his 1935 birthdate seems reasonable, making him Silent generation, an Artist archetype. Diane Keaton is Boom generation, born 1946. Their on-screen disagreements appear generationally related, with Alvy dismissive of Annie's marijuana ("...will make a white woman more like Billie Holliday") and Annie not quite getting his interest in death and therapy.
The Artist story being about the doomed and the damned, perpetrators and victims, the futility of change, this unexpectedly not only matches, but does so as a comedy. Told as a description of an already-ended relationship, Alvy appears doomed to a life alone, Annie damned to the sunny hell that is Los Angeles.
And, like life, it is "all over much too quickly."
And, like life, it is "all over much too quickly."
This doesn't sound as if it should be funny, but there is still plenty of room for humor in such a tale. It might even be humor's natural place. Steve Kaplan does a course on comedy writing that says comedy requires a conflict where the tools required to succeed are not available, yet there is still the possibility of success. As an example of being able to win, Kaplan specifically uses the example of Alvy, in line at a movie theater, countering the claims of an overloud intellectual by literally pulling media philosopher Marshall McLuhan into the conversation. Alvy is similarly struggling to be in a relationship with Annie, without the tools needed to let others love him, but he is still - in parts and places - able to succeed. Alvy even forces a win at the end, when he writes a play about their relationship, one where he gets the last word with Annie, and she still loves him. He seems a little sheepish at the "cheat," noting that an artist wants his art to work out, since life often doesn't.
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