Zelig

Rating:
Summary: The Life and Times of Early 20th Century Freak
Review: Just before giving us the campy "Purple Rose of Cairo", Woody Allen created "Zelig", another very unique film. The title character is a man who, like a Chameleon, changes his physical appearance to blend in with whomever he is sharing present company. When getting acquainted with an obese man, Zelig suddenly develops a pot-belly; among Asians, Zelig chages appearance to resemble the people near him; no matter how different the person in Zelig's company, he changes to adapt.

Mia Farrow plays a psychiatrist (an unusual occupation for a woman in the 1920s & 30s) determined to figure this case out. The predictable romantic involvement ensuing adds to the confusion. The film is enveloped in countless news real exerpts and newspaper headlines. The elaborate "joke" may have been even more effective if kept to a shorter format. A 30 minute short is not always improved by an 80 minute feature film.

The Woody Allen character is depicted as not only a curiosity or a freak of nature, but as someone incapable of funtioning independently. A human chameleon may be a curiosity, but it does not render an intelligent person as helpless and in need of guarded confinement. Although offering many chuckles and even big laughs, the idea of caging someone who is different, treating him like an "E.T." or "Elephant Man". Our society has not fully evolved to accept such differences. I'm not certain if this film is an argument for or against acceptance of human curiosities. Although the special effects, mainly authentic "aged film footage" and period music are outstanding, the story line is somewhat disturbing.****

Rating:
Summary: The Life and Times of Early 20th Century Freak
Review: Just before giving us the campy "Purple Rose of Cairo", Woody Allen created "Zelig", another very unique film. The title character is a man who, like a Chameleon, changes his physical appearance to blend in with whomever he is sharing present company. When getting acquainted with an obese man, Zelig suddenly develops a pot-belly; among Asians, Zelig chages appearance to resemble the people near him; no matter how different the person in Zelig's company, he changes to adapt.

Mia Farrow plays a psychiatrist (an unusual occupation for a woman in the 1920s & 30s) determined to figure this case out. The predictable romantic involvement ensuing adds to the confusion. The film is enveloped in countless news real exerpts and newspaper headlines. The elaborate "joke" may have been even more effective if kept to a shorter format. A 30 minute short is not always improved by an 80 minute feature film.

The Woody Allen character is depicted as not only a curiosity or a freak of nature, but as someone incapable of funtioning independently. A human chameleon may be a curiosity, but it does not render an intelligent person as helpless and in need of guarded confinement. Although offering many chuckles and even big laughs, the idea of caging someone who is different, treating him like an "E.T." or "Elephant Man". Our society has not fully evolved to accept such differences. I'm not certain if this film is an argument for or against acceptance of human curiosities. Although the special effects, mainly authentic "aged film footage" and period music are outstanding, the story line is somewhat disturbing.****

Rating:
Summary: Citizen Kane, Meet Zelig
Review: Just great film making. Nothing more, nothing less. Technically advanced for it's day and ahead of it's time plotwise, this is one of the great film gems of all time. The plot? Ridiculous. The acting? Hilariously deadpanned. The problem? It can only be made once. Everyone will love this film. And it has one of the great cinematographers of all time manning the camera, Gordon Willis. And Allen's hilarious send up of fame but not fortune is one of his best efforts. A winner all around.

Rating:
Summary: Yes, It's Allen's "Citizen Kane"
Review: Loved this when it came out. And after watching it again I was determined to post a review and compare it to the Orson Welles masterpiece. Then I saw someone had already done so! I'm glad that I am not the only one who feels that this film can be mentioned in the same sentence as Kane.
I was going to point out that it is every bit as original, well writen, acted, photographed and edited as "Citizen Kane." And a whole lot funnier.

Rating:
Summary: Where's Woody?
Review: My collection is a bit more complete now! Along with Sleeper this is one of my Woody Allen favorites. Of course, of course Annie Hall is, well you understand.. but, Zelig is great too, and very different. This documentary style film is entirely engaging and chock full of wit. The footage, editing and effects just add to the great concept and flow of this masterpiece. PS (Where's "What's Up Tiger Lily" on DVD??)

Rating:
Summary: The social camelion
Review: New York 1928.

"I wanna be liked". A statement by Leonard Zelig under a hypnosis session. Zelig, the man who had the incredible ability to blend into any social class or etnicity. A very well made, intelligent and entertaining movie. A forgotten masterpiece and classic!

Rating:
Summary: Give it a chance
Review: Senoir year in HS, our cinema teacher announced we'd be watching "Zelig", a "mock"umentary. The class mentally, if not visably, shuddered. So did I, until I learned it was a Woody Allen movie. My Dad and I have long been WA fans, so I figured if it was half as funny as "What's Up, Tiger Lily?", I'd enjoy it. Score!

This odd little film is Allen's vision of America obessed with fame. Leonard Zelig (Allen), who is dubbed "The Human Chameleon", adopts the form, skin color, eye shape, or weight of a person or group of people he wants to fit in with (Leonard's sad upbringing leads him to desire acceptance from people). He is taken on by psychologist Eudora Fletcher (Mia Farrow), who interviews him and documents his progress. Eventually, the two fall in love. As Leonard's fame grows (there's even a dance craze called "The Chameleon" named after him), he finds that he wants to escape and morph into one persona after another to avoid public intrusion.

It sounds like the biggest snoozer ever, but really, this is classic humor at it's best. Cameos by noted personalities Susan Sontag, Irving Howe, Saul Bellow, Bricktop, Dr. Bruno Bettelheim, and Professor John Morton Blum.

Rating:
Summary: I've always loved this little gem of a film
Review: Some critics said it was too long, and the joke ran thin. To me that describes Forrest Gump. Some critics thought it was a no-concept movie. To me that describes Forrest Gump. To me this is Woody as a virtuoso filmmaker, though not the sort that Tarentino is pegged. The film makes a very true point about fame, about nostalgia, and most of all about conformity in a world that's always proud to show off its nonconformity (note the opening montage about how this was "the jazz age") but which is at bottom hopelessly conformist. Forrest Gump, with its aw-shucks philosophy and cliche-embedded script, didn't dare tackle such weighty issues. But this movie does. But if you don't GET them, as many critics didn't judging from the reviews, this film will to you seem too long. My biggest complaint is that maybe it's actually too short. I would have liked to see some of its themes explored more--admittedly tricky in the narrow confines Allen imposed on himself with his documentary structure.

Here Allen runs the range of tricks to film, but they're not computer tricks (exactly). To age his film he actually scuffs it. To achieve the sound of tinny 1920s sound he records his pop songs (wonderful parodies of the real music of the time) on authentic 1920s equipment. Most of all, in sort of a post-modernist irony that is currently so hip but was fresh in 1983, he features interviews with trendy intellectuals who both reinforce and parody their academic personas by appearing on camera.

Unlike Spinal Tap, which was sometimes a little too broad in its humor (much as I love that movie) and unlike Bob Roberts, which gave us "offscreen" conversations we could plainly hear (from people who wouldn't be body-miked in real life) just to extend the narrative, this movie to me strikes the perfect of rabid satire and just-bare plausibility. Unfortunately, Woody's DVDs tend to be skimpy on extras--director's commentary would be nice, or maybe a "how they did it" documentary. But Woody these days is about as socialable as a hermit crab. He's also not making films this good anymore. Pity, because no one else does comedy quite the way he does--or did.

Rating:
Summary: A great film from a great filmmaker
Review: This film is amazingly funny and original: as a man who changes his personality (and his looks) when he is in presence of strangers, Woody Allen has created a story that is toll like a documentary from the golden age of the '20s, and this caracter goes to know to Scott Fitzgerald and Fanny Bruce, among others celebrities, long before (and funnier) than Forrest Gump did in his overrated film. Definitely one of Allen's best.

Rating:
Summary: "Your pancakes... Your pancakes are terrible..."
Review: This film is perhaps the ultimate in parody-documentary. Some people might find the pace a bit slow, and the humor a bit dry, precisely because it is presented exactly as it would be if it were an actual serious documentary about a real historical personage. It requires a bit more thought and attention on the part of the vewer than does a "conventional" comedy for that reason. At one point the narrator, in his best, serious, Public Television Documentary National Geographic Special voice, describes Zelig's parents and their violent domestic squabbles: "...Even though they lived over a bowling alley, it was the bowling alley that complained about the noise." This sort of thing could go right past you if you weren't really listening.

The reason this film works is that all of the supporting details are meticulous and perfect. All of the 1920's songs about Zelig (such as "The Chameleon Dance" and "You May Be Six People, But I Love You") are written and performed so perfectly in period style that I, watching it the first few times, could hardly believe that they were not actual, real (but obscure) 1920's songs that they found somewhere which happened to fit the movie theme, rather than being modern parodies of vintage recordings. (Speaking as a musician, I can vouch for the fact that that bright, Irish popular tenor sound which was all the rage back then is a rarity these days!)

And all of the film clips are just as carefully executed. I seem to remember, back when this film was just out, an article describing how Allen's production staff took just-shot black and white footage into the parking lot and threw it on the ground and walked all over it, and carefully crinkled the film, so that it would look worn and decades-old. Another tour-de-force was inserting Allen himself, playing the title character, into REAL period footage. The most famous example is a film of Hitler ranting away to a crowd on his Nazi platform, and seated behind him among all of the party officials is... Zelig. This was an amazing technical achievement at the time, long before digital cinematography had become commonplace, and it was brilliantly done.

And then of course, there are all of the present-day intellectual luminary talking heads being interviewed for their two cents, again, just like a true documentary. One that comes to mind of course is the (now late) Susan Sontag. I am sure that all of those "experts" had lots of fun filming this.

The subject of the documentary, Zelig, has an unusual mental/physical affliction due to insecurity. He literally, and physically, becomes just like whoever he is with, in order to blend in and be accepted. This offers the opportunity for plenty of sight gags as Zelig turns into different cultures, occupations, and races -- sometimes more than one at once! He is alternately exploited as a circus freak for profit, and attempted to be cured by his caring psychiatrist. He is alternately proclaimed a hero, a villain, a traitor, and a hero again by a fickle public. Zelig's exchanges with his psychiatrist are some of the funniest dialogue in the film. When she finally manages to get Zelig under hypnosis so that she can find out what the true, non-chameleon person inside really thinks, he launches into a (dreamy, trance-voiced) tirade about her awful cooking. I still joke with my wife to this day about her "terrible pancakes." [grin]

Those who are Woody Allen fans in general will of course probably enjoy this; people who like subtle wit and parody generally will probably enjoy this; people who habitually overdose on PBS and The History Channel but still have enough sense of humor left to laugh at themselves will probably enjoy this. If you prefer jokes with punchlines, or "Gilligan, drop those coconuts!" then Zelig is probably one to avoid.

And might I add in parting: If you have not yet read Moby Dick, don't wait until it is too late!