Woody Allen

Mia Farrow

Patrick Horgan

John Buckwalter

Marvin Chatinover

Stanley Swerdlow

Paul Nevens

Howard Erskine

Richard Whiting

Ralph Bell

Will Hussung

Gale Hansen

Michael Jeter

Peter McRobbie

Richard Litt

Mary Louise Wilson

Alice Beardsley

Paula Trueman

Garrett M. Brown

Marianne Tatum

Charles Denny

Michael Kell

John Rothman

Deborah Rush

Stanley Simmonds

Robert Berger

Jeanine Jackson

John Doumanian

Willy Holt

Susan Sontag

Saul Bellow

Irving Howe

Marshall Cole Sr.

Ellen Garrison

Jack Cannon

Theodore R. Smits

Sherman Loud

Elizabeth Rothschild

Kuno Sponholz

Ed Herlihy

Dwight Weist

George Hamlin

Robert Iglesia

Eli Resnick

Edward McPhillips

Sol Lomita

Ed Lane

Sharon Ferrol-Young

Dimitri Vassilopoulos

Stephanie Farrow

Francis Beggins

Jean Trowbridge

Ken Chapin

Gerald Klein

Vincent Jerman-Jerosa

Erma Campbell

Anton Marco

Louise Deitch

Bernice Dowis

Bernie Herold

Elizabeth Kaitan

Arthur Anderson

Bubba Dean Rambo

Kim Johnston Ulrich

Michael Blevins

Jon Hayden

Mae Questel

Ruth Leon Weiman

Tug Wilson

Robert Greenhut

Charles H. Joffe

Jack Rollins

Gordon Willis

Susan E. Morse

Dick Hyman

Frederic B. Blankfein

Tony Gittelson

Ezra Swerdlow

Duncan Scott

Jim Chory

Thomas A. Reilly

Marjorie Deutsch

Janet Rosenbloom

Joseph Badalucco Jr.

James Sorice

Douglas C. Hart

Bob Paone

Roy B. Yokelson

Danny Daniels

Robert Ward

Arne Olsen

Robert Connors

Tom McKinley

Richard Hornung

Lyn Carroll

Bill Christians

Lancey Saunders Clough

Joan Lopate

Todd M. Thaler

Carl Turnquest

Cheryl Hill

Carol Nast

Susan Rollins

Ken Rothstein

Lynn Sable

Janet Lund Robbins

Randall Coleman

Gina Roose

Fred Rosenberg

Harry Peck Bolles

Jeffrey Stern

Debra Bard

Suzanne Pillsbury

Michael Peyser

Juliet Taylor

Mel Bourne

Speed Hopkins

Leslie Bloom

Santo Loquasto

Fern Buchner

John Caglione Jr.

Romaine Greene

Werner Sherer

Rick Dior

James Sabat

Louis Sabat

Dan Sable

David J. Schweitzer

Stuart Robertson

Ronald Burke

Kerry Hayes

Dick Mingalone

Ray Quinlan

Paula Herold

Pamela Scott Arnold

Richard Nord

James Fanning

Patrick Hogan

Timothy M. Bourne

Kay Chapin

Helen Robin

Gail Sicilia

John Edward Allen

Ken Murray

Irwin Young

Cosmo Sorice

James Mazzola

Frank Graziadei

Comedy

Zelig

Orion Pictures

United States of America

English

Deutsch

great depression

celebrity

mockumentary

chameleon

psychiatrist

found footage

newsreel footage

electroconvulsive therapy

1920s

1930s

historical images

historical events

A charming mockumentary about a fictional 1920s personality filmed as if cobbled together from old black-and-white footage.

Leonard Zelig is a "human chameleon," but Zelig the film doesn't stop at mimicry. Indeed, this fictional documentary written, directed, and starring Woody Allen differentiates between imitation and parody the same way Hitchcock differentiated between action and suspense.

For example, the protagonist's parents used to punish him by locking him in a dark closet. If that were it, the film would simply be copying an aspect of Ingmar Bergman's childhood; Allen's genius lies in adding that when Zelig's parents are really mad, they "get into the closet with him."

Zelig's targets go beyond the filmmaker's family, and include the press (“in those days, you'd do anything to sell papers. To get a story, you'd jazz it up, exaggerate, even maybe play with the truth a little bit. But here was a story. It was a natural. You just told the truth and it sold papers. It never happened before"), politicians ("He was selling the same piece of property to a lot of the same people, and... Matter of fact, a congressman from Delaware bought it twice"), psychologists (“I worked with Freud in Vienna. Yes, we broke over the concept of penis envy. Freud felt that it should be limited to women”), and philosophers (“His performance endears him as well to many leading French intellectuals, who see in him a symbol for everything” ).

Set in the 1920s and 1930s, the film revolves around Leonard Zelig (Allen), an indistinct man who has the ability to alter his appearance and behavior to fit those of the people around him; e.g., “When two Frenchmen enter, Zelig assumes their characteristics and speaks reasonable French. In the company of a Chinese person, he begins to develop oriental traits;” etc etc.

This desire and ability to blend in ironically makes him an outcast; “Zelig's very existence is a non-existence. Devoid of personality, his human qualities long since lost in the confusion of life, he sits alone, silently staring into space, a figure, a non-person... The one who only wanted to fit in, to belong, to go unnoticed by his enemies and being loved, neither fits nor belongs, is supervised by enemies, and remains abandoned”. His protean nature also gives him access to a number of famous people and historical events. In this sense, Zelig is ahead of Forrest Gump, not only in that it precedes it, but also in that it surpasses it.

Zelig is disruptive in more ways than one; while Forrest finally fades into the background as a new, Zelig anarchically places his protagonist, much to his own dismay, front and center of the action; in the Vatican he creates commotion by interrupting a ritual that had not been celebrated in “63 years” (while “His Holiness Pope Pius XI tries to swat the intruder with a sacred decree”), and in Germany the greatest irony of all: his "desired immersion in the mass and anonymity" lead the Jew Zelig to join the Sturmabteilung — the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party — ruining Hitler’s speech at a Nazi rally ("We couldn't believe our eyes. Hitler's speech was ruined. He wanted to make a good joke about Poland, but just then, Zelig interfered and Hitler was extremely upset").

35mm Theatrical Teaser Trailer [4K] [FTD-0893]

Zelig( 1983)

You wanted more when it was all over!

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A review by ltcomdata

Written by ltcomdata on Wed Feb 26 2014

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