Zelig (1983)

ZELIG is simply a jaw-dropping sight and sound as a film; hilarious.... out loud. The funny premise is polished to some astonishing level of trickery with editing and matte effects seamlessly blending real 20s with recreated 20s adding Allen and Farrow and dialog and interviews that will have you recalling and roaring with laughter for days. I had not seen it since 1983 and now in 2008 to be reminded how stunning and hilarious this creation is, well, I am just delighted to be back on the wavelength of this genuinely brilliant hoax documentary. Now I can see how FORREST GUMP came about, given that it is a similar 'historic' premise using real footage of events and eras mixed with the lead character. But ZELIG is another perfection altogether; if you know your 20s, silent films, the imagery, the early sound newsreels and all those silly songs, then ZELIG is a superlative treat. It even features Mae Questrel singing a new Betty Boop song and for that alone I cheer this almost perfect film. What a delight. If you also get to see the early Peter Jackson hoax documentary FORGOTTEN SILVER or Stanley Donen's MOVIE MOVIE you will be equally rewarded.

Fmovies: A fascinating pseudo-documentary with an intriguing premise, the footage shown looks very authentic, edited well together, with apt sets and costumes. A number of original songs written especially for the film are included, and they sound exactly like the type of tunes expected in a 1930s musical. The non-original music choices also suit the project. Woody Allen superbly acts out the interesting character that he has written for himself: a very different type of insecure, neurotic person to what he usually plays. Even at less than eighty minutes, the material nevertheless wears thin by the end, but some great ideas are developed along the way. It also feels a bit odd to watch, as the film is not really a comedy, nor a drama - not fitting into any genre - then again, in general real life are not meant to be straight comedies or dramas, are they? With the limitations of the style that Allen has chosen for the film taken into account, he does a pretty good job.

One of the most sophisticated, cleverest, funniest, exquisitely shot and edited, scored, and acted movies ever made, "Zelig" is a masterpiece and astounding work even for Woody Allen whose mediocre movies are way above the regular Hollywood fares.

With the modest running time less than 80 minutes, this mockumentary tells the story of a "human chameleon", Leonard Zelig, Leonard the Lizard who possessed an extraordinary ability to transform himself in anyone he met (or should I say, an extraordinary ability possessed him?).

Leonard is a shy, little, meek Jewish man whose rare personality disorder consists of not having his own personality at all and successfully and effortlessly adapting any personality he came close to and fitting perfectly to any surroundings. His skin turns black when he is with the Black people, with the Native Americans, he became one; attending the dinner with the intellectuals, he speaks brilliantly with F.S. Fitzgerald, when on the baseball field, he is Babe Ruth. The meeting with an intelligent and compassionate psychiatrist, Dr. Eudora Fletcher (Mia Farrow) will begin the slow and long process for Zelig of searching and finding his own personality and possibility for love and happiness. The movie provides laughs and smiles but it also makes the viewer think of more serious subjects. Are we all have a Zelig inside? Don't we all want to be liked and try to adapt to our surroundings to feel comfortable? The movie can also be viewed as the meditation on the nature of the acting ability. While watching "Zelig", I kept thinking of a book I read recently. One of the characters was a great actor who had the similar to Zelig's disorder - he had no personality at all until he was given a part to act on stage. That Actor made the best and most convincing and complex Shakespeare's heroes - he was a brilliant reflective Hamlet but his greatest success was tragic Othello. The actor's transformation to Othello was so real that he acted it at home with his wife whom he suspected in cheating - he played his role perfectly with the same as in the play results. He ended up in the asylum where he could not act but he was allowed to read...Dostoevsky's novel "The Possessed" from which he chose to adapt the personality of Nikolai Stavrogin with rather unpredictable results. When his doctor finally realized what happened, he took all books with the exception of "The Idiot". Finally, the actor became a gentle and kind Prinz Myshkin, and that was the end of book.

Both, the book and the movie "Zelig" made me think of the price the artists pay to achieve perfection in their art. Are they vampires sucking the life out of their victims only to use them as characters for their acting roles? Is that the ultimate price the artist is paying for being a great artist? Does he need lives and souls of others to be able to create? This is one of many subjects "Zelig" makes you think about.

Allen seamlessly weds Black and white newsreel footage with his humorous but deep and fascinating tale allowing Zelig to be exactly where and when History was made. Using special lenses to give the movie the old style, mixing his own footage with the real documentaries, including his favorite music, dances, feeling perfectly forever gone era, Woody recreates The Roaring 20Th with breathtaking authenticity.

M:IWIHSIIT - according to my new grading system, a Masterpiece, I wish I had seen in the theater

Zelig fmovies. This could well be a review of 90% of Woody Allen's oeuvre. The film is a smorgasbord of fabulousness - exquisite concepts, very clever lines and very funny ones. No film maker has ever had such a grasp of irony, sarcasm and the ridiculous, and still imbue it with wit and (occasionally) subtlety. But it is the relentless self-deprecation and extant feelings of worthlessness that eventually become wearing after you have watched as many Allen films as I have. This is the film that most impresses you with his confusion over identity however. I could go on about self-analysis for pages but it's unnecessary...just watch any given Woody Allen film. He mellows it out with a rather forlorn sense of romance that becomes endearing rather than pathetic...a skill that is essential to engage with his films. This is a fine film. Oh yeah...and very funny...if you get the references.

Leapin' lizards! This film is brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.

"Zelig" was a revelation in 1983, an utterly ingenious faux-documentary, without any precedent, at least not on this scale. Hilarious then, it still is today. That quick glimpse you get of the all-Hasidic production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is priceless. It gives renewed meaning to "Lord, what fools these mortals be!"

Allen's technique is extraordinary. "Zelig" has the best bogus documentary footage quite probably since "Citizen Kane".

As the film urges, everyone should "Do the Chameleon", by seeing "Zelig". Woody Allen creates a trenchant comment on people's desire for conformity: "Everybody, go chameleon." We all tend to do that to some degree, but it's not usually so amusing. Try to blend in with the crowd rushing out to find "Zelig" on video.

It is probably worth noting that a Jewish Nazi is not as ridiculous a stretch as Woody makes it seem. Reinhard Heydrich, the vicious organizer of the Final Solution, fell into that category. The top Nazis were all misfits in one way or another.

Woody can be clever. Woody can be funny. And when Woody's clever AND funny, you get "Zelig".

Telling the story of Leonard Zelig (Woody Allen, who else?) who transforms himself chameleon-like into anyone just to get people to like him, he finds himself the object of on-going observation from a kind doctor (Farrow), who eventually falls for him.

But lest you think this is simply a love story, there are also pot-shots at fame, fads, the 1930s (!!), medical conventions, product cash-ins and the joys and pitfalls of celebrity.

Then there's the sheer joy of the technical wizardry that allows Woody's Zelig to stand alongside such figures as Josephine Baker, Brickhouse, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, "Red" Grange, Al Capone, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Lou Gehrig and Fanny Brice. This is the same type of FX visible in "Forrest Gump", and eleven years before the fact! Nice going.

But you haven't lived till you've seen Woody trying to blend in at an Adolph Hitler speech.

There's a lot of slapstick but there's also a lot of great lines ("I have to council a group of chronic masturbators", Zelig complains, "and if I'm late they'll start without me.") Classic.

But at the center of it all is Woody himself, just like his Zelig character, wanting only to be liked, if not loved. He succeeds. Once you see "Zelig", you'll love it.

Eight stars, plus one star more for watching Woody be serenaded by Fanny Brice. He's the cat's pajamas!