rating:
(out of
4 stars)United States; 1983
Directed by Woody Allen; produced by Robert Greenhunt; written by Woody Allen
Starring Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, John Buckwalter, Patrick Horgan, Marvin Chatinover, Michael Jeter
Below you will find a temporary review for this film. The real (better, more complete) review will be online very soon.
'Zelig' is an original movie. It is a fake documentary about the fictitious
Leonard Zelig (Woody Allen) who is called the chameleon guy because he
changes into the same kind of person as he is with. When he is with Indians
he becomes an Indian, when he is with a doctor he becomes a doctor. This is
a terrific idea and Woody Allen is the right person to handle this kind of
material, but with eighty minutes it is a little too long.
I admired it anyway. Zelig was living in the 1920's and 1930's and the
footage Woody Allen uses from that time fits perfectly in his documentary.
We have real footage with Zelig and his psychiatrist Dr. Fletcher (Mia
Farrow) simply added to that footage. A trick we also saw in 'Forrest Gump'.
But we also have some totally new footage and Allen and his cinematographer
Gordon Willis make it look very authentic, as if the images were really shot
in the old days. This footage, of course, is in black and white. In between
we have images in color where people who were close to Zelig tell about him
and Dr. Fletcher. It really is like a real documentary.
The life of Zelig, with his (so we learn) mental condition, is entertaining
enough to keep our attention the entire movie, but Allen needs footage of
Adolf Hitler together with Zelig to achieve that. How he is used I will not
reveal but it is one of the terrific moments in the movie. We also see
people like Charlie Chaplin, William Randolph Hearst, F. Scott Fitzgerald
and Al Capone, all nice little things in this original piece of cinema. May
be it is a little less funny than other Woody Allen comedies, but there are
enough laughs. Without the laughs there is still enough to admire.