Comedy

Zelig

Orion Pictures

Jack Rollins & Charles H. Joffe Productions

United States of America

English

Deutsch

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

Charles H. Joffe

Susan E. Morse

Dick Hyman

Robert Greenhut

Gordon Willis

Jack Rollins

Frederic B. Blankfein

Arne Olsen

Lancey Saunders Clough

Ezra Swerdlow

Jim Chory

Janet Rosenbloom

Marjorie Deutsch

Todd M. Thaler

Jeffrey Stern

Thomas A. Reilly

Douglas C. Hart

Tony Gittelson

James Sorice

Danny Daniels

Roy B. Yokelson

Carol Nast

Joan Lopate

Carl Turnquest

Janet Lund Robbins

Harry Peck Bolles

Suzanne Pillsbury

Bob Paone

Lyn Carroll

Ken Rothstein

Tom McKinley

Richard Hornung

Bill Christians

Duncan Scott

Gina Roose

Debra Bard

Fred Rosenberg

Robert Ward

Robert Connors

Lynn Sable

Susan Rollins

Randall Coleman

Joseph Badalucco Jr.

Cheryl Hill

Michael Peyser

Juliet Taylor

Leslie Bloom

Santo Loquasto

Fern Buchner

John Caglione Jr.

Romaine Greene

Werner Sherer

Mel Bourne

Speed Hopkins

Rick Dior

Dick Mingalone

Ronald Burke

Dan Sable

Louis Sabat

Stuart Robertson

David J. Schweitzer

James Sabat

Kerry Hayes

Timothy M. Bourne

Richard Nord

Kay Chapin

Paula Herold

Patrick Hogan

Irwin Young

Helen Robin

Gail Sicilia

Ray Quinlan

James Fanning

John Edward Allen

Ken Murray

Pamela Scott Arnold

Cosmo Sorice

James Mazzola

Frank Graziadei

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").

CinemaSerf

I suppose nowadays we would call this a “mockumentary” about a chap who can be all things to all men except, perhaps, himself. It’s told using interviews, news reports and other actuality to regale us with the life and times of this man who somehow managed to infiltrate just about every scenario, strata of society and political grouping whilst altering his appearance to attain a consistent prominence even though his reasons for being where he was/is/would be were never quite clear to observers. Finally identified, he attracts the attention of psychiatrist “Dr. Fletcher” (Mia Farrow) who attempts to discover a little more about what drove this man. Is he an attention seeker or exactly the opposite? Does he need to stand out or simply want to conform? Either way, what he actually wanted had little to do with what he got as the publicity took his life by the scruff of the neck and embroiled him in a series of legal, ethical and practical issues. I wasn’t really bothered about the rather far-fetchedness of the plot nor of his fairly predictably evolving relationship with his shrink, but as a critique on documentary making and archive research, it’s an effective tool that also pays homage to the style of the silent film whilst showcasing the fickleness of public opinion and loyalty as well as demonstrating the hypocrisy of the media. It’s a bit long and once the direction of travel has been established then I found my interest was way more it’s delivery than it’s content. Worth a watch, though.

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

Best Movies

Zelig

Cast & Crew

Videos

Cast

Woody Allen

Mia Farrow

Patrick Horgan

John Buckwalter

Marvin Chatinover

Stanley Swerdlow

Paul Nevens

Howard Erskine

Richard Whiting

Ralph Bell

Box office

More Like This

To Die For

Monsters, Inc.

Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself

Pocketful of Miracles

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

Beast with a Budget

Töter als Tot

Open For Submissions