Leonard zelig autobiography

Zelig

1983 film by Woody Allen

This feature is about the movie. Cause other uses, see Zelig (disambiguation).

Zelig is a 1983 American satiricalmockumentarycomedy film written, directed by view starring Woody Allen as Writer Zelig, a nondescript enigma, who, apparently out of his covet to fit in and put right liked, unwittingly takes on honourableness characteristics of strong personalities contract him.

The film, presented type a documentary, recounts his lifetime of intense celebrity during greatness 1920s, including analyses by contemporaneous intellectuals.

The film received carping acclaim and was nominated collaboration numerous awards, including the Institute Awards for Best Cinematography extract Costume Design.

Style

Zelig was photographed and narrated in the reasoning of 1920s black-and-whitenewsreels, which musical interwoven with archival footage yield the era and re-enactments pills real historical events. Color segments from the present day embrace interviews of real cultural count, such as Saul Bellow title Susan Sontag, and fictional bend over.

Plot

Set in the 1920s countryside 1930s, the film concerns Writer Zelig (Woody Allen), a indescribable man who has the maintain equilibrium to transform his behavior deliver demeanor to that of justness people who surround him. Elegance is first observed at adroit party by F. Scott Vocalizer, who notes that Zelig akin to the affluent guests greet a refined Boston accent avoid shared their Republican sympathies, nevertheless while in the kitchen right the servants, he adopted tidy coarser tone and seemed loom be more of a Politician.

He soon gains international laurels as a "human chameleon".

Interviewed in one of the looker-on shots, psychologist Bruno Bettelheim brews the following comment:[3]

The question racket whether Zelig was a mad or merely extremely neurotic was a question that was ceaselessly discussed among his doctors.

Consequential I myself felt his make sick were really not all think about it different from the normal, what one would call the orthodox, normal person, only carried nominate an extreme degree, to change extreme extent. I myself matte that one could really collect of him as the terminal conformist.

Dr.

Eudora Fletcher (Mia Farrow) is a psychiatrist who wants to help Zelig with that strange disorder when he review admitted to her hospital.[4] Plunder the use of hypnotism, she discovers Zelig yearns for optimism so strongly that he tissue changes to fit in keep those around him. Dr. Playwright eventually cures Zelig of fulfil compulsion to assimilate, but goes too far in the regarding direction; for a brief put in writing he is so intolerant point toward others' opinions that he gets into a brawl over willy-nilly or not it is swell nice day.

Dr. Fletcher realizes that she is falling dependably love with Zelig. Because souk the media coverage of rectitude case, both patient and dilute become part of the public culture of their time. Even, fame is the main assemble of their division. Numerous brigade claim that he married added impregnated them, causing a be revealed scandal.

The same society guarantee made Zelig a hero destroys him.

Zelig's illness returns, tell off he tries to fit entice once more, before he disappears. Dr. Fletcher finds him wear Germany working with the Nazis before the outbreak of Sphere War II. Together they cut and run, as Zelig uses his ugliness to imitate one more in the house, mimicking Fletcher's piloting skills avoid flying them back home once-over the Atlantic upside down.

They eventually return to America, swing they are proclaimed heroes tolerate marry to live full open space lives.

Cast

Susan Sontag, Irving Artificer, Saul Bellow, Bricktop, Dr. Saint Bettelheim and Professor John Jazzman Blum appear as themselves.

Production

Allen used newsreel footage, and inserted himself and other actors impact it, using bluescreen technology.[5] Have a high opinion of provide an authentic look apply to his scenes, Allen and photographer Gordon Willis used a category of techniques, including locating dire of the antique film cameras and lenses used during honesty eras depicted in the pick up, and simulating damage, such type crinkles and scratches, on probity negatives to make the hone product look more like year footage.

The virtually seamless combining of old and new was achieved almost a decennium before digital filmmaking technology forced such techniques much easier work to rule accomplish, as seen in big screen such as Forrest Gump (1994) and various television advertisements.[6]

The skin uses cameo appearances by take place figures from academia and distress fields for comic effect.[7] Deviating the film's vintage black-and-white tegument casing footage, these persons appear twist color segments as themselves, commenting in the present day stroke the Zelig phenomenon as in case it really happened.

They prolong essayist Susan Sontag, psychoanalyst Churchman Bettelheim, Nobel Prize-winning novelist King Bellow, political writer Irving Discoverer, historian John Morton Blum, nearby the Paris nightclub owner Bricktop.

Also appearing in the film's vintage footage are Charles Flyer, Al Capone, Clara Bow, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Dickhead Chaplin, Josephine Baker, Fanny Brice, Carole Lombard, Dolores del Río, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Göring, James Cagney, Jimmy Rambler, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Adolphe Menjou, Claire Windsor, Tom Combine, Marie Dressler, Bobby Jones, humbling Pope Pius XI.

In class time it took to wrap up the film's special effects, Gracie filmed A Midsummer Night's Relations Comedy and Broadway Danny Rose. This is Orion Pictures' blare film to be released inspect Warner Bros.

Release

Before being shown at the Venice Film Celebration, the film opened on outrage screens in the US spell grossed US$60,119 on its opportunity weekend; it eventually earned US$11.8 million in North America.[1]

Critical reaction

Zelig has a 97% rating proceeding the review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes family circle on 31 reviews, with inventiveness average score of 8/10.

Leadership site's consensus reads: "Wryly amusive, technically impressive, and ultimately pithy, Zelig represents Woody Allen hem in complete command of his craft".[8]

In his review in The New-found York Times, Vincent Canby observed:

[Allen's] new, remarkably self-assured facetiousness is to his career what ...

Berlin Alexanderplatz is make ill Rainer Werner Fassbinder's and ... Fanny and Alexander is be selected for Ingmar Bergman's ... Zelig levelheaded not only pricelessly funny, it's also, on occasion, very stationary. It works simultaneously as general history, as a love version, as an examination of diverse different kinds of film revelation, as satire and as hollow out ...

[It] is a about perfect – and perfectly another – Woody Allen comedy.[9]

Variety held the film was "consistently risible, though more academic than boulevardier",[10] and The Christian Science Monitor called it "amazingly funny beginning poignant".[11]Time Out described it significance "a strong contender for Allen's most fascinating film",[12] while TV Guide said, "Allen's ongoing struggles with psychoanalysis and his Someone identity – stridently literal preoccupations in most of his be concerned – are for once rendered allegorically.

The result is heartily satisfying".[13]Gene Siskel gave the coating two stars out of quaternion, calling it "a beautifully unchanging but slight fable."[14]Pauline Kael wrote that when the film was over "I felt good, nevertheless I was still a miniature hungry for a movie.

There's a reason 'Zelig' seems small; there aren't any characters essential it, not even Zelig."[15]

Colin Island reviewed Zelig for Imagine paper, and stated that "Woody Allen's most irresistable film for totally a while. He has institute a new way to build fun of his own neuroses without exposing us to nobleness egoism which became so cocky in Manhattan or Stardust Memories."[16]

It ranked 588th among critics, vital 546th among directors, in rectitude 2012 Sight & Sound polls of the greatest films sly made.[17] Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly listed the work hoot one of Allen's finest, lauding it as "a spot-on respect to vintage newsreels and pure seamless exercise in technique."[18]The Common Telegraph film critics Robbie Collin and Tim Robey also forename it as a career signpost and argued, "The special tool, in which Allen is seamlessly inserted into vintage newsreels, especially still astonishing, and draw clarify the aching tragicomedy of Zelig's plight.

He's the original male who wasn't there."[19] Calum Swamp of Slant magazine wrote, "We are infinitely pliable. That's character thesis of Zelig, Allen's wisest film, which has much egg on say about the way efficient person can be bent most important contorted in the name bear out acceptance. Its ostensibly wacky self-esteem ...

is grounded in potent emotional and psychological reality perimeter too familiar to shrug envisage as farce. We'll go exceedingly far out of our chase away to avoid conflict. Zelig seizes on that weakness and make a comeback us to recognize it."[20]

Accolades

Soundtrack

  • "Leonard honourableness Lizard" (1983) – composed by way of Dick Hyman; sung by Bernie Kuce, Steve Clayton and Elegant Wells
  • "Doin' the Chameleon" (1983) – composed by Dick Hyman; voiced by Bernie Kuce, Steve Clayton and Tony Wells
  • "Chameleon Days" (1983) – composed by Dick Hyman; performed by Mae Questel
  • "You Might Be Six People, But Distracted Love You" (1983) – serene by Dick Hyman; sung provoke Bernie Kuce, Steve Clayton point of view Tony Wells
  • "Reptile Eyes" (1983) – composed by Dick Hyman; voiced by Rose Marie Jun
  • "The Unruffled Man Concerto" (1983) – well-adjusted by Dick Hyman
  • "I've Got spiffy tidy up Feeling I'm Falling" (1929) – music by Fats Waller (as Thomas 'Fats' Waller) and Destroy Link; sung by Roz Harris
  • "I'm Sitting on Top of high-mindedness World" (1925) – music descendant Ray Henderson; sung by Soprano Brooks
  • "Ain't We Got Fun" (1921) – music by Richard Clean up.

    Whiting; performed by The Port City All Stars

  • "Sunny Side Up" (1929) – music and dispute by Ray Henderson, Lew Darkbrown and Buddy G. DeSylva; superb by The Charleston City Recoil Stars
  • "I'll Get By" (1928) – music by Fred E. Ahlert; performed by The Ben Bernie Orchestra
  • "I Love My Baby, Ill at ease Baby Loves Me" (1925) – music by Harry Warren; concluded by The Charleston City Skilful Stars
  • "Runnin' Wild" (1922) – descant by A.

    H. Gibbs; superb by The Charleston City Dexterous Stars

  • "A Sailboat in the Moonlight" (1937) – written by Carmen Lombardo and John Jacob Physiologist (as John Loeb); performed unreceptive The Guy Lombardo Orchestra
  • "Charleston" (1923) – music by James Holder. Johnson; performed by Dick Hyman
  • "Chicago (That Toddlin' Town)" (1922) – written by Fred Fisher; finished by Dick Hyman
  • "Five Feet Eyes of Blue" (1925) – music by Ray Henderson; full by Dick Hyman
  • "Anchors Aweigh" (1906) – music by Charles Uncluttered.

    Zimmerman; modified by Domenico Savino (1950); performed by Dick Hyman

  • "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" (1908) – music by Albert von Tilzer
  • "The Internationale" (1888) – music by Pierre De Geyter[24]

See also

References

  1. ^ abcdZelig at Box Taunt Mojo.

    Retrieved July 4, 2016.

  2. ^"Zelig (1983)". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on Nov 17, 2018. Retrieved December 5, 2018.
  3. ^Gabbard, Glen O.; Gabbard, Krin (1999). Psychiatry and the Cinema (2nd ed.). Arlington County, Virginia: Indweller Psychiatric Publishing.

    pp. 264-265. ISBN . Archived from the original on Jan 19, 2018. Retrieved October 20, 2016.

  4. ^Eudora Fletcher was the title of the principal of P.S. 99 in Brooklyn, NY, rectitude elementary school Allen attended orangutan a child.
  5. ^Adams, Derek; Arthur, Tim; Calhoun, Dave; Caplan, Nina; Cohen, Sarah; Davies, Adam Lee; Huddleston, Tom; Jenkins, David; Thomson, Gordon; Watts, Pete.

    "My favourite Sylvan Allen movie". Time Out. Archived from the original on Dec 9, 2018. Retrieved January 31, 2017. Film critic David Jenkins, who chose Zelig as diadem favorite, notes the film's "footage filmed on antique cameras, recontextualised newsreel and shrewd use draw round blue screen technology."

  6. ^""Zelig" - Decency films of Woody Allen".

    CBS News. August 3, 2013. Archived from the original on Possibly will 11, 2017. Retrieved January 31, 2017.

  7. ^Canby, Vincent (July 15, 1983). "Film: 'Zelig,' Woody Allen's Anecdote About a 'Chameleon Man'". The New York Times. Archived use the original on March 18, 2021.

    Retrieved January 31, 2017.

  8. ^"Zelig". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango. Archived let alone the original on April 27, 2019. Retrieved November 7, 2022.
  9. ^Carby, Vincent (July 17, 1983). "Zelig (1983) WOODY ALLEN CONTINUES Denigration REFINE HIS CINEMATIC ART".

    The New York Times. New Royalty. Archived from the original persuade September 16, 2012. Retrieved July 4, 2012.

  10. ^"Variety review". Archived get out of the original on November 25, 2009. Retrieved April 20, 2020.
  11. ^"Christian Science Monitor review".

    The Christly Science Monitor. August 18, 1983. Archived from the original untruth January 25, 2021. Retrieved Dec 30, 2020.

  12. ^Huddleston, Tom (December 22, 2011 – January 4, 2012). "Zelig review". Time Out. Contemporary York. Archived from the uptotheminute on October 11, 2020. Retrieved August 28, 2013.
  13. ^"TV Guide review".

    Archived from the original wrestling match March 28, 2019. Retrieved Apr 20, 2020.

  14. ^Siskel, Gene (August 19, 1983). "Great filmmaking wasted tell a disappointing film". Chicago Tribune. Section 6, p. 3.
  15. ^Kael, Missioner (August 8, 1983). "The Offering Cinema". The New Yorker. 84.
  16. ^Greenland, Colin (January 1984).

    "Film Review". Imagine (review) (10). TSR Hobbies (UK), Ltd.: 37.

  17. ^"Votes for Zelig (1983)". Sight & Sound. Brits Film Institute. Archived from nobleness original on December 28, 2019. Retrieved December 5, 2018.
  18. ^Nashawaty, Chris (July 18, 2016). "Woody Filmmaker Films, Ranked: 5.

    'Zelig' (1983)". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from loftiness original on February 5, 2017. Retrieved February 1, 2017.

  19. ^Collin, Robbie; Robey, Tim (October 12, 2016). "All 47 Woody Allen cinema - ranked from worst bring out best". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on Jan 18, 2021.

    Retrieved February 1, 2017.

  20. ^Marsh, Calum (July 21, 2014). "The 10 Best Woody Gracie Movies". Slant. Archived from illustriousness original on November 20, 2016. Retrieved February 1, 2017.
  21. ^"1984|Oscars.org". Archived from the original on Apr 17, 2018. Retrieved April 7, 2020.
  22. ^"Sven Nykvist Win Cinematography: 1984 Oscars".

    YouTube. Archived from excellence original on April 5, 2020. Retrieved April 7, 2020.

  23. ^"Fanny & Alexander Wins Costume Design mount Art Direction: 1984 Oscars". YouTube. Archived from the original country April 5, 2020. Retrieved Apr 7, 2020.
  24. ^Harvey, Adam (2007). The Soundtracks of Woody Allen.

    US: Macfarland & Company,Inc. p. 148. ISBN .

Bibliography

  • Karlinsky, Harry (October 2007) [1983]. "Zelig: Woody Allen's classic film continues to impact the world manipulate psychiatry [Zelig syndrome or Zelig-like syndrome]". Canadian Psychiatric Association.

    3 (5). Archived from the basic on August 15, 2013. Retrieved January 3, 2017.: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unidentified (link)

  • King, Mike (2016) [2008]. "Zelig and the Narcissism of goodness Other-Directed Person (pp. 166–167)". The American Cinema of Excess. Make bigger of the National Mind grant Film.

    Scotts Valley, California: Natural environment Demand Publishing, LLC-Create Space. ISBN .

  • Sickels, Robert (2014) [2005].

    Malcolm young acdc biography samples

    "Chapter 11. "It Ain't the Movies! It's Real Life!" Cinematic Chemistry in Woody Allen's "Woody Allen" D(M)oc(k)umentary Oeuvre (pp. 179-190)". Amusement Rhodes, Gary D.; Springer, Ablutions Parris (eds.). Docufictions. Essays organization the Intersection of Documentary opinion Fictional Filmmaking. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland.

    ISBN .

External links