From a purely technical standpoint, Zelig (1983) is a remarkable feat. Using vintage 1920s cameras, lenses and sound equipment--no computers--writer and director Woody Allen and his cinematographer Gordon Willis (nominated for an Oscar for his work on this film) are able to replicate the archival look of silent and depression-era films to such a degree that newly-shot footage is often indiscernible from newsreel and stock, though edited and juxtaposed together. For Zelig that's part of the gag. The movie carries the "mockumentary" form to a new plane of cinematic forgery. And predating the visual sleight-of-hand of Forrest Gump (1994) by more than a decade, Allen inserts himself neatly into a Nazi rally and a New York Yankees ball team with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Zelig took so long to make because of its intricate technicalities Allen was able to complete two other films before it was finished.

Zelig is about absurd oddity Leonard Zelig (Woody Allen), who out of a desperate need to conform, can morph himself in attitude and appearance, as well as ethnically and professionally, to blend in with any definable group of people he is closest to. Hence, he can change himself into and pass as a black trumpeter in the company of Harlem nightclub musicians. Or as a psychiatrist in a roomful of headshrinkers, and so on. (The line is thankfully drawn at animals and women.) Left by himself, he has no personality of his own. Eventually he draws the attention of the Manhattan medical community and shortly thereafter becomes a cause celebre. He gains fame as "The Human Chameleon" and catchy songs and dances are fashioned in his honor. Dr. Eudora Fletcher (Mia Farrow), seeing Zelig as the cap to her career, believes his malady to be of a psychological nature rather than a somatic one as her male colleagues, i.e. the rest of the medical community, has diagnosed. With hypnosis and therapy she's able to draw out the real Zelig, one with opinions and likes and dislikes. In short, he becomes an individual. And Eudora and Leonard gradually fall in love with each other.

But the past catches up with Zelig for acts over which he had little control. He's accused of bigamy and practicing medicine without a license, among other things. He's forced to flee and returns to his chameleon ways. For a time he seems to have disappeared, but he's finally spotted in the background of a picture, behind Adolf Hitler, dressed in a Nazi uniform. Eudora seeks for a way to save him.

Zelig's perspective is one of looking back into the past from the present or rather 1983. Pseudo-interviews with Susan Sontag, Saul Bellow, and Bruno Bettelheim, intellectuals light-heartedly playing themselves, offer their historical impressions about the forgotten little man who for a brief period captured the American imagination. It seems that Woody Allen is singular among American filmmakers in being able to good-naturely rib academia and the cognoscenti without engendering resentment (remember Marshall McLuhan in Annie Hall?). The deadly serious tone of Paul Horgan's narration while uttering silly one-liners is precious. And there's the humorous snippet of a Hollywood biopic of Zelig that accurately skewers the way true stories are overdramatized and exaggerated. Dick Hyman's music goes a long way in recapturing the flavor of the Jazz Age.

Zelig is ultimately too slender a film--at a zippy 79 minutes--to be counted as one of Woody's best. By contrast, Take the Money and Run (1969) is a funnier mockumentary although technically crude. Yet Zelig does seem like a masterpiece next to Sweet and Lowdown (1999). Beneath the gags and hilarity is a cautionary theme about simply running with what is popular at the moment and not taking personal stands when conscience dictates. There is inherent danger in fads for both politics and art.


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV