DVD REVIEW
Zelig, Woody Allen, 1983
Trying to figure out a header for this review epitomizes the problems that I have with this very middling Woody Allen film. Readers of this space know that I have done many reviews of Allen’s films, as actor, director or both but this one annoys me no end. In short, not all Woody Allen movies are created equal. The premise behind this one is potentially interesting, perhaps more so today than when the film was originally produced- a send up of our celebrity-crazed society. With Allen as a human chameleon in the Jazz Age there certainly were possibilities for a funny look at how the geeks looked at a fellow geek but it falls flat. Why? I believe that here Allen just went back and found every sign gag and cliché that he had already used in many previous films- the obligatory nod (or is it finger?) to Freud, Marx, the New York intelligentsia (here Irving Howe of Dystenary fame and Susan Sontag), Jewish childhoods, fascination with gentile women (here Mia Farrow, as an chain smoking experimental psychiatrist) and so forth. If this list sounds familiar to Allen fans then you have the sense of my feelings on this film. Woody flat ran out of steam on this one. Fortunately, there is plenty of other better work by Allen to pick from. Do so.
Zelig, Woody Allen, 1983
Trying to figure out a header for this review epitomizes the problems that I have with this very middling Woody Allen film. Readers of this space know that I have done many reviews of Allen’s films, as actor, director or both but this one annoys me no end. In short, not all Woody Allen movies are created equal. The premise behind this one is potentially interesting, perhaps more so today than when the film was originally produced- a send up of our celebrity-crazed society. With Allen as a human chameleon in the Jazz Age there certainly were possibilities for a funny look at how the geeks looked at a fellow geek but it falls flat. Why? I believe that here Allen just went back and found every sign gag and cliché that he had already used in many previous films- the obligatory nod (or is it finger?) to Freud, Marx, the New York intelligentsia (here Irving Howe of Dystenary fame and Susan Sontag), Jewish childhoods, fascination with gentile women (here Mia Farrow, as an chain smoking experimental psychiatrist) and so forth. If this list sounds familiar to Allen fans then you have the sense of my feelings on this film. Woody flat ran out of steam on this one. Fortunately, there is plenty of other better work by Allen to pick from. Do so.
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