Other Titles • The Cat's Pyjamas • Identity Crisis and Its Relationship to Personality Disorder
Synopses for Zelig (1983)
1.
"Uproariously funny! A cinematic marvel!" -The New York Times
Mr. Personality? Or Mr. Personality disorder? Find out in Woody Allen's madcap mockumentary about an identity crisis of hilarious proportions! Thematically intricate, technically complex and filled with some of the most astonishing special effects ever, Zelig is "pure magic" (Newsweek)! Nominated for two Oscars, this "work of breathtaking virtuosity" (Playboy) is further proof that Allen "is the premier American filmmaker of his day" (The New York Times)!
Leonard Zelig (Allen) is a social quick-change artist whose neurotic insecurity forces him to mimic - mentally and physically - whomever he's with. Treated by Dr. Eudora Fletcher (Farrow), Zelig is slowly cured, and in the process goes form side-shoe freak to national celebrity - to Eudora's fiancé! But when misdeeds from Zelig's multiple-personality past start to surface (larceny, bigamy and an unauthorized appendectomy), the human chameleon is on the run again, and Eudora must search the world over to find - and save - the only man who's every man she's ever wanted!
(18 votes)
2.
The thinking person's Forrest Gump, Woody Allen's 1983 Zelig is a funny, atmospheric mock-documentary about the collision of one man's manifest neuroses colliding with key moments in 20th-century history. Allen plays the title character, a self-effacing, timorous fellow with such a porous personality that he physically becomes a reflection of whoever he is with. Complex and painstaking, the film's pre-Gump special effects manage to place Allen, buried under a series of makeup and prosthetic guises, in a number of scenes along with Adolf Hitler at a Nazi rally, a pope at the Vatican, and famous guests at a garden party hosted by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Similar in tone and satire to some of Allen's short, comic pieces published in The New Yorker magazine, Zelig is a one-note movie that takes its delicious time establishing the fullness of its central joke. It's well worth the wait. --Tom Keogh
(17 votes)
3.
Woody Allen's comic pseudo-documentary about a fictional 1920s media sensation named Leonard Zelig (Allen), a human chameleon who develops the ability to takes on the characteristics of anyone he happens to be with at the time. A gentle jab at America's obsession with fame and celebrity, as well as a parody of the documentary form, ZELIG uses an updated version of the fake newsreel technique from CITIZEN KANE to depict its hero magically at the side of almost every major personality of the early 20th century, from Eugene O'Neill to Adolf Hitler. Enriched by "commentary" from a variety of contemporary intellectuals including Irving Howe, Susan Sontag, and Bruno Bettelheim, the film traces Zelig's bizarre career as a tabloid hero and side-show freak who finds true compassion only in the arms of his psychiatrist, the renowned Dr. Eudora Fletcher (Mia Farrow).
(17 votes)
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