Zelig (1983)
Directed by Woody Allen

Film Review

Following on from Stardust Memories (1980), Woody Allen takes another wry look at the phenomenon of celebrity in this inspired mockumentary, a wicked but brilliant parody of a documentary about a forgotten star.  Once again, Allen plays an exaggerated version of himself, a man who is so obsessively neurotic that he can literally change his appearance so that he can fit in with the people around him.  It's hard to know where Leonard Zelig ends and Woody Allen takes over - Zelig is clearly an individual that the writer-director identified himself with and in making this film Allen comes as close as he has dared (or is ever likely to dare) to construct an accurate self-portrait.  And in many respects, we are all like Leonard Zelig, consciously or subconsciously changing the way we think and behave, perhaps even the way we look, so that we feel more at ease with those around us.  We are all human chameleons - to a degree.

Zelig belongs to Woody Allen's experimental period, after the director had established himself with a series of critical successes that included Annie Hall (1977) and Manhattan (1979).  The film's main achievement is that it looks like an authentic documentary, with archive footage ingeniously 'doctored' by Allen and his team, whilst at the same time being uproariously funny.  The Nobel Prize winning author Saul Bellow is just one of a number of esteemed intellectuals who crop up in the present-day inserts, acknowledging the bizarre life of a purely fictional character with the solemnity of an encomium directed at Franklin D. Roosevelt or some other great historical personage.  The fact that Zelig has no identity of his own, that he is famous only for being famous, makes this all the funnier.  Zelig is the prime example of the kind of vacuous celebrity or media-hogging 'non-person' that is now endemic in our moronic culture.  And therein lies the genius of the film - we see celebrity for what it is - the hollowest of deceptions - and yet we still fall for the illusion and end up head over heels in love with Leonard Zelig.  Secular we may be, but we still need our gods.

At its time (before the advent of computer-aided wizardry), Zelig represented a major technical achievement, convincing us that Woody Allen was not only a fully grown adult in the 1920s, but also someone who was busy hobnobbing with the glitterati of Jazz Age society as well as Adolf Hitler and Pope Pius XI.  This was achieved by using the blue screen process to insert shots of Allen in historical film footage, and doing so with such care that you can never spot the join.  Camera equipment of the period was used to achieve as authentic a match as possible, and the film was physically (mal)treated to age it.  The illusion is helped by an abundance of popular musical numbers of the 20s and 30s, to which were added some specially composed songs , one of which (the highly infectious Chameleon Days) was sung by Mae Questel, who famously voiced Betty Boop and Olive Oyl in popular cartoons of the 1930s.

Although his character is what the film is about, Woody Allen's presence is surprisingly subdued and we see him not as a wannabe star but as someone who just wants to fade into the background.  Zelig has no personality of his own, and when he is in the company of others he becomes a human mirror, merely imitating the words and actions of others.  The best example of this is the touching scene in which his co-star Mia Farrow (playing a morally dubious psychiatrist) tries to convince him he is not a psychiatrist.

Without the presence of another human being beside him, Zelig ceases to exist, but the society of others can prove an intolerable burden. His trauma is one which he shares with every human being on this planet.  He wants to be left alone but solitude means oblivion, exile to the darkest of all places.  At the same time, he craves acceptance, to be loved and valued as an individual, but this involves an equivalent torment - surrendering a part of yourself in order to fit in and become a part of the faceless, stinking mass of humanity.  To try to be different, to try to assert your own identity risks rejection or censure.  Better to play safe and go with the crowd.  Alone or with others, Hell is with us always, and there's no escaping the fact - we can never be who we really are.  A satisfying off-kilter blend of pastiche, fairytale and allegorical fable, Zelig is a sweet delight with a pungent core.  It may not be as well-known as Woody Allen's other great films but it could well be his most profound.

Film Synopsis

How strange that history has all but forgotten Leonard Zelig.  The man who was a cultural phenomenon in his time seems to have disappeared without trace.  Who was Leonard Zelig and how did he acquire such fame and notoriety?  Zelig's story begins in the 1920s at the height of the Jazz Age, when he was noticed by F. Scott Fitzgerald at a society gathering.  In his account of the event, Scott Fitzgerald makes reference to Zelig's curious ability to blend in with his surroundings.  Not long after, Zelig was frustrated in his attempt to pass himself off as a baseball player.  For a while, he was mixed up with Al Capone's mob, and it took some time before people began to realise that these diverse individuals were one in the same man.  When it became apparent that Zelig could alter both his physical appearance and his behaviour, according to the company he was in, he became a news sensation.  Films were made about him and he inspired numerous songs.  His family's well-meaning efforts to protect him from the public gaze ended in spectacular tragedy and Zelig found himself in a psychiatric institution, a prize specimen for psychiatrists eager to understand the reason for his metamorphoses.  Dr Eudora Fletcher took a special interest in Zelig, convinced that he would be her passport to fame if she could cure him of his personality disorder.  Eudora fell in love, Zelig was cured, and the couple married.  But when a succession of lawsuits came crashing down on Zelig, the human chameleon took flight and went off to Europe.  Dr Fletcher followed him to Germany, to find her beloved had become a leading member of the Nazi Party.  When, miraculously, Zelig found himself back in America, he was feted as a hero. But fame does not last...