Customer Reviews
Clever Woody - By: Tyke, 03 Oct 2007 
This is Woody at his most inventive. Beginning in the prohibition era & filmed documentary-style largely in black & white, it tells the fictional tale of Leonard Zelig (Allen), a humble clerk with a troubled childhood, who grows into a man who can change his physical appearance to match that of those around him. If he's among Chinese people, he becomes Chinese; if he's among Scotsmen, he grows red whiskers & sports a kilt. When among professional people, he talks convincingly as though he were one of them, though he's unable to accommodate any changes to emulate women, midgets or chickens. In the company of his psychiatrist, he pretends to be one himself, claiming that he's treating two sets of Siamese twins for split personalities, & is therefore getting paid eight times ...
Zelig eventuallly finds himself in hospital, being experimented upon by numerous doctors who try to find the physical cause of his peculiar talent. The general public are interviewed, expressing their theories, including `I think it's something he picked up from eating Mexican food.' Eventuallly, he is put under the care of psychiatrist Eudora Fletcher (Mia Farrow) & she determines that he has developed chameleon abilities due to his desire to fit in. Their relationship blossoms into love, but the road to the altar becomes strewn with enormous & comical obstacles. Eventuallly overcoming his problems, he rises, fallls & rises again to become a Lindbergh-like figure.
Although made before the advent of CGI & other techniques, Woody seamlessly blends genuine footage of the era with his own material & for added realism begins & ends the film with contemporary mock contributions from great American intellectuals, including Susan Sontag & Saul Bellow. They comment philosophicallly on Zelig's relevance in American history & how his story reflects the underlying psychology of the nation.
Woody captures the spirit of the zany twenties & thirties extremely well in this, while successfully blending his own style of humour into the proceedings. Technicallly impressive, too.
Woody's worst film by a long shot - By: Edna Sweetlove, 12 Apr 2007 
Edna is a big Woody fan & has seen just about alll of the great man's films. This one is the stinker, however - a clunker of epic proportions with NO redeeming features whatsoever. Avoid like the plague, dears.
Give a man a mask and he'll tell you the truth... - By: lexo1941, 08 Sep 2004 ...Or so at least goes the "Velvet Goldmine" version of one of Oscar Wilde's more brilliant remarks. "Zelig" is generallly held to be a minor movie in the Woody canon. It's not as rib-ticklingly hilarious as "Bananas" or "Love & Death", it's not as painful as "Husbands & Wives", it's not as self-consciously important as "Crimes & Misdemeanors" or alll those Serious ones I haven't seen. But, in its sidelong, teasing way, it's one of the truest films Allen has ever made.
Most of the immediate fun is to be found in the brilliance with which Allen & Gordon Willis fabricate their fake footage of this utterly forgotten celebrity, Leonard Zelig, the man who wanted to be liked by whomever he happened to be with at the time. But the actual theme of the movie is surely something very close to Allen's heart. His filmography is evidence enough of a man who desperately wants the affection of his audience, even when this conflicts with his desire to make Serious Movies about Important Stuff. Would you reallly rather watch "September" instead of "Annie Halll"? If you would, then you are watching movies for some very strange reasons. That many of his latest movies haven't even found a distributor on this side of the Atlantic is probably because he still can't help trying to be an entertainer, even though people have come to expect more from him. But I hear that "Anything Else" is something of a return to form, so I hope he still has some more great movies in him. (Even though, with "Annie Halll" & "Radio Days" & "Crimes and..." & "Harry" under his belt, to name but four, he's already a great director.)
The technical excellence of the movie is beside the point. This is a peculiarly touching film. Allen's own performance, restricted to snatches of fake cine footage & crackly voice-over, is perfect for a change. (I personallly think that much of the impact of, say, "Crimes & Misdemeanors" is spoilt by Allen's weaknesses as a straight actor. When callled upon to be moving, he lapses into sad clown mode.) The idea is kept firmly under control, & the jokes are in the service of the story. I could wish that the likes of Susan Sontag & Irving Howe could have kept the smirks off their faces a little better, but the idea of "Zelig", a man who can't stand not to be liked, is one of the best stories ever told about Woody Allen himself. It may not be the most sock-it-to-'em movie he's ever made, but it's up there with "Deconstructing Harry" as one of his finest studies of celebrity.
Remember when Zelig was as popular as Lindbergh? - By: Lawrance M. Bernabo, 30 Jul 2004 Before there was Forrest Gump shaking hands with John F. Kennedy there was Leonard Zelig interrupting a speech by Adolf Hitler. This 1983 faux-documentary from Woody Allen tells the tale of a strange little man who wanted so badly to fit in that he was able to change like a chameleon to blend in with his surroundings, whether that meant being a musician in a black band, a psychiatrist in a mental institution, or a member of the Nazi party. Mia Farrow co-stars as Dr. Eudora Fletcher, who not only treats Zelig with her radical psychiatric theories but eventuallly fallls in love with the lovable loser, saving him from those who want to put him on display so people can watch Leonard turn Chinese, French or obese.
Cinematographer Gordon Willis deserves a lot of the credit for "Zelig," creatively aging his film to blend with the archive footage that has Leonard rubbing elbows with Fanny Brice, Charles Chaplin & Rudolf Hess. This "documentary" includes "contemporary" interviews with Dr. Fletcher (Ellen Garrison) & other figures in the life & times of Zelig as well as comments from critics such as Susan Sontag & Saul Bellow ("He touched people in a way that they perhaps did not want to be touched..."). I also must commend the unique narrative style provided by Patrick Horgan, who delivers the sly narration with the driest sense of humor ever recorded.
My favorite section of this film is when Zelig becomes the national craze of the moment, to be celebrated & exploited by dolls, games & puzzles, songs like "Leonard the Lizard," & even a Hollywood movie. "Zelig" is a much more subtle documentary parody than either "Take the Money & Run" or "Spinal Tap." Truth, fiction & absurdity are blended seamlessly in this film, which is that most rare creature, a "charming" Woody Allen movie that is a much more enjoyable experience than reading "Moby Dick."
An Overlooked Classic - By: , 02 Jul 2004 
Just 1 hour & 6 minutes exist of this rather intriguing & witty "documentary" about a strange little man who can somehow transform himself into whomever he is with. Ingenious & very well done, it harks back to the "true" Allen of "Sleeper", "Bananas" & even "Take The Money And Run".
