Zelig (1983)

Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

Charming and brutal

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Zelig is a pretty strange movie. While parts of it are clever, I think only die-hard Woody Allen fans are going to like this one. It's filmed as a mockumentary, which in itself is a very tricky genre to master.Woody Allen plays the title character, and Mia Farrow, his at-the-time sweetie pie, plays his psychiatrist. Woody has become a celebrity because he acts as a human chameleon and mimics anyone he comes in contact with. Sometimes the film uses stock footage of real historical figures, like Lou Gehrig, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Babe Ruth, Charles Lindbergh, Charlie Chaplin, and others. Mia interviews and observes Woody, trying to understand his condition through various methods. Parts of it are cute, parts of it are funny, but parts of it get a little long in the tooth. If you love Woody and want to watch all thirteen of the movies he made with Mia, go ahead and rent Zelig. As long as you expect it to be quirky, you'll know what you're in for.

I saw it a few days ago and it's now definitely among my top 10 Woody Allen favorites. From start to finish I was amazed by how the story was told and it just felt so real. It could be a real documentary! I also admire the job of the actors doing the part of the testimonies and when we are showed the old photos with the Ken Burns Effect. It's incredible they made this in 1983. I don't know if it was the first mockumentary ever done but I'm sure it influenced a lot since then. There are also some good messages and great lines, even it's not your typical Woody Allen script. All the actors are fantastic and the make up is pretty impressing. When it was over I wanted the movie to start again. It is really a different cinematic experience, original, fresh and funny. I recommend it to everyone, while I know not everyone will be as amazed as I was.

Imagine watching a badly made, dated documentary about a historical figure with no personality. Now imagine that this documentary isn't even real - the people and events you're seeing are all made-up. This begs the question: why? Oh, it's meant to be funny. However, Zelig is very immature and stupid and works far better as a depressing waste of time than as a comedy. It is full of predictable set-ups and cheap jokes.Woody Allen is a terrible actor. He is always the same in everything he does. He isn't naturally funny. Perhaps he's talented as a director or writer, but not as a performer. Nevertheless, Zelig confidently invests almost all of its focus into Woody's character with little else going on. There is no social commentary, no relevance to real world events, no deeper message. Just an indulgent mess of missed jokes.This movie starts slow and then slows down. It's one-dimensional. It uses a familiar format - a 1930s newsreel documentary thing about a mysterious man named Zelig. They interview boring old people. And they even show names for these people. Do they have funny names? Of course not. Why even bother to show their made-up names? This is torture. Every documentary ever made is worth more than this excruciatingly abysmal "movie". At least you might learn something or get a look inside another world.Zelig is a completely pointless exercise. It's an excuse for Woody Allen to dress up as different stereotypes and stare blankly, emptily at the camera. They took the time to record a bunch of fake 20s songs about a "chameleon" craze. We're shown a bunch of random stock footage from the 20s. I'm more interested in those parts. At least they're real people with real lives. At one point Zelig is under a trance and tells a joke about a Rabbi. It takes ages to set up, has nothing to do with the rest of the movie and is probably much funnier if you're familiar with Jewish stereotypes. Facepalm.I'm reminded of the huge personal disappointment that was Duck Soup. I don't find dark films or music or books "depressing". I find the likes of Duck Soup and Zelig depressing. They make me not want to watch movies. I feel empty, confused and frustrated because of them. Confounded at what on Earth the people making them were thinking. Did they actually think this would be funny or entertaining?Let me write about some good movies to heal myself a bit.Dr. Strangelove had ridiculous characters but they were played with sincerity and energy. It was a brilliant satire with great acting and lots of irony (and it's just funny). The Great Dictator openly mocked Adolf Hitler when he was at the height of his power, had beautiful physical comedy, made fun of politics in insightful ways and had an incredibly powerful speech at the end. This Is Spinal Tap made people believe in a fictional band, was full of hilarious ad- libbing, had perfect timing and was a satire of rock bands with many easy-to-miss references.Zelig is not even a decent attempt at a film that simply went awry. It's pretentious, self-absorbed, lazy film-making. A random sequence of average YouTube videos would have more laughs and more cohesion that this abomination. Absolutely one of the worst films I've ever seen.

Woody Allen's genius, intelligence and wit are often only hampered by his insistence to play the same character over and over again in a multitude of films, or at least a version of that archetypal protagonist: a whiny, talky, at any rate neurotic American Jew with never ending problems in the romantic area. This makes him a welcome guest for shrinks, and the resulting filmed self-analysis is all garnished with the typical sophisticated Woody Allen humor. In "Zelig" he is all that and more. As this time our hero proves more adaptable. Literally. And it's a good thing.Allen, who brought the world such fresh comedy ideas like film stars stepping out of the screen, characters sensing that they might be out of focus, writers lost between fiction and reality to name just a few, created with "Zelig" one of the best mockumentaries to date. Subject of course is this peculiar director/writer/actor, who loses himself in the role of a human chameleon, a freak of nature, who has anything but an identity to count on. Apparently his former roles as time traveler, dictator by accident or Vulgarian "spy" were not enough, so Allen pulls out all the stops and turns clown, dentist, professor, Indian, black, fat, mustached and what not - all in one picture. Adapting involuntarily to anything regardless of profession, ethnic or political orientation, the Zelig character goes all the way through, even finding himself consequently in Nazi Germany at a Hitler rally. And he makes a point. Aside from the comic effect of this premise and its perfect execution via newsreels, photo manipulation and the like containing mystifying historical details that never happened, there's that other level to the film as well: "Zelig" deals head on with the complex relationship between individual and society, poses questions about identity and assimilation, and in bringing up all those serious issues is simply hilarious.