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Zelig – 1983 Allen
- Zelig is an inventive leap for Allen (in a period where he was wildly creative) but also in tune with his normal obsessions and thematic muses such as psychoanalysis, romance, and jazz
- An important landmark in the history of the mockumentary comedy film subgenre—it’s a year before spinal tap and of course is related to woody’s debut, also a mockumentary, take the money and run and there are elements again in husbands in wives
- Gordon Willis first Oscar nom (that’s insane)—he made 34 films as DP and 8 of those are with allen made from 1977 with annie hall and ending with purple rose in 1985. A great period of director and dp collaboration
- Great line about living above a bowling alley but because of the fighting it was the bowling alley that complained
- I think Allen is more interested in the psychological mechanism of coping (and a way for him to explore that and a period of time he loves- 1920’s (midnight in paris) than the historic nazi assimilation/holocaust statement (that statement is more likely the aim of bertolucci in the similarly themed the conformist)
- A remarkable level of detail in the film for an artist directing a film a year
- Part newsreel, the audio pops with authenticity and then we have a lot of zooming in on still photographs
- An apt nazi/hitler climax
- Would be influential to zemeckis and forrest gump 11 years later
- Simple parable, criticized for being a 30 minute idea stretched to 80 minutes
- Forgoes woody’s trademark jazz and plain black opening credits
- Saul bellow, susan sontag, many others
- Highly Recommend- back half of top 10 of 1983
Drake2017-08-30T14:33:57+00:00
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