Zelig Review- By Michael Carlisle

 Title: Zelig
Year: 1983
Director: Woody Allen
Country: US
Language: English

On my quest to watch every Woody Allen film made so far I have stumbled upon many fantastic movies. His most recent work, Blue Jasmine, is a sensational masterpiece that plays out like a modern version of A Streetcar Named Desire. Of course every fan of his knows Annie Hall (1977) and Manhattan (1979), his most acclaimed pictures, though only a fraction of those have seen Zelig (1983). I saw it yesterday and can say without a doubt that it's one of the most underrated Allen flicks in his repertoire.

Zelig is a fictional documentary about the life of human chameleon Leonard Zelig, a man who becomes a celebrity in the 1920s due to his ability to look and act like whoever is around him. Clever editing places Zelig in real newsreel footage of Woodrow Wilson, Babe Ruth, and others.

A decade before Forrest Gump found its main character at the center of important historical American events, the neurotic Woody Allen created this mad-cap mocumentary about a man who is equally, if not more, strange than him. Making this picture well before GGI, the process of aging film and manipulating photos to make it seem as if Zelig were there was painstakingly difficult. The production decided to also use actual lenses, cameras and sound equipment from the 1920s, and used the exact same lighting that would have been done. In addition the exposed negatives would be stomped on in the shower  by Gordon Willis.

During the time it took to complete Zelig, Woody Allen had completed two other feature films; A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982) and Broadway Summer Rose (1984) A ridiculous amount of attention was given to Zelig and as a result Allen created another masterpiece. The 20's in this picture looks much more authentic than even the 20's in 2011's Oscar Winning The Artist. In addition to being technically well made, it's also hilarious. In one scene we observe Zelig at Hitler's rally, causing a commotion, in another we see the incredibly dramatized, and falsified, version of Zelig at Hitler's rally as depicted in a biographical picture. His lover then says "how we met was nothing like what we had seen in the movie!"

In conclusion, Leonard Zelig is a fascinatingly complex individual despite being 100% fiction. Woody Allen's project was certainly ambitious, it took much more time than he thought it would, but it was definitely worth it. There are no other films like this, most mockumentaries do not have Allen's insane attention to detail. Praise it! 5/5