Woody Allen delivered Zelig in the middle of a particularly strong creative patch. He had successfully navigated from pure comedies to more serious comedy-dramas. If anything, Zelig falls into the former category. But it's really quite different to anything else he had directed at that point. It's a pretty experimental movie in many ways, one that uses technical wizardry like no other Allen movie. It takes the form of a mockumentary, and in order to successfully achieve its aims, it blends old and new films such that Woody himself appears seamlessly in old footage depicting various historical figures and scenes. In this sense, it pre-dates the Oscar winning Forrest Gump by a decade.
Its story revolves around a strange figure called Leonard Zelig. He is a man who had a significant effect on world affairs but who is now forgotten. Historians and people who knew him discuss his life in a talking heads format, while we see a variety of stills and clips taken from different parts of his life. It appears that he was known as a human chameleon, in that he was able to change his appearance and personality at will, so that he could blend into any situation; in this way he was, for example, able to turn black, put on excessive weight, speak new languages, etc at will. The premise is of course entirely fantastical but it is treated with sober seriousness by the narrator. This mixture of silliness with a dry academic documentary style is what makes it the film that it is. I guess it has some things to say about conformity and celebrity but in essence it's an amusing inventive docucomedy. It reminded me a little bit of Peter Greenaway's The Falls in it's absurdist humour and documentary realism, except this is a good deal more accessible and, of course, funnier. Having said all that, it isn't among Allen's best works in my opinion. It's neither as funny as his best comedies, nor as emotionally involving as his best dramas. Nevertheless, it is one of his most original. And where else can we see Allen goofing around behind Adolf Hitler at a Nazi rally? Overall, it's a film that once again proves Allen is a highly original talent.
Its story revolves around a strange figure called Leonard Zelig. He is a man who had a significant effect on world affairs but who is now forgotten. Historians and people who knew him discuss his life in a talking heads format, while we see a variety of stills and clips taken from different parts of his life. It appears that he was known as a human chameleon, in that he was able to change his appearance and personality at will, so that he could blend into any situation; in this way he was, for example, able to turn black, put on excessive weight, speak new languages, etc at will. The premise is of course entirely fantastical but it is treated with sober seriousness by the narrator. This mixture of silliness with a dry academic documentary style is what makes it the film that it is. I guess it has some things to say about conformity and celebrity but in essence it's an amusing inventive docucomedy. It reminded me a little bit of Peter Greenaway's The Falls in it's absurdist humour and documentary realism, except this is a good deal more accessible and, of course, funnier. Having said all that, it isn't among Allen's best works in my opinion. It's neither as funny as his best comedies, nor as emotionally involving as his best dramas. Nevertheless, it is one of his most original. And where else can we see Allen goofing around behind Adolf Hitler at a Nazi rally? Overall, it's a film that once again proves Allen is a highly original talent.