ZELIG (1983) ***1/2 Woody Allen demonstrates what can be achieved when you harness world-class pathology. Some, of course, argue that harnessing such pathology is itself the stunning achievement. Only Woody could open by inventing a character named Leonard Zelig, and then successfully inviting stoic commentary from Susan Sontag, Irving Howe, and Saul Bellow. A harness, then, is inadequate to subdue pathology, and in the ensuing ride Allen is flung about the psychological landscape like a wire-haired kangaroo wearing glasses and combat boots. Perhaps Woody Allen's greatest creation, Zelig is a triple-edged mirror. On one side is Zelig, so desperate to conform that he becomes incomprehensibly unique. On the second side is society; loving Zelig for his heroic conformity, except when he's conforming to their baser standards in business and love. On the third side...on the third side is you, looking in. What is your personal relationship with Leonard Zelig? I suggest that this is a most excellent topic of conversation for the next time that you're down at the pub, and one that should be breached in an opening monologue of not less than 125,000 words. Smoking, braided Mia Farrow is definably Bergmanesque, but for some reason Allen reminds me of no one so much as John McEnroe-bizarre, truely, and may the association forever elude me. Which is part of the trick-the film isn't fall down laughing funny like, for example, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but it is very funny to some bashful portions of the lunar psychological netherworld, gleefully parked behind neurons and beneath dendrites, where no spyglass shall ever find them. The result is that you find yourself laughing long after you realize that you aren't even sure what's so funny. The scene with Hitler so minimalizes the dictator, Allen so dwarfs him, that the resulting hysteria all but washes any less pleasant associations away. I would just like to point out, for any Little Leaguers in the audience, that Lou Gehrig always batted after Babe Ruth.
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