Crimes and Misdemeanors - Woody Allen

BY PHILIP MARTIN ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE In Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories (1980), two movie fans approach cult director Sandy Bates (Allen) to say, “We love your work ... especially the early funny ones.” It is a funny moment, and in the context of Allen’s ongoing career, not an insignificant one. Allen has never been comfortable resting on his considerable comic achievements — witness his latest, the Janus-faced Melinda and Melinda, which opens in Arkansas this week. And his “serious” films have left him vulnerable to charges of overreaching. I happen to like Woody’s non-comedies quite a lot; I’ve even come around on the subject of Interiors, which I dismissed as “pretentious” in my youth. (”Pretentious” is one of those words we use a lot when we’re young and don’t understand what we’re looking at.) In fact, Allen’s best film may be his least funny, the black and pungent Crimes and Misdemeanors. While C & M avoids the self-conscious cerebralness that permeates some of Allen’s work, it is hardly a simple film; on the contrary it teems with dark intelligence. It resemebles the underrated novels of Morris Philipson, both in structure and texture — the book-lined apartments and townhouses of Allen’s Manhattan seem less claustrophobic and more generous than before — and though a chilling nihilism lies at the film’s core like a chocolate-dipped stone, New York itself has never seemed so sun-burnished, limned in warm gold light. At times the city seem more like Philipson’s gentell New Haven than demanding, clinical metropolis. It is delightful to discover that this film — which is as much about seeing as anything else — is Allen’s most splendidly visual work. He lets his camera linger, allowing the viewer to glimpse the life (or the deadness) behind a given character’s eyes. This is a patient Allen, for once willing to let the audience arrive at its own judgments. The story is straightforward. Judah (Martin Landau) is a successful and philantrophic opthalmologist with a problem mistress. Delores (Angelica Huston) is threatening to go to Judah’s wife (Claire Bloom) about her two-year affair with Judah. Delores believes she has been badly used, that promises were made and broken. She also intimates that she just might be willing to go to the authorities about Judah’s financial improprieties. Anguished, the fiercely agnostic Judah turns to his underworldly brother (a fanatastic Jerry Orbach) to deal with the problem. Jack takes care of the problem and phones his brother to let him know all is well. Judah slips into shock, excuses himself from the dinner party he’s hosting, and drives to Delores’ apartment to stare into her “inert” eyes and remove all incriminating love letters and photographs. This main arc is interrupted by a secondary plot involving failing documentarian Cliff Stern (Allen) and his infatuation with a breezy public television producer Halley (Mia Farrow). unable to finance his “real work,” Cliff takes a hack job shooting a documentary on his brother-in-law Lester, a self-aggrandizing television sit-com producer (Alan Alda). The project, arranged by Cliff’s bloodless wife (Joanna Gleason), amounts to little more than a vanity film. Naturally Cliff despises Lester, who also is romantically interested in Halley. Meanwhile, Cliff’s other brother-in-law, Ben (Sam Waterson), is a rabbi facing imminent blindness with beatific calm. Ben is the link between the parallel stories — he’s Judah’s patient and confessor. In the latter role, he advises Judah to tell his wife about his indiscretions with Delores, to ask for forgiveness. Though Judah and Ben are fond of each otherm, there is a fiundamental philosophical schism between the two: The rabbi believes in a structured universe that allows for hope and mercy; Judah see only a swirl of chaos. Though the film is chocked with obvious symbolism and familiar Allenisms — all the talk of eyes, the glorious old films, the crushing verbal ripostes, Judaism, love and death and sex and God — nothing seems trite. This is an unsettling and disturbing film, flawed only so far as it is potentially misunderstood. It is a commonplace to wish for the old, funny Woody — but this dark meditation on justice and the lack of it may be his best film. Crimes and Misdemeanors Director: Woody Allen Genre: Comedy Publisher: Orion Pictures Released: 1989 MPAA Rating: R Cast: Martin Landau, Woody Allen, Mia Farrow Woodman's Existentialist Comedy A Review by John Nesbit 01/21/2003

“We are all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions, moral choices. Some are on a grand scale; most of our choices are on lesser points, but we define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are, in fact, the sum total of our choices.” So says Prof. Louis Levy (Martin S. Bergmann) Woody Allen in a voiceover during the final montage of Buy This Photo Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors, At where we witness characters literally make life AllPosters.com and death decisions along with more mundane ones. In fact, Allen often places us in Judah Rosenthal's (Martin Landau) shoes, so we know about as much as he does about his situation and go through the same agonizing process. A successful, well-respected ophthalmologist, Judah has a middleaged fling with Fatal Attraction-clone Delores (Angelica Huston), who refuses to be “ignored” when he attempts to break the affair off. Seriously in need of therapy, Delores desperately attempts to cling on to Judah—writing a “tell all” note to his wife (fortunately intercepted), calling his home and office persistently, and threatening blackmail to ruin his family and professional life. Judah is a man who has it all with a supportive wife, stable family, solid reputation, and upper class lifestyle, but Delores is driving him bonkers. There is an “easy” solution. Judah's brother Jack (Jerry Orbach) is well connected with a network of hit men who will, given the word and a few thousand dollars, take care of the hysterical troublemaker. But how can a man like Judah commit such a crime, even to keep his entire life from hitting the junk heap? He is no Raskolnikov, thinking that he's superhuman and beyond ordinary morality—he existentially views the world as harsh, pointless, and empty of values, but finds himself having pangs of conscience just as Dostoyevsky's protagonist does. Could those childhood teachings about the "eyes of God" seeing all things be plaguing him? Running parallel to Judah's story is a secondary, more lighthearted one centering on indie documentary filmmaker Cliff Stern (Woody Allen). Trapped in a sterile marriage, his wife arranges for Cliff to make a breakthrough documentary about her tremendously successful filmmaking brother, Lester (Alan Alda). Cliff can't stand Lester's smugness and his commercial success, but meets a kindred soul on the rebound during the shoot—Halley Reed (Mia Farrow), who shares his enthusiasm for Professor Levy's positive philosophical takes on Life. They'd both rather make a film about the old professor, but must continue the far more commercially viable biography about Lester, who practically makes Cliff gag with his philosophy on comedy—“If it bends, it works. If it breaks, it doesn't work.” Allen bends enough to find the proper balance between comedy and seriousness in Crimes and Misdemeanors. Light as the film appears at times, there's some heady philosophical dilemmas going on here, lending more credence to the idea that Allen supplies Ingmar Bergman to the American audience with heavy doses of

humor. This time he even uses one of Bergman's cinematographers, Sven Nykvist, to capture the inner nuances of character, most notably with Judah. Throughout Allen's seriocomedy, philosophies are contrasted. Both Cliff and Judah view the world as basically indifferent and meaningless, yet greatly admire people who see moral structure to the Universe and real meaning in life. Ironically, one of these positive role models who has consistently said “yes” to life wakes up one morning and says “no.” So, does it really matter what your philosophic bent is, in the end? The characters go through a myriad of improbable, illogical scenarios that still never sink into farce. Events are often unpredictable, and Allen's film demonstrates this. Martin Landau gives his finest performance this side of Ed Wood, truly letting us inside his moral quandary throughout. He's never played straight comedy, and Allen uses his skills wisely, as he does with the entire ensemble cast. Alda uses his natural affability well to play the clueless, but likeably self-absorbed director, and Mia Farrow comes across sincerely as the well-intentioned, sensitive filmmaker who can still be charmed by champagne and caviar. Woody Allen has created at least one feature film each year since Crimes and Misdemeanors, but this is his last truly great film— one that explores existential questions in a comic way. Common Allen themes of seeking love in this crazy world through simple things like family and work are found, yet nagging Bergmanesque questions about larger issues remain. Is there truly a moral order to the Universe? Allen supplies no easy “crime doesn't pay” answers, nor does he supply blatant redemptive baptismal scenes or bestow beacons of light upon his characters. In the end both Allen and Landau reflect on events as they have occurred without resolution. Which is as it should be. Life is like that, and we shouldn't expect a filmmaker to wrap it up for us in an hour and forty-seven minutes. Crimes and Misdemeanors Woody Allen's "Crimes and Misdemeanors" is a thriller about the dark nights of the soul. It shockingly answers the question most of us have asked ourselves from time to time: Could I live with the knowledge that I had murdered someone? Could I still get through the day and be close to my family and warm to my friends, knowing that because of my own cruel selfishness, someone who had loved me was lying dead in the grave? This is one of the central questions of human existence, and society is based on the fact that most of us are not willing to see ourselves as murderers. But in the world of this film, conventional piety is overturned and we see into the soul of a human monster. Actually, he seems like a pretty nice guy. He's an eye doctor with a thriving practice, he lives in a modern home on three acres in Connecticut, he has a loving wife and nice kids and lots of friends, and then he has a mistress who is going crazy and threatening to start making phone calls and destroy everything. This will not do. He has built up a comfortable and well-regulated life over the years and is respected in the community. He can't let some crazy woman bring a scandal crashing around his head. "Crimes and Misdemeanors" tells his story with what Allen calls realism, and what others might call bleak irony. He also tells it with a great deal of humor. Who else but Woody Allen could make a movie in which virtue is punished, evildoing is rewarded and there is a lot of laughter - even subversive laughter at the most shocking times? Martin Landau stars in the film as the ophthalmologist who has been faithful to his wife (Claire Bloom) for years - all except for a passionate recent affair with a flight attendant (Anjelica Huston). For a few blessed months he felt free and young again, and they walked on the beach, and he said things that sounded to her like plans for marriage. But he is incapable of leaving his wife, and when she finally realizes that she becomes enraged.

What can the doctor do? It's a "Fatal Attraction" situation, and she's sending letters to his wife (which he barely intercepts) and calling up from the gas station down the road threatening to come to his door and reveal everything. In desperation, the doctor turns to his brother (Jerry Orbach), who has Mafia connections. And the brother says that there's really no problem, because he can make one telephone call and the problem will go away. Are we talking . . . murder? The doctor can barely bring himself to say the word. But his brother is more realistic and certainly more honest, and soon the doctor is forced to ask, and answer, basic questions about his own values. Allen uses flashbacks to establish the childhood of both brothers, who grew up in a religious Jewish family with a father who solemnly promised them that God saw everything and that, even if he didn't, a good man could not live happily with an evil deed on his conscience. The story of the doctor's dilemma takes place at the center of a large cast of characters. The movie resembles Allen's "Hannah and Her Sisters" in the way all of the lives become tangled. Among the other important characters is Allen as a serious documentary filmmaker whose wife's brother (Alan Alda) is a shallow TV sitcom producer of great wealth and appalling vanity. Through his wife's intervention, Allen gets a job making a documentary about the Alda character, and then both men make a pass at the bright, attractive production assistant (Mia Farrow). Which will she choose: the dedicated documentarian or the powerful millionaire? Another important character is a rabbi (Sam Waterston), who is going blind. The eye doctor treats him and then turns to him for moral guidance, and the rabbi, who is a good man, tells him what we would expect to hear. But the rabbi's blindness is a symbol for the dark undercurrent of "Crimes and Misdemeanors," which seems to argue that God has abandoned men, and that we live here below on a darkling plain, lost in violence, selfishness and moral confusion. "Crimes and Misdemeanors" is not, properly speaking, a thriller, and yet it plays like one. In fact, it plays a little like those film noir classics of the 1940s, like "Double Indemnity," in which a man thinks of himself as moral, but finds out otherwise. The movie generates the best kind of suspense, because it's not about what will happen to people - it's about what decisions they will reach. We have the same information they have. What would we do? How far would we go to protect our happiness and reputation? How selfish would we be? Is our comfort worth more than another person's life? Allen does not evade this question, and his answer seems to be, yes, for some people, it would be. Anyone who reads the crime reports in the daily papers would be hard put to disagree with him. ‘Crimes and Misdemeanors’ By Rita Kempley Washington Post Staff Writer October 13, 1989

Murder goes unpunished and true love unrewarded in Woody Allen's relentless "Crimes and Misdemeanors," a disparaging word or two on the sorry state of the world today. A relative of "Hannah and Her Sisters" in its duplex structure and of "The Purple Rose of Cairo" in its bitter theme, "Crimes" is two movies in one, a blend of Allen's satiric and pretentious dramatic styles. Herein he is disappointed in both Dostoevski and love. The plot lines -- a herniated melodrama with Martin Landau and an amusing love couplet with Allen -- intersect in a tenuous kinship. There is also a cinematic glue -- old movie scenes that presage developments in "Crimes" -- that binds the monstrous sins of a crumbling community pillar with the follies of a fool in love. Landau plays eye doctor Judah Rosenthal, a weak man caught in an affair with the unstable Dolores (Anjelica Huston), who threatens to tell his wife (Claire Bloom) when he tries to dump her. A rabbi patient (Sam Waterston), slowly going blind, urges him to come clean; Judah's shifty brother Jack (Jerry Orbach) suggests hiring a

hit man. While Landau wrestles with his dilemma, Allen continues his search for fulfillment. But as the artist ages, it's no longer sex that obsesses him but romantic love. Mia Farrow costars as the stammering Halley Reed, a PBS producer who must choose between an intellectual soul mate, Cliff (Allen), and a shallow Hollywood mogul, Lester (Alan Alda). Whiny, quirky and urbane, it's the easier half of the movie, more natural, directed without self-righteousness and strain. And as Cliff, Allen is the romantic misfit we like best, perplexed by women's propensity for going off with better-looking men with more money and more sense. Rejection lurks like a Lacoste alligator in every scene. Cliff, who is directing a TV documentary on Lester, is bent on exposing him as a braying ass, even splicing footage of Francis the Talking Mule into the final product. Halley, an ambiguous love interest, comes to Lester's defense: "He's an American phenomenon," she says. "So is acid rain," counters Cliff, a neurotic, birdy shadow of the desperate Dolores of Story No. 1. Dolores, meanwhile, has upped the stakes, threatening to expose Judah for juggling his own and his hospital's monies if he dares leave her. Already a cheat and an adulterer, Judah throws another log on the devil's campfire. Then, haunted by memories of Hebrew school, he sifts through long-held ethics to find the loopholes. His immediate friends and family cluster around Judah, unaware that he has betrayed them. Cliff imagines he is betrayed by Halley. Lester gets the girl and traitors sleep tight while good men wrestle with their pillows or make smart movies. As "The Purple Rose of Cairo" decried Hollywood's depiction of the Depression era, so "Crimes" debates the decline of the empire, questions the efficacy of all philosophies, from the Torah to Hollywood bromides. "Crimes" feels like a tug of war between Landau's potent depiction of a blandly evil man, a man trusted with vision, and Allen's eternally comic hand-wringer. This way Allen has his own great clanking Russian tractor of a drama, and pleases his critics too, the ones who want "Annie Hall II." Actually, Cliff is Alvy Singer's first cousin, condemning Lester's highblown non sequiturs, like "Comedy is tragedy plus time." Artistic nuspeak, the emperor's new paintbrush. © Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company Críticas CELEBRITY Demoliendo hoteles A esta altura de su carrera como director, con más de treinta películas a cuestas, no es fácil decir algo novedoso sobre el cine de Woody Allen. Cualquier nuevo film del realizador, desde los más atractivos e inteligentes hasta sus rutinarias propuestas donde se repite a sí mismo, siempre será bienvenido por sus incondicionales seguidores. La cuota anual de Allen con el

cine, como más de una vez se dijo en El Amante, implica encontrarse con un amigo confiable, que nos invita una y otra vez a conocer los traumas, obsesiones y preocupaciones que lo hicieron famoso. Allen ya es un clásico del cine de los últimos treinta años y eso nos hace felices, porque vimos sus películas, queremos a unas más que a otras y recordamos situaciones graciosas y patéticas de varios de sus personajes. Sus films, por lo tanto, establecen con el espectador una recíproca actitud de confianza y conforman un sólido cuerpo autoral (¿acaso el cine de Woody Allen es el último que aun puede fundamentar la teoría de autor?) frente a la agresión y el cinismo de otros directores y otras películas. En definitiva, después de cada reencuentro con el personaje, volvemos a girar un cheque al portador hasta el año siguiente, en el que Allen retornará con su ego habitual, su visión del mundo y sus temas de siempre, que ya conocemos en detalle.

Crímenes y pecados fue un punto de inflexión en la carrera de Allen. Aquel film de hace diez años, oscuro y terminal, hoy puede verse como la culminación de una primera etapa que alternó la desprolijidad formal de sus primeras comedias con la búsqueda de una estética personal, obsesiva y autoindulgente. En mi opinión, Crímenes y pecados es la última gran película del realizador, definición que no implica omitir, por citar tres films posteriores, el celebratorio homenaje que le hiciera al musical en Todos dicen te quiero, las divertidas escenas de Un misterioso asesinato en Manhattan y la autorreferencia exagerada y algo molesta de Los secretos de Harry. Es que, en cada una de sus películas, siempre habrá un instante genial, alguna reflexión interesante sobre el arte y la vida, un momento en el que Allen transmita un

gesto que ya nos pertenece. Su obra, además, manifiesta una gran vitalidad (más allá de su cuota anual), como si el cine hubiera sido inventado para él.

Celebrity, en cambio, es una película extraña. Como primera cuestión a señalar, hay que decir que Allen no actúa en el film, aspecto que no sería importante en otro caso pero que, de acuerdo con la complicidad que el director busca establecer aquí con el espectador, la ausencia de su figura enjuta y problemática es un punto en contra del film. Su alter ego en Celebrity es Kenneth Branagh, encarnando a Lee Simon, un periodista farandulero con aspiraciones de escritor. La composición del actor y director inglés es loable pero impersonal, ya que cada uno de los tics, la forma en que imposta la voz y la totalidad de su batería gestual pertenecen a Woody Allen. Se nota, al respecto, el esfuerzo de Branagh por cumplir las rigurosas indicaciones del realizador pero, por momentos, su actuación no pasa de ser un calco de Allen como intérprete. En este sentido, Celebrity es una película rara y también contradictoria: da la impresión de que el director se preocupó más por invadir la fuerte personalidad de Branagh (desde ya, una proeza) que por contar una historia original.

Hay pocos universos tan reconocibles como el que se muestra en Celebrity. Sin embargo, Allen parece no poder ir más allá de aquello que sabemos de antemano sobre un mundo artificial, que disfruta de sus quince minutos de gloria. La estrella de cine sin ninguna virtud en la interpretación, la modelo come-hombres, el astro que destruye la habitación del hotel, la joven actriz de teatro under y las fiestas y ágapes del negocio literario, son presentados desde el guión de manera superficial, anecdótica, episódica y bastante desganada. A la ausencia de sorpresa que transmiten varias escenas de la película, se debe agregar la atolondrada acumulación de voces (242 personajes tienen diálogos), que dispersan el interés del relato. Por supuesto que Celebrity, como cualquier otra película menor del director, también tiene sus momentos felices y sus personajes brillantes (el cirujano plástico, la prostituta), pero la sensación general es que, por primera vez en su carrera, Allen elaboró un guión perezoso, que toca una sola cuerda desde el principio hasta el final.

En una escena de Celebrity, Robin Simon (Judy Davis) y su amante Tony Gardella (Joe Mantegna), concurren a la exhibición privada de una película. A medida que llegan los invitados, el italiano le describe ácidamente a Robin las características de un crítico de cine, un actor y un productor. Por su parte, Lee Simon, quien intenta encontrar a un editor competente para la publicación de su libro, sobrevive entrevistando y conociendo a distintas celebridades efímeras. Al principio de la película, se reencuentra con una ex-novia (Melanie Griffith), ahora devenida actriz, que le hace una fellatio. También descubre el mundo de la moda -a través de una "supermodelo" sin nombre (Charlize Theron)- y hasta conoce a una chica que trabaja en un restaurante (Winona Ryder), de la que rápidamente se enamora. Al mismo tiempo, decide convivir con una editora (Famke Janssen), el único personaje de la película que se preocupa por las indecisiones profesionales y personales del periodista. El mejor Woody Allen, el que nos provoca mayor simpatía, es aquel que se refiere a sí mismo, a su status social y al mundillo del que forma parte. Es decir, el Allen que habla de sus propias miserias, de sus amores, de su soledad, de sus gustos personales, del paso del tiempo. En los últimos años, sin embargo, el director amplió su mirada con el propósito de dar su opinión sobre otros mundos y personajes. Cada director -como ocurre con Allen en Celebrity- tiene el derecho de expresar sus comentarios sobre determinados ámbitos, que son investigados con curiosidad y extrañamiento. Sin embargo, la mirada del realizador sobre el mundo del espectáculo, expresado por sus aspectos más groseros y superficiales es, en mi opinión, bastante molesta y gratuita. ¿Son tan desagradables, arribistas y estúpidos los personajes que rodean al periodista? ¿No hay nada que pueda rescatarse de ese universo paranoico que busca la fama a cualquier precio? ¿Esa particular fauna merece una condena tan feroz de parte de Allen? ¿Acaso el director no es una figura pública como algunas de las que aparecen en la película? En este sentido, da la impresión de que Allen se regodeara criticando de manera malsana a personajes con los que no puede sentirse identificado. Pero Celebrity no es la primera película en la que Allen difama sin contemplaciones a quienes no tienen su coeficiente intelectual. En Maridos y esposas, el personaje interpretado por Sidney Pollack, recién separado de su mujer, se relaciona con una chica "diferente": ella practica aerobics, hace un culto de la comida vegetariana, trata de entender el mundo por medio de la astrología y no comprende que Ran de Kurosawa es una versión libre de King Lear de Shakespeare. La mirada de Allen sobre este personaje no deja dudas, ya que nadie del círculo intelectual que rodea a Pollack (especialmente su amigo, interpretado por el realizador) acepta las características vulgares de la chica. La gimnasta de buen corazón, efectivamente, será ridiculizada en una fiesta organizada por los amigos de su pareja. Lo mismo ocurre en Poderosa Afrodita, donde se establece una particular relación entre el histérico personaje que encarna Allen y la prostituta interpretada por Mira Sorvino. ¿Por qué el director abomina de un mundo que le es ajeno pero al que recurre para mostrarlo de manera tan poco afectuosa? El problema, como siempre, es el gesto. A Woody Allen, sobre este tema puntual, le sigue faltando una mirada irónica como la que tenía Federico Fellini con sus criaturas. En Ginger y Fred, los viejos artistas que interpretan Mastroianni y Giulietta Massina, observan extrañados el caos que se produce tras las bambalinas de un estudio de televisión. La visión de Fellini sobre un mundo al que despreciaba (la publicidad, la televisión) también era crítica y feroz. Sin embargo, el realizador italiano siempre apeló a la sutileza de la ironía para disimular su incomprensión frente a un universo que le era ajeno. En Celebrity también se muestra un estudio de televisión, pero la mirada de Allen es diferente: tampoco él comprende la situación, pero su visión es extremadamente cínica, digna de un mandaparte intelectual que se cree superior al resto.

El último Woody Allen no figurará entre sus películas más recordables, especialmente porque resulta difícil encontrar en él el infatigable ingenio del director. Sin embargo, Celebrity confirma un punto que excede cualquier comentario crítico: Allen aprendió a filmar mujeres. Si no me creen, nada mejor que detenerse en los rostros y los cuerpos de Charlize Theron, Winona Ryder y Famke Janssen para comprobar -gracias a Soon-Yique Allen está hecho un auténtico "viejito verde".

Por Gustavo J.Castagna