Crimes and Misdemeanors
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Movie Reviews of Crimes and Misdemeanors
Movie Review: Masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
A good example of why the screenplay is so great is the character of Dolores Paley, played by Anjelica Huston. She is a minor character; in essence serving as the `in' to Judah Rosenthal, but Allen does not skimp. She is a fully realized character. Look at the scene where she is recalling her past with Judah, and we then see her soberly staring off into the ether. The door bell rings, she runs to it, and embraces Judah. We get the memory, which is positive, her reflection, which makes her seem to rue it, her desperation in running to the door, and then her blackmail threat. In a minute or so we get a complex arc of a character. But, while fully developed, she is also used as a device to get the viewer to sympathize with the amoral Judah. Her whininess, pettiness, self-importance, self-deceits, threats to Judah and his family, all make us dislike her, well rounded or not, and subtly make us actually want Judah to off her. Thus we are subliminally made to feel what Judah feels, and thus a small sense of complicity and guilt is rooted in most viewers. Yet, Allen does not settle for the easy out of having us totally on Judah's anti-heroic side, either. He is not Godzilla, and we do not totally want him to step on and/pr fry the scurrying little Japs that flee from his rampage. Instead, we see that he is a hypocrite and coward, unwilling (until the film's end) to accept his amorality. I earlier mentioned the scene where he invites his brother up to his home, just so he can pawn off the first mention of murder on Jack (who, in a great moment, exasperates that Judah was never comfortable playing `hardball' in life), and this act is almost as repulsive as the act of murder he finances, and Judah is an even more despicable character than his brother, for he has the means to avoid such actions, and chooses not to.
Yet, the screenplay's excellence is not out of tricks, even there, for we then get the film's resolution, which clearly rewards and glorifies those people (unethical or not) who are strong and bold, and crushes those who are equivocal and weak. Amongst the lot of `winners' are the Rosenthal brothers (especially Judah), Wendy Stern, Lester, and Barbara's date. Amongst the `losers' are Cliff Stern, Dolores Paley, Professor Levy, Barbara, and Ben the rabbi. About the only exception to the rule is the equivocal Halley, yet she is `won' by Lester. All of the winners are decisive and create their own lives, whereas Cliff and his sister indulge in romantic fantasies (he's an unemployed, married filmmaker, short and not handsome, and he really thinks Halley will choose him over the rich, single, and handsome Lester?). By contrast, the winners cut their losses, and look askance at the worst possible outcomes they could suffer. And they succeed.
Unusually, the critical reception of the film was almost wholly positive. The lone exception was the Chicago Reader's ridiculously bad Jonathan Rosenbaum who wrote:
The first "serious" Woody Allen film with Jewish characters (1989) might seem like an improvement after the pseudoprofundities of Interiors et al, but it can't be said to dig any deeper. Martin Landau plays a wealthy ophthalmologist who plots the murder of his mistress (Anjelica Huston) when she threatens to expose his adultery and embezzlement. In quasi-comic counterpoint is the plight of an unsuccessful documentary filmmaker (Allen) who's stuck in an unhappy marriage, goes to work for his obnoxious brother-in-law (Alan Alda), a successful producer of TV sitcoms, and falls in love with one of his assistants (Mia Farrow). The overall "philosophical" thrust--that good guys finish last and that crime does pay--is designed to make the audience feel very wise, but none of the characters or ideas is allowed to develop beyond its cardboard profile (though Alda has a ball with his part). With Claire Bloom and Sam Waterston (as the perfect all-purpose symbolic Allen character--a rabbi going blind).
Cardboard characters? Does not dig deeper? What film was Rosenbaum watching? I mean, he's known for being both a poor critic and writer, but this is like claiming 2001: A Space Odyssey had bad special effects. It's simply not tenable, whether or not he subjectively `liked' the film.
No, Rosenbaum is as wrong as one can be, and Judah Rosenthal and Crimes And Misdemeanors are artistic creations on par with two of Akira Kurosawa's greatest meditations on evil: the evil and victorious vice president in The Bad Sleep Well and the realism of the kidnapper in High And Low. The former film show the triumph of evil and the latter a realistic depiction of evil's randomness, which contrasts with Allen's film. And compared with two lesser takes of his own, on the same theme, Match Point and Cassandra's Dream, this film digs deeper and ends far better. Those two films have potential, but drop the ball, in the end. Judah Rosenthal didn't. He played the game, and won, and the next time he ever needs to really `win' in such a game of life, there will be no self-doubt nor flinching. He learned his lesson; that power and influence can let one cheat and kill with impunity. That's why he's real. That's why he's scary. That's why he's one of the greatest villains in not only film history, but the annals of human fiction. Because there are no supernatural Freddy Kruegers nor superhuman Hannibal Lecters in reality, only in Hollywood films; no matter how outrageous the tales are that come out about the latest serial killer du jour. But there really are Judah Rosenthals out there. They are life's `winners.' And they simply do not care about you or me. And, as the film shows and argues, why should they?
Movie Review: If it bends its funny, if it breaks it isn't. Allen's best!
Summary: 5 Stars
`Crimes and Misdemeanors' written and directed by Woody Allen may very well be Allen's best film to date. It is a straight drama with intermixed humor. It has no parody or self-reference like `Stardust Memories', it has no gimmicks like `Annie Hall', and it is not leadenly serious like `Interiors'. While this does not necessarily make it a better movie, it has what seems to be the largest `name' cast of all Allen's works, even though he is able to attract `name' actors like flies to honey. It even has a real plot where events early in the movie create situations to which you expect a resolution by the time the credits roll.
There is a very neat symmetry between two parallel series of events in the movie. The parallelism and it's nature are signaled by the title and the promise is realized far better than other works with similar titles. The liner notes compare the subject in this movie with `Love and Death', but I think the comparison is strained at best. The real issues in this movie are guilt and loss.
The Crime is the murder of Landau's mistress (Angelica Houston) arranged by Landau's brother (Jerry Orbach), a gangster with access to contract killers. The motive for the murder is fact that the mistress has become impatient in her expectation that Landau will leave his wife (Claire Bloom) and threatens to reveal the infidelity to Bloom and the world. What makes the risk to Landau even greater is that he is a very successful and wealthy doctor of ophthalmology who has contributed much to local hospitals and other charities.
The Misdemeanor is the dalliance of Allen's character with his assistant (Mia Farrow) while his marriage with wife Joanna Gleason is souring. The connection between Allen and Landau is based on the fact that one of Gleason's brothers is a rabbi (Sam Waterston) who is going blind and is being treated by Ophthalmologist Landau. The misdemeanor plot is enriched by Gleason's other brother, a highly successful television producer gloriously played with great ambiguity by Alan Alda's slipping between attractive and unattractive traits as easily as a duck takes to water.
Allen is a marginally successful documentary filmmaker whose great ambition is to do a documentary on the life of a philosopher (probably a professor at NYU, loosely based perhaps on Sydney Hook). He is hooked up with Alda's TV producer to do a biographical documentary on the producer's career for PBS. Alda recommends Allen to PBS only as a favor to his sister.
While the events leading to the `Crime' causes intense guilt and remorse on the part of Landau, his connection to the crime goes undetected by the police and he wakes up one morning with his sense of guilt lifted from his shoulders. The irony is that Allen's trivial misdemeanor is published by his loosing his wife, loosing his contract to do the documentary for the producer, and loosing his potential romantic interest (Farrow) to Alda.
I'm reluctant to give away much more of the plots, but I will say that the events are shot through with this kind of irony, including the fact that while Landau gets off Scott free, the rabbi, a totally virtuous character, goes blind. On top of this, the two principles are depicted in such a way that you admire the criminal, Landau and feel little sympathy for his victim or the inept, nebbish filmmaker who gets the short end of the stick from all his colleagues and relatives.
And through all of this, there is a finely crafted vein of humor, including a little aphorism from Alda on the nature of humor when he says that `If it bends, its funny. If it breaks, it's not'.
This movie twists and turns and bends and threatens to break, and never does. Truly one of Allen's best!.
Movie Review: Woody's Finest
Summary: 5 Stars
Having just recently viewed this film, I have to say that my appreciation of Woody Allen has grown tremendously. I never realized how much of an artist he truly is.
This film actually follows a similar pattern as the old greek plays and many of the more modern plays where you have a main plot that's more serious and cerebral, counterbalanced by a second plot that's a little more earthy and comical. The main plot involves Judah, a successful opthomologist much beloved and respected by his family and friends, who ends up having his mistress murdered to prevent her from revealing their affair to his wife and friends. The second plot involves Cliff, a struggling film-maker who is given the odious job of making a documentary of his boorish brother-in-law Lester, a successful TV producer.
The first plot deals primarily with the shame and guilt that Judah has to endure, first over the extra-marital affair, and second, over the murder to cover up the affair. Martin Landeau really does a brilliant job of bringing Judah's character to life. We feel his stunned anguish when he says to his family "I've just done a terrible thing" and then making a quick recovery "I left my notes at the office." Later, after the murder is commited, he visits his childhood home in New Jersey. There he sees a flash back of his family gathered around the dinner table having their sader. Judah's atheist aunt scolds his father, who's an orthodox jew, for filling the kids heads with a bunch of nonsense supersition. There is no God. There is no absolute moral framework. We live in a world where might makes right, citing the murder of six million jews by the Nazis as an example. Judah's father takes the opposite view that there is a righteous God who rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked either in this life or the next. His aunt says that if a man can commit murder and not be troubled in conscience and not get caught, he's home free. After a few months the murder is finally pinned falsely on someone else, Judah breathes a sigh of relief and gets on with his happy, successful life.
The second plot with Cliff has a similar but not nearly as serious dilemma. We feel sympathetic with Cliff and yet find ourselves more charismatically drawn to Lester. In the end, Lester ends up getting his way in life while Cliff goes away penniless, with a broken marriage and no girlfriend.
The moral in both of these plots is that life is not always fair, and that sometimes people treat others unfairly or do terrible things and get off scott free.
I have to say although the film itself is very well done, I disagree with the conclusion. If we operate from the premise that there is no God then certainly there is much in life that is cruel and unfair and is not brought to justice. If on the other hand we operate from the premise that there is a righteous God who sees what we do the thought of facing His judgement is sobering if not downright troubling. Even in Judah's case, it's doubtful that he got off scott free. He was a good man and a man of conscience and he had to carry the guilt and shame of his terrible deed around for the rest of his life. I've known cases where that alone drove people to the brink of insanity.
Personally, I think the older plays, where the tragic character has to pay the price for his or her misdeeds is probably closer to the truth.
Movie Review: "We define ourselves by the choices we have made..."
Summary: 5 Stars
Love him or hate him, it's very hard to deny the fact that Woody Allen is extremely talented when it comes to making films and comedy. Yes, the real Woody Allen has issues and problems, but I am able to enjoy Woody Allen as a brilliant filmmaker with a very impressive body of work. "Crimes and Misdemeanors" was a complete surprise for me. It's a darker and more serious picture from Allen, but there's still enough comedy that feels real and not forced.
The film focuses on two main characters. The first is a successful ophthalmologist, Judah, who has a loving wife and family. He seems to have it all, but his prosperous and rich life is threatened when his mistress is fed up with not being able to have all of Judah to herself and wants to come clean to his wife. Judah has no idea what to do, and since he can't buy her off or talk her out of it, he goes to his criminal brother for advice. When he suggests that she can be "gotten rid of," Judah is faced with a serious choice to make and must consider the consequences. The second part of the story involves a very idealistic and artsy filmmaker, Cliff. In order to make the philosophical and human inspirited documentary he has planned, he has to stoop down to making a film centered around a goofy sitcom producer who he despises, just so Cliff can finance the project.
These two stories are very different from each other, and at first you start to wonder what the significance is. It is true that Judah's story is much more captivating, but we also need the Cliff story as this is a movie that is about tough choices, and it examines if somebody can live with the decisions they make, no matter how small or major they may be. I will also say this much; this is a film that requires multiple viewings, because this film will most likely take you by surprise. I would call this more of a drama than a comedy, but there are a lot of comedic touches to it as well. The writing and directing from Allen is top notch, and this could be one of his most complex films. The cast is also terrific with a lot of big names, and none of them disappoint.
What I really enjoy about this movie is that all of the characters are fully fleshed out. Nobody seems flat and no matter how flawed somebody may appear, you can still see traces, if not more, of humanity within them somehow. That to me makes the movie even more chilling and dark at times. These aren't goofy cartoon characters where you know from the start who's good and who's rotten to the core. These people come off as being real, and that's a talent Allen has when it comes to making films that aren't so slapstick, and this is an important key that makes "Crimes and Misdemeanors" work in the end. The characters have real problems and obstacles, and they have to decide in the end, when the smoke is clear, if they can live with themselves with the choices they have made. -Michael Crane
Movie Review: Something smells rotten in Manhattan!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of Allen's most heavy weight films. He focuses with the avidness of an entomologist in the intimate life of a famous and distinguished doctor who carries an apparent and normal life who makes a tearful speech about the God eyes but that finally the moral lessons learnt in his youth perhaps, were not enough. He presents a double life, a double moral; he is adultery and this adjective doesn't derive precisely of the word adult: he has lived a marriage through twenty years and suddenly meets a furtive, lonely and desperately lone woman Angelica Huston. He brings her back the joy for life but the things seem to be out of his control. She simply does not want to live in this way and additionally he has his hand something dirty with the administration of certain money . In the other hand we have a terrible selfish man who hires to Woody for a special documental where he will expose essentially all the concerns that have beaten Allen through his life. There will be sharp reflections about religion, art, philosophical issues. As always Woody is an irreverent and shy outlaw man who works as a journalist dealing with toxic products; as you can remember Chernobyl affair was still very fresh in the collective memory.
Allen will establish wonderful bits of films that will match exactly with the progressive drama; he twill try to win the love of Mia Farrow deeply fascinated by this hyper selfish : Schubert in Manhattan works out perfectly when Allen walks under a bridge with the camera moving around him and Huston; as you know we are talking about the Death and the Maiden.
These are basically the dramatic nucleus in this interweaved drama; this doctor will be object of blackmail by his mistress and decides to hire a mercenary to solve the disturbing situation. But do not worry, this puzzle is not unique in NYC. We have hundred and thousand similar cases where the public behavior must prevail above the minor issues, and the impunity is just a mere formalism that will be forgotten in the next party perhaps? Lampedusa's echoes still resound even in Manhattan: all must change for getting all keeps equal. My moral must be the same for my reputation and my secure place in this enormous stage, in this multidisciplinary complicity that it must work as a perfect clock mechanism: with the required pulse of a doctor with a laser eliminating a malign tumor: no pain, no complaints and then depending of your private religion there will be always a remote escape, the confession or the Complaint Wall .
As wisely answered Northrop Frye when was asked about his personal opinion about the faith: "The faith proves that the desperation is not the only solution".
One of my top choices Woody 's pictures