ZELIG

US, 1983, 75 minutes, Colour and Black and white.
Woody Allen, Mia Farrow.
Directed by Woody Allen.

Zelig is one of Woody Allen's great comedies. However, it is not talked about as much as so many of his lighter comedies. He portrays a character called Leonard Zelig who seems to be present at every significant world event but who always remains anonymously in the background. Woody Allen uses a technique for imposing his presence in historical footage, a device that was used to great effect in Forrest Gump over ten years later.

1. Entertainment? Interest? Impact? Americana? '80s comedy? An exercise in technical expertise?

2. The work of Woody Allen? His comic gifts: verbal, visual? Imagination? In film technique? A woody Allen comedy? A personal statement? The quality of imagination in covering America in the 20th. century? The American Jew? The American Jew adapting to all American situations - and the consequences? Allen's contribution in writing, directing, acting?

3. The relationship of Zelig to other Allen characters? How autobiographical? Similarities? Differences? The Woody Allen character in middle age? Allen's creative interpretation of middle-age crisis?

4. The style of the film as documentary? Audience familiarity with the documentaries of the '70s and '80s? Cinema documentaries? Television documentaries? Allen's imitation, homage, parody? Documentaries as records - and their reliability or lack of it? The importance of editing material - even though presented as objective record? The documentary as interpretation - arbitrary, sound? The message of documentaries? Viewpoint? The range of techniques used for documentary? Strengths, pretensions? Allen mocking the pretensions of the documentary? Allen using the documentary as a device for Zelig's biography and study? Using all the genres in a clever way?

5. The range of technique? A bravura effort - and its effect? The importance of black and white footage - the way that it was used, placed in settings, altered. parodied? Newsreel material? Allen's inserting himself into this material? The silent period and the early sound films re-created with the black and white styles of the times? Speed, movement? Decor. quality of black and white photography? Allen looking at the range of film-making through the decades? The styles of the silent film? The '30s and sound? Official material, archives? Home movies? The Warner Bros. film style with the alleged movie based on Zelig? Clarity, grainy material. archival material ageing? The sequences e.g. with Pius XII, Hitler? Zelig and the chameleon effects - the special effects for him to change? Newspapers? The colour photography for the contemporary interviews - with the television interview style? The psychology interviews and the hidden cameras for the session? Photos, records? Editing. pace, the titles? A feel for American film-making?

6. The use of music: the range of songs, indicating period? The new songs - the Chameleon Song? The record?

7. The contribution of the voice-over: the sound of the voice and the tone, the serious tone, supplying information, giving comment, explaining the action etc? The documentary technique? As a technique for moving the film forward?

8. Woody Allen as Zelig: small. weedy? Offbeat character, the ordinary neurotic, the man who took the shape of those with whom he came in contact. his desperate need to be liked? The nature of the changes - and the political, social, racial range? Zelig as a victim of the 20th. century? The Jewish victim - adapting to all things American? The victim exploited - and then redeemed by Dr. Eudora Fletcher?

9. Zelig presented as facets of the United States: the history of the 20th century, the range of periods, his voice recorded, his shapes photographed? A mirror of America - without explicit judgment? Exploited? The background of his being celebrated -with the echoes of William Randolph Hearst and Citizen Kane? America's needing to be loved - and adapting to those it had need of?

10. How well did the film communicate the atmosphere of the early decades of the century, the migrants,, life in the American cities? The zaniness of the '20s? The financial crash? The Depression? The war?

11. Woody Allen's interest in psychology: using it, its language, the Freudian background? His mocking psychology? His presentation of experts? Faith in experts? Their self-importance? The nature of neuroses and normality? Faith and love curing neuroses? Dr. Fletcher and her interviews with Zelig - and their being filmed and recorded?

12. Allen's tongue-in-cheek parodying of and homage to other film: Reds and the various experts interviewed and their memoirs of Zelig? Citizen Kane and its search for an identity? Bringing Zelig into the life of Hearst? The Warner Bros. films? Allen's own films? Moby Dick? The experts and their witness? The fictionalising of documentary? The comment of real experts -and their playing the game: Irving Howe, Susan Sonntag, Bruno Bettleheim, Saul Bello? The serious-faced authenticity of their comments with irony?

13. Zelig's early life: victim. Jewish. anti-Semitic feeling, persecuted, his parents' dislike of him e.g. locking themselves in with him? His sister and her lover, their exploitation? Deaths? The running joke about Moby Dick? Zelig's gradually taking different shapes? Seeming heroic? The use of the symbol of the chameleon? Crowds for him. his tours. carnival? Public feeling for him? Against him? Stunts? His going and coming in popularity?

14. The comment on the various shapes he took: various historical personages, the fat man, the Chinese, the negro, Indian, Rabbi? The humour of the incidents of his changing shape? The various jokes? Appearing in photos?

15. Zelig as victim: personality-less. corridor. shapes. needs, treatment? The psychological routine. shock treatment, Dr. Fletcher and his becoming a psychologist. a loser, exploited. loved, reverting, saved? The incidents dramatised in the alleged Warner Bros. film?

16. Dr. Fletcher and her memoirs from the present? Her being seen as a historical personage in the silent footage? The comments on her work? Character? The filmed and recorded interviews? Her insights into helping Zelig? The romance? The rescue? The times at San Simeon? Happiness? The humorous irony of the sister as a flier, the dramatic plane rescue? The photography and its use later? Her mother and the humorous comments on her growing up, the sense of the ridiculous in her comments on her daughter? Mia Farrow's presence, entering into the humour and tone of the film?

17. The significance of the Hitler segments? In relationship to the United States, appeasement? In relationship to the Jews? The mockery of Hitler? The use of archival footage? The insertion of Zelig and Dr. Fletcher? The heroic rescue? The clever use of film techniques as well as comment?

18. How well did the film work as entertaining story? As symbol? As fable?