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"The phenomenon of the Twenties," proclaims Susan Sontag, the mild zero in the eye of the cyclone. The shape-shifting curiosity in F. Scott Fitzgerald's notebook, would-be blueblood, Yankees player, speakeasy trumpeter. His protean fluidity extends to pigmentation and body size, a matter of "unstable make-up" according to the aviatrix turned analyst (Mia Farrow). Zelig the Human Chameleon, "a little lost" in his own story, his dance craze supplants the Charleston. Serenaded by Fanny Brice, kidded by Jack Dempsey, analyzed by Marxists and Freudians, "a symbol for everything" and possibly for nothing. Between Take the Money and Run and Sweet and Lowdown, Woody Allen's most elaborate sendup of the documentary form. (Citizen Kane is a model of construction, so is The Sorrow and the Pity.) Newsreels, snapshots, interviews, Hollywood reenactments, the meticulous rearrangement of cinema's evanescent illusion. At the clinic the patient climbs the wall like a gecko or like the Baron in Bergman's Hour of the Wolf, all part of the reptilian need to blend in. Hypnosis locates a comedian's plea, "I want to be liked." Synagogue memories, an escape from dysfunction, a declaration of love under a trance. The Jazz Age is a rowdy shindig at William Randolph Hearst's place followed by an avalanche of scandals, "a population glutted with distractions is quick to forget" but not the Voice of Morality: "In keeping with a pure society, I say, lynch the little Hebe." Accusations of imitation, the persona that can't help stand out, the Allen confessional under the technical stunt. The road of absolute conformist naturally leads to a Nazi rally, where the ultimate photo-bomb segues into an upside-down flight. "Shows exactly what you can do if you're a total psychotic." Forrest Gump turns the lessons into butter. Cinematography by Gordon Willis.
--- Fernando F. Croce |