Director: Woody Allen
Writer: Woody Allen
Cinematography: Sven Nykvist
Editor: Susan E. Morse
Casting: Juliet Taylor
Notable Cast: Martin Landau, Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Alan Alda, Jerry Orbach, Sam Waterston, Joanna Gleason, Claire Bloom, Anjelica Huston, Martin Bergmann, Caroline Aaron, Victor Argo, David S. Howard, Anna Berger
I love Woody Allen. Unabashedly and unreservedly. The only “p” words that come to mind when thinking of Allen are prodigious and prolific, of which he is the epitome. Writer AND director of over 50 films during his long and storied career is proof enough of the man’s diligence and skill. To get one movie made is a near miracle, but over 50 of them? How can you not tip your hat? Yes, his filmography is hit or miss, what can you expect when you’re making on average a film a year for decades? But when he hits, my God does this man HIT!
Bananas, Annie Hall, Interiors, Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters, Another Woman, Husbands and Wives, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Mighty Aphrodite, and the film we’re here to discuss today, which in my mind is the very best Allen has ever been, which is saying something.
True, he kind of fell off after Aphrodite, for me anyway. I know there’s lots of people who love a number of his films of the 21st century, I am not one of them. I liked Blue Jasmine, and A Rainy Day in New York, but I would never put them on the Woody Mt. Rushmore. The less said about Match Point, Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Midnight in Paris the better. Let’s just say, if it ain’t in New York and featuring Woody as a main protagonist, it’s not a real Woody Allen film, not in the true sense of the word. Yes, I know my list includes Interiors, but it’s one of the few good films Allen has done where he has not appeared.
I think a large reason why his output started to fall off by the 2000s is for this very reason, he just became too old to essay the roles he usually would have, which led to more and more Woody surrogates, as it were, taking his place in the films, to varying degrees of success. But there’s only one Woody, and he’s irreplaceable. While I’m glad the guy is still pumping them out, it’s just not the same.
I can’t even remember the first time I saw Crimes and Misdemeanors. It definitely wasn’t in 1989. Had to be at least a decade later, if not more, but it immediately became my favorite Allen film, eclipsing all the rest by a fairly substantial margin. Much like the Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man, I fail to see how a non-Jew could appreciate it to the same extent as someone raised Jewish, as I was. And when it comes to Woody, being a born and bred New York Jew to boot, same as me.
Obviously, I can’t swap out my mind for another and experience this film as someone raised in the church. But something is lost in translation when non-native New Yorkers and non-Jews watch a Woody Allen film. While Allen is not religious, being Jewish is as much cultural as it is godly, and when you’re raised in that culture, especially at the time Allen grew up, when extended family all lived within blocks of each other, the marination you go through is all encompassing. And it informs a lot of his work from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.
And there was no greater exploration of this central conundrum, raised Jewish, but being an atheist or agnostic, than in Crimes and Misdemeanors. It’s a true magnum opus, that uses Dostoevsky as a jumping point, telling parallel stories that only tangentially connect to each other physically, but thematically tell one cohesive story. It’s a quite marvelous balancing act, and Allen nails it.
But as always, this begs the question, how were the 1ST 5 Minutes?
1ST 5 MINUTES
Over the Orion logo (love!), we hear what has become familiar to fans of Allen, namely, 1930’s jazz music, this time courtesy of Cole Porter and performed by The Jazz Band. While I am not a fan of this music on its own, I am extremely fond of the way Allen uses it, like being wrapped in a warm blanket. It’s comforting to sit down to a Woody Allen film and hear this music, which I now solely associate with him and his films, despite this music being around for decades beforehand.
We also get the classic Woody opening credits, Windsor Light Condensed font on a black screen, with the cast listed alphabetically, with no regard to how much, or little, they’re in the film. Like his choice in music, seeing this font and the way it is presented is like a warm blanket. It would be weird to see a Woody film without this font. No idea if Allen cares about branding or any of that kind of shit, or if he just loves the shit out of this font, but it’s brilliant. Like his glasses and balding pate, the font he uses is iconic and instantly recognizable as a Woody Allen film. So much so that if any other film uses this font you find it insulting. How dare they use Woody’s font on a non-Woody film! Blasphemy! Woody Allen owns Windsor Light Condensed. Owns it.
And what do we also find in these opening credits? The great Sven Nykvist (RIP, brutha) as the director of photography! It’s no secret Woody Allen’s love of Ingmar Bergman, so I’m certain the chance to work with his longtime photographer was a dream come true. The first film they worked on was 1988’s Another Woman, a fantastic film that seems to have gotten lost in the Woody shuffle, then Woody’s segment of New York Stories, and finally, this film we’re here to discuss today. I haven’t seen New York Stories, and while we could make a case that all, or most, of Woody’s films take place in the same universe, or Woody-verse, no two films of his feel more like siblings and kindred spirits than Another Woman and Crimes and Misdemeanors.
They both have the exact same look and feel, and I can’t help but wonder, when watching one of the films, what the characters in the other film may be doing at that very moment. People like to rag on Woody as being a dull director, visually speaking. As always, I feel like I come from another planet, because Woody’s visual direction is one of his greatest attributes. I love love LOVE the way he blocks scenes, and has characters walking into and out of frames as they speak, going from off screen to on screen to off all within a few minutes.
It brings an incredible realism to both this film and many other Allen flicks. It doesn’t hurt that Allen usually eschews sound stages and the like to shoot on actual streets and in actual Manhattan apartments. No matter how good a production designer or set decorator you are, nothing, NOTHING can capture the feel of a real NYC apartment that’s been around for decades. One of my favorite aspects of Woody’s New York based oeuvre is the look into all these dope, old apartments.
The opening credits finish, and the first shot we see is a catering hall at night, some dinner in full swing inside. Cut to inside, a man is giving a speech to a bunch of well dressed elites about someone named Judah Rosenthal and what a great guy he is.
Then we get our first look at Martin Landau, in a tuxedo, as he is the man of the hour, and the subject of the speech we’re now hearing. He’s sitting with his wife and daughter, and the daughter’s soon to be husband. You can immediately tell the high esteem his family holds him in. Judah doesn’t say a word here, all the dialogue is from the others, particularly making note of how nervous Judah is, which to them is out of character, as he was “totally fine until he came home from work.”
Here we get our first mindflash/flashback, as Judah thinks back to coming home from work that day. His wife has left the mail on the coffee table, as she’s been so busy running around getting ready for the dinner she hasn’t had a moment to spare. As Judah goes through the mail, he suddenly stops at one envelope, and looks around suspiciously before opening it and reading it.
Such a great shot here, as the camera holds on his hands grasping the letter, as we hear Anjelica Houston’s voiceover reading the letter, which we quickly surmise is his mistress, who’s at the point of revealing their entire affair to Judah’s wife, Miriam, played by the great Claire Bloom. I love how measured Houston’s voice is here. She’s not hysterical, not angry, but incredibly matter of fact as she threatens to blow up this man’s life. The camera slowly pans up to Judah’s face as he finishes the letter. He looks around again, and then throws the letter in the fireplace, watching it burn to ashes.
Cut back to the dinner in Judah’s honor. The man we’ve heard described is a far cry from the adulterous husband we just found out about. But because of this juxtaposition, we get our first clue as to exactly how high the stakes are for Judah if this affair were to come out.
Judah is up at the podium to give his speech, and talks about how he is a man of science, though he was raised quite religiously, and how the lessons of his father still seep in from time to time, as he recounts the phrase, “God’s eyes are on us always,” which his father used to say to young Judah.
And just before we hit that 5 minute mark, we cut to my Favorite Shot in the film, one that will be repeated later, a slow zoom in on two very religious Jews davening (Yiddish prayer) in a temple next to a Menorah. YES! Absolutely love this wordless shot, as this is the image of Judaism seared into young Judah’s brain, which lives with him to this day.
What an amazing 1ST 5 Minutes! We get that classic Woody sound, the authentic Woody font, our first taste of the fractured narrative that flits back and forth through time, the stakes involved, my Favorite Shot, and the theme of vision, or lack thereof, that permeates the entire film. Not only that, we also get one of my favorite cinematic devices… starting a film in media res!
When the flick begins, a ton of shit has already happened to bring our characters to where they are when we meet them, and only through dialogue and flashback do we get filled in on the backstory. In a standard film, we’d see all this in linear fashion, but picking the film up right when our main character is at his most desperate is a masterstroke (though I also love Fatal Attraction, which to me has a similar vibe, but is more mainstream in its structure). Your mileage may vary, but to me, there’s no way I’m taking this movie off. Way too much good stuff that signals you’re in very capable hands, and that you may be witnessing one of the better Woody Allen films.
Gotta keep watching to find out if I’m right…
The rest of the flick
Instead of going back and forth between the two main stories, as Allen does here, we’ll look at the “Crimes” story and the “Misdemeanor” story separately, as there’s no meaningful overlap between the two stories until the last few scenes. And in an attempt to change it up, let’s take a look at the lighter “Misdemeanors” side before we delve into the more serious “Crimes” side.
Woody Allen plays Cliff, a struggling documentary filmmaker in a loveless marriage to Joanna Gleason’s Wendy. Wendy has two siblings, the sweet natured rabbi, Ben, who is going blind, played by the great Sam Waterston, and successful TV producer, Lester, played by the truly amazing Alan Alda. Alda completely steals the picture in all his scenes. His absence is felt whenever he’s missing from this side of the story.
And what are the “Misdemeanors” involved here? PBS wants to do a story on Lester, so Wendy convinces him to hire her husband Cliff to do it, despite Cliff absolutely hating Lester, partly cause he’s jealous and partly cause Lester is kind of douchey. Through the PBS show, they both meet Mia Farrow’s producer, Halley, and fall for her. Only problem is Cliff is still married to Wendy, and Lester is not only single, but tall, good looking and rich, while Cliff is… Woody Allen.
The first time we see Cliff he is watching a movie with his young niece, daughter of his widowed sister, Barbara. In fact, throughout the film, whenever we cut from Martin Landau’s “reality” to Woody’s, he’s watching a movie, and it usually closely mirrors Landau’s story. It’s as if Woody and the other characters on his side are watching the movie version of Landau’s real life. It’s a wonderful device, despite my known aversion to old films and musicals of any sort. It’s just incredibly well done.
The scene where he brings her home to his sister, and hears the latest dating horror story from her is an instant classic. One of my favorite things Allen does in some films are his vignettes, or asides. Here we get a brief, completely unrelated story of another one of life’s many “misdemeanors,” wherein Cliff’s sister goes on a date where she and the guy totally hit it off, the guy is kind and a gentleman, everything is going great, he comes back to her place, one thing leads to another and she ends up tied to the bedpost with him crouching over her to take a shit. The theme of loneliness and longing permeates the entire picture, from Cliff, his sister, his wife, Lester, all the way over to Landau and Houston on the other side. The many crimes and misdemeanors we commit when pursuing and engaging in relationships.
The scenes with Allen and Farrow are good, they’re fine, they’re funny as far as it goes, and mildly interesting. The footage of Professor Levy, an old Holocaust survivor who Cliff is trying to make a doc on, is the real meat of their scenes together. But the true star of the Allen story here is Alan Alda. His Lester is a wonderfully complex person. Because while Cliff is not 100% wrong in disliking him, there’s clearly an emotional element to his hate. Yes, Lester is a bit of a douche, and not the nicest guy, as some of the “behind the scenes” doc so ably shows, but he’s clearly smart, educated, and hard-nosed enough to make it in the cutthroat business of television. He also has a good sense of humor, knows poetry by heart, and is quite charming.
The scenes where Cliff is shooting the documentary are some of the film’s funniest, and where Alda really shines. Whether it’s his tragedy plus time spiel, or the whole “if it bends, it’s funny, if it breaks, it’s not funny,” or the straight lines/punchlines bit, it’s gold. All of it. Not to mention the scumbag producer stuff where he orders them to fire a guy with cancer cause he’s not funny, or Cliff catching him bullshitting some young hot actress to get into her panties, or the part where the hair girl keeps primping him while he’s in the middle of shooting. His first scene, at some sort of party, is amazing. He shows up with Daryl Hannah, and immediately does that cliché bit where he pulls out a small tape recorder to jot down his “great” idea of a TV show. The second time he does it, where he basically calls Allen’s Cliff a loser to his face, is hilarious.
What I love most about Alda’s character is that it would have been easy to make him a one-dimensional asshole, but Allen doesn’t do that. For every time we see Lester acting like a piece of shit, we see the funny, smart, charming side of his character as well. Afterall, despite what some would say, you don’t reach the pinnacle of any industry by being a total asshole., there has to be some rounding of those edges, and Alda plays it perfectly.
Whether it’s trying to charm the socks, and pants, off of Farrow, or sucking it up for his sister and hiring Cliff, or knowing Emily Dickinson poems by heart, or even at the end when he expresses frustration that Cliff doesn’t like him. This is AFTER Cliff edited the doc as a hit piece, up to and including a reference to Alda as Mussolini. Alda’s character STILL wants Cliff’s approval, or at the very least, for Cliff to not irrationally dislike him so much.
One can imagine an alternate universe where Cliff had even a modicum of awareness and was able to leverage knowing Lester into a career of his own. But his pride gets in the way, as it does for many aspiring artists. It all feels very real. These people feel like real human beings, with real problems, and real dimensions. They don’t feel like movie characters in the least.
Cliff losing out to Lester in the race for Halley’s heart makes sense. First of all, he looks like Woody Allen. Second of all, Lester is far from the caricature Cliff makes him out to be, and one can totally understand how Halley could fall for him. But it is also true that if Lester was just a schmuck selling insurance, Halley probably would not be into him. All these shades make for great, compelling viewing that rewards multiple watches.
And speaking of realism, time to discuss the other half of this movie, the half that elevates it from the very good to God tier status. Of course I’m speaking of the Martin Landau portion.
When we pick up his story, it is quickly revealed that he’s been in a years long relationship with a woman that is not his wife, and her frustrations at being the “other woman” have reached a boiling point, to where she is threatening to reveal everything to those he holds most dear, namely his wife and daughter. And beyond that, his very reputation as a paragon of his community and a well respected doctor.
Much like the end of Miami Vice, all of Judah Rosenthal’s separate frames are collapsing into one. Outwardly he is increasingly desperate to save his marriage. Though it seems he’s really more concerned with himself and what he stands to lose personally. Judah keeps framing it as “Miriam won’t understand,” but the subtext is he cares more about his standing amongst his friends and family as a big shot doctor with a huge house in Connecticut, and merely uses the Miriam excuse to, again, aggrandize himself.
Nowhere is this more evident than in his imagined midnight conversation with Sam Waterston’s rabbi, Ben, where Judah is arguing with himself in the form of the kindly rabbi. Notable here is how even when having a conversation in his own mind, Judah lies to himself, and again uses the excuse that he can’t have this affair come out because of what it will do to Miriam. What he really means is what it will do to him. It’s a ballsy performance from Landau, to play someone without even one saving grace of humanity within him. Each time he’s given an out, he just digs his hole deeper, petrified of the truth coming out.
He goes to see Dolores at her apartment (love how this scene starts, with her thinking back to happier times with Judah. The way this film uses memory to drive the narrative is wondrous), thinking he may be able to reason with her, to no avail, obviously. Not only does she not see his side of things, she escalates it by threatening to reveal financial wrongdoings that could land him in jail. Whatever Judah does, save leaving his wife for Dolores, makes the situation worse.
Can I just point out one thing about this scene? It’s all done in one single take, in a real apartment, as the characters move in and out of the frame. It is glorious. This is the kind of shit I live for, and the kind of shit people never give Allen credit for. He’s a master at blocking and framing, and letting the actors act. While watching this scene you may not even notice it’s one shot with no cuts, but you can feel it on an emotional level, because of the immediacy of the emotions on display. Shooting a scene like this in one take significantly ups the tension to put you in Judah’s frame of mind.
One other thing must be noted about the casting here. One of the things I love most about this film is how real everyone looks. Martin Landau, with his hairpiece and that knock kneed gait of his, hooking up with Anjelica Houston, a rather “large” woman with a truly awful haircut and even worse fashion sense (though I guess in the 80’s those polyester slacks and chunky turtleneck sweaters were hot?), makes imminent sense. He’s gross, but successful, she’s gross, but young. What a match! Casting below average looking people helps sell the whole concept.
And speaking of casting, JERRY FUCKING ORBACH as Judah’s crooked brother, Jack! How amazing is that? No idea if this is Woody or his casting director or both, but what a stroke of genius casting these two thespians to play brothers. Word is Orbach originally wanted to play Judah and Landau was offered Jack, but then it got switched. Thank god for that, I love Orbach but not sure he could play the Judah role as effectively. But as the gangster adjacent brother, Jack? Genius. Revelatory. Orbach is such a fantastic New York actor, whose casting just strengthens the realism here.
Since Dolores won’t listen to reason, and the rabbi’s advice of confessing the sin to Miriam was a non-starter, Judah is out of options. From his perspective, this woman is about to tear down everything he built, and he doesn’t know what to do. In his desperation, he “stoops” to calling his ne’er-do-well brother, who, it is quickly revealed through dialogue, only hears from Judah when he needs some dirty work done. Judah pushes back on Jack’s framing of their relationship, but it is much like how he pushes back on every inconvenient facet of his life, he simply denies reality. Which, to this point, he’s managed to do by creating an insulated life of wealth and privilege, where the “world” is whatever you want it to be.
The first scene between Judah and Jack is an all timer, starting out on the back patio of Judah’s gigantic modernist house (how 80’s is this house? I remember as a kid thinking how hot those houses were, now I think they’re the nastiest shit whenever I pass one on the road), as they walk past the pool and into the pool house. The acting on display here is on another level, as is the writing. Once Jack starts giving suggestions on what could be done to rid Judah of his problem, Judah gets incredibly angry and “high handed,” as Jack says.
Judah’s transformation over the course of this scene, from being outraged at the suggestion of murder, to a cold, “what will they do?” once he warms to the idea, is a wonderful piece of acting. A false note is never sung. These two actors play so well off of each other it’s a shame they never did something together after this. One of the best casting decisions I have ever witnessed was making these two brothers. Simply meant to be. That last look Landau gives to Orbach before it cuts to the next scene, the way the camera holds a split second too long to let the moment hang. I live for this shit.
All of Orbach’s scenes are solely with Landau. He never interacts with any other cast members. Each scene of theirs is equally fantastic. Especially love their last scene together, walking in front of a wrought iron fence (i.e. prison bars), covering half their bodies, Judah ready to spill the beans on the whole thing, Jack making thinly veiled threats. What precipitated this was a visit by a detective, played by the great Victor Argo, asking questions about why Dolores was calling him at odd hours.
I love when Jack tells Judah, “The time to confess was to Miriam, about the affair, NOT ABOUT THIS!” Equally good is when Judah starts quoting his father, “One sin leads to a deeper sin.” Judah is now lying to his family, lying to cops, lying to his rabbi patient. His sins are growing with each new one he commits. And he feels it.
Landau is on another level here. People like to point to Ed Wood, which is a truly brilliant film, but for my money this is the better performance. Doing Bela Lugosi is pantomime. Fantastic pantomime, but pantomime nonetheless. Judah Rosenthal is a real human being, with real conflicts, real rationalizations, real guilt. Like all humans, he is incredibly multi-faceted. Capable of greatness and sweetness and generosity of spirit while simultaneously being an adulterer and murderer! People sure are complicated. It’s rare for a film to pull this kind of thing off so effortlessly. Not sure what the deal was by the late 80’s, but I love the fact Judah smokes cigarettes. At least viewed now, it’s a tip off to his villainy.
Some of my favorite bits in the movie are where Judah is driving, it’s a straight on shot through the windshield, he is lost in thought, and we then cut to what he’s thinking about. It’s here where we see the beginning of his relationship with Dolores, and the first time they kiss, in a dark hallway. You can see how intoxicating this type of thing would be to someone like Judah. Forbidden love.
But the best one is when he is driving, and again they cut to that zoom shot of the religious Jews praying in the temple. I can’t really overstate how much I love this shot. Hits me on a base level. Hard to explain. It’s SO good. And this time, he’s not driving to see Dolores, or driving to work, no, he’s driving to his childhood home. His feelings of guilt over ordering the murder of his lover have aroused religious themes from his childhood that he’d buried deep down.
As he wanders through his old house, and remembers a simpler time, especially between him and his brother, he almost regresses temporally, as he suddenly hears behind him, in the dining room, a sound from the past, his entire family sitting around the table for their seder dinner, including a young Judah among them.
Judah watches from the door as we see this scene play out. Easily my Favorite Scene in the whole picture. Again, if you’re not Jewish I feel this scene loses something, but growing up Jewish, and having all my grandparents and relatives around for Passover or what have you, really reminds me of this, and makes me a little emotional thinking of all those who are gone, and how I’ll never get that feeling back of being a kid in those situations.
The scene itself is fantastic, with Judah’s father, played by the great David S. Howard, sparring with his sister, Aunt May, played by Anna Berger. It’s a classic religious versus rational philosophical argument about God and the evil men do, most notably Hitler. Aside from all of them saying each other’s names too much (one of things that bothers me about this film is how many time character’s use each other’s names in the dialogue. It’s the one false step, as real people just don’t talk like that. If you’re talking to your friend, Alan, do you keep saying the name “Alan” as you talk them? No, you do not), the scene is incredibly precisely written, the performances are great, they all look and sound like real mid-century New York Jews, and it all leads to the moment towards the end when Judah actually interacts with them.
“Who said anything about murder?”
“You did!”
Landau looks around for a moment, almost lost, “Did I?” And then the conversation about murder continues without him. It’s SO GOOD! I’ll sometimes just find this scene on YouTube and play it occasionally. I just love it so much.
It also stands as a nice contrast to the scenes we’ve seen of Judah and his own wife and family, where there’s nothing of the sort of intellectualizing and philosophical back and forths of Judah’s childhood, no, when it comes to Judah and his family it’s all banal small talk, usually about hors d’oeuvres, exercise equipment, and vacations.
In fact, the small talk between Judah and his family is some of the funniest shit, unintentionally, in the film, it’s all so empty and ridiculous. His wife, daughter, her boyfriend, their conversations are always about nothing at all. It’s one of my favorite things about the film, but not in a good way. Although I guess doing that is not easy, as it does come across like many convos I overhear between boring people, especially at my work. It’s painful sometimes when people have whole conversations about absolutely fucking nothing! It’s raised to an art form in this picture.
This last scene with the Crimes side before the big wedding sequence to end the film is another scene I really enjoy. Particularly for the way it ends, with Judah going outside to get some air after having a meltdown in front of his wife and daughter at the country club, and just wandering off in a daze toward the water in a wide shot. The ambiguity is stunning. Love the boldness to leave this side of the story hanging like this until the wedding sequence later, where we’re stunned even more by where Landau is in his journey.
The wedding of the rabbi, Ben’s, daughter takes place 4 months after where we last saw our protagonists, and is the one and only time we see all our main characters in one space together, most notably our two leads, Landau and Allen, who only share one scene together, and boy is it a doozy.
But before we get to that, during this sequence we find out that Farrow’s character has not only hooked up with Alda’s Lester, but is engaged to be married to him, crushing what little hope Allen’s Cliff had left in life. To his credit, he calls her out for choosing Lester over him, and she typically rationalizes her decisions as logical and heartfelt. But the cynicism in this film runs deep, and we all know if their lots in life were reversed, that is, Cliff and Lester, she’d have chosen Cliff, because as she states earlier in the film, she’s very ambitious, and this ambition is on full display here, though like most humans, she won’t, nee can’t, admit that to herself.
And when we pick up with Judah and his wife, Miriam, we see whatever cloud he was operating under when last we saw him, has lifted. He seems like the joyful man we saw in the first moments of the film, a far cry from the man we left, wandering outside his country club.
It all gets wrapped up in a side room off the main affair. Cliff is sitting there, having just been summarily crushed by Farrow, when Judah walks in to smoke a cigarette. The two men then sit there, and have one of the best dialogue exchanges in the whole film, which succinctly and brilliantly sums up the themes of the film we have just watched, with a touch of self-reference.
Watch:
How great is this scene? Landau, who has already turned in a fantastic performance, reaches a new level here as he relates the story of what he has just lived through with Dolores and her murder. His back and forth with Allen about morality and how people carry sins with them is a particular highlight, mainly because they’re both correct, depending on how you look at it, and really gives a look at the interior life of Judah and how he reasons things in his own mind. I love the line, “Suddenly, it’s not an empty universe at all, but a just and moral one, and he’s violated it.” And then, like with real life, there’s no real defining moment where his depression lifted. As with most awful things that one does or has done to them, it all fades in the rearview mirror with time. When Allen suggests how awful that is, Landau responds casually, “Well, I said it was a chilling story, didn’t I?”
But my Favorite Line, in a film full of truly great lines, happens a moment later, during his debate with Cliff. As we’ve seen throughout the film, Cliff lives in the movie version of Landau’s life, and true to that, he doesn’t like the ending of Judah’s story where the murderer gets away and is generally unbothered with the act he committed, no, he’d rather Judah, in the absence of a God, assume God’s place and turn himself in, because then the story rises to tragedy.
Landau scoffs at his suggestion, as he takes a villainous drag on his cigarette, “You see too many movies. I’m talking about reality. I mean, if you want a happy ending, you should go see a Hollywood movie.” Love the self-referential line. The audience is watching a Hollywood movie, and they’re currently being denied that happy ending. It’s perfect.
At that moment, Miriam calls for Judah from off-screen that it’s time to go. He says his farewells to Cliff and joins his wife, where they embrace, kiss, and walk off in marital “bliss,” Miriam completely unaware that she’s married to an adulterer and murderer.
Chilling indeed.
This leads into the final montage of the film, intercut with Ben’s dance with his just wedded daughter, narrated by Professor Louis Levy. It’s a beautiful little monologue he has about the need for connection and how the little joys in life are really what give it meaning. It’s another nice summary of the film’s themes, but this time ends on a little bit more of a hopeful note. Impossible to overstate how good the writing is in this film. Thoughtful, provocative, optimistic, cynical.
It’s got it all, just like life.
The One Sheet
I absolutely LOVE the one sheet for this flick, and the proof is it’s hanging in a frame on my office wall as I type this. Great, slightly grainy photo of our two leads, immortalizing that great end scene between them, and a wonderful use of the font you find on an eye exam chart, all set against a white background. Just a perfect poster.
And that does it for Woody Allen’s magnum opus, Crimes and Misdemeanors, one of the greatest American films of all time, and one we almost never got, as the backstory is the Allen/Farrow story had to be completely rewritten and re-shot because Allen wasn’t happy with it.
If memory serves, Farrow’s character worked in a nursing home and Cliff would come in to entertain the senescent residents with magic tricks or some such shit. A real shame this whole thing was shot but never saw the light of day. Would be interesting to watch, even if as just a curio.
When watching this film I can’t help but put myself in Judah’s shoes. What would I do if confronted with that same situation? Would I resort to murder to save my reputation and family? Hard to say what one would do if desperate enough. Fortunately, I am not a cheater, and do not have a gangster brother, so the chances of this issue ever arising in my own life are slim to none.
What about you? You ever cheat on your spouse? Did it ever threaten everything you held dear? What would you do if you were on the precipice of losing everything? Easy to say none of us would do what Judah did, but this shit happens all the time, and as with Judah, we’d never know about it.
How many murders have been attributed to a known criminal “drifter,” when in fact it was a sanctioned and paid for hit? One of those things we can never know, but it’s wild to imagine how many murderers are out there who totally got away with it.
In any event, we’re lucky to have this film, which really stands the test of time, and is anguishing and hilarious in equal measure. We don’t get a hint of the hilarious side in the 1ST 5 Minutes, but we get the anguish, and that’s the real meat of this picture anyway.
See you in two Orbachs…