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Zelig - http://www.vd-shop.ru/?Page=7500.php&FilmNameToShow=Zelig&Lang=e

Woody Allen on Woody Allen: In Conversation With Stig Bjorkman Editorial Review:

Woody Allen on Woody Allen: In Conversation With Stig Bjorkman Amazon.com:
Fans of Woody Allen have long waited to hear him tell us in his own words about his life, his tastes, and his films, but until recently he has been reluctant to give lengthy interviews. This book is the conversation we''ve been waiting for, a dialogue with Stig Bjorkman in which Allen speaks openly about himself and his art. Bjorkman invites the writer/director to talk at length about his lesser-known movies as well as his famous ones. We also learn about Allen''s filmmaking technique, his feelings about his stock company of actors, his influences, and why Stardust Memories and The Purple Rose of Cairo are his two personal favorites.

Woody Allen on Woody Allen: In Conversation With Stig Bjorkman Book Description:
Over the course of his long directing career, Woody Allen has portrayed contemporary American life with an unmistakable mixture of irony, neurotic obsession, and humor. Woody Allen on Woody Allen is a unique self-portrait of this uncompromising filmmaker that offers a revealing account of his life and work. In a series of rare, in-depth interviews, Allen brings us onto the sets and behind the scenes of all his films. Since its original publication, Woody Allen on Woody Allen has been the primary source of Allen''s own thoughts on his work, childhood, favorite films, and inspirations. Now updated with one hundred pages of new material that brings us up to his Hollywood Ending, Woody Allen on Woody Allen is a required addition to any cinephile''s library.

Zelig

characters:
Leonard Zelig (Woody Allen): the human chameleon
Dr. Eudora Fletcher (Mia Farrow): his psychiatrist

One of the main tendencies in modern philosophy, beginning with Descartes, is an obsession with the nature of the self. For Descartes this is an indirect and unplanned result: his project was intended as an investigation into the nature of scientific knowledge, not on the nature of the self; but the implications of his epistemological theories on how we understand the self have had the greatest impact on Western thinking. To some extent the same is true of several other important modern philosophers, such as Hume. Their primary focus is on epistemological issues but along the way they generate a theory of the self which has been very influential on the Western tradition. So this film is a good way to get started with modern philosophy, because it gives you an opportunity to think about how mysterious human identity is.

Long before Forrest Gump chatted with presidents, there was Leonard Zelig, sitting behind Adolph Hitler at a Nazi rally waving to his girlfriend. In Woody Allen’s brilliant faux-documentary Zelig, we learn the complicated and fascinatingly funny story of how he got there.

Zelig (Allen), in the documentary, was a figure in the 1920s who was once as famous as Charles Lindbergh, but has since faded from the public memory. He came into notoriety for an unusual condition, which allowed him to physically change his appearance to match those around him. He could become Italian, Oriental, even African American, and blend in with whatever crowd he happened to be a part of.

Dubbed “the human chameleon”, Zelig’s condition frustrates top medical doctors, but wins the interest of a young lady psychiatrist, Eudora Fletcher (Farrow), who believes that his strange physical ability stems from a mental problem. She believes that Leonard’s deep-rooted desire to be accepted by his peers has led his body to develop this changeling capability as a defense mechanism.

Playing out like a real documentary, the audience follows Dr. Fletcher during her lengthy “white room” sessions with Zelig. Two things begin to occur: she helps Leonard find comfort within his own real personality, and he in turn begins to fall in love with her.

His celebrity in the 20s leads to recordings, jokes, and dance crazes, but like most persons in the spotlight, things begin to go sour for Leonard just as he should be at his happiest. People duped by his former disorder are coming out in droves against him. Lawsuits and infamy mount against him. “I especially want to apologize to the Trochman family in Detroit,” he states publicly. “I’ve never delivered a baby before, and I just though ice tongs were the way to do it.” Soon his newfound freedom to be himself starts to give way to his old desire to be liked at all costs.

The strange turn of events does in fact lead to Nazi Germany…and I would be a fiend if I told you more than that. The story is warm, funny, and endlessly imaginative, with limitless opportunity for gags and gentle but cynical digs at the culture of celebrity, medicine, and even fascism (who better than a human chameleon to be absorbed by a movement of non-thinking robot-like warriors?).

All of this is presented in a film with masterful technique, creating the look and feel of a documentary with authentic 20s styled film footage. “We got old lenses from the 1920s, old cameras and old sound equipment,” Allen has explained. “We tried to get all of that kind of stuff that still existed…And we filmed it in exactly the kind of lighting they would have had at the time.”

Of course, one must also consider the historical clips that, with the insertion of Allen, brings Zelig into the screen with Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, F. Scott Fitzgerald and more. The results are convincing, and serve the narrative beautifully. I’ve known people to watch Zelig for the first time not knowing what it was, and who were convinced they were watching a very real, if very strange, documentary.

Allen’s wit is at its sharpest as writer and director. He explores his comic possibilities ad infinitum, and the result is one of his funniest pure comedies. As Zelig himself states, “It just goes to show there’s no telling what you can do when you’re a raving psychotic!”

As you watch the film think about the following:

• Why do we expect the self to be something continuous and unchanging when everything else about human life is not that way? Why are consistency and continuity important to human identity?

• What social roles does the concept of the self play within a community? Why does society need to be able to attribute a stable, unchanging identity to all of its members? Why does Zelig''s unstable self cause so much trouble for the society that he lives in?

• What metaphysical assumptions do we routinely make about the nature of the self, and why do we make these assumptions—what needs do these assumptions satisfy?

• What connections are there between how we understand the self and how we understand the possibility of knowledge? Why is it that when modern philosophy shifts its focus away from metaphysics (which was the primary concern of Greek philosophy) to epistemology, it ends up creating theories of human identity in the process?

• What is the cause of Zelig''s confusion about his identity?

• When was the first time that Zelig acted like someone else instead of himself? Why did he do this?

• Who is the one person that Zelig cannot identify with? (This is Dr. Fletcher''s great breakthrough.)

What problem does Zelig encounter when his identity first stabilizes under Dr. Fletcher''s care?

• When does the issue of responsibility first emerge in Zelig''s life?

• How does Dr. Fletcher argue that Zelig should not be punished for the crimes he is charged with?

• Why does Zelig become a Nazi?

• Was Zelig a conformist or a non-conformist?

• Was Zelig the same person throughout his life in spite of the changes in his appearance and his personality?

Биография
за свою карьеру выступал в качестве и продюсера, и композитора
Zelig
Bio
the human chameleon''s philisophy

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