Zelig (1983)

Leonard Zelig (Woody Allen) is a baffling psychological case for doctors at Manhattan Hospital early in the 1920s, when it is learned he has the ability to resemble whoever he is near. Before he is finally committed to the state mental hospital, Zelig poses as a Long Island aristocrat, a Chicago gangster and a black jazz musician.

The son of a Jewish immigrant actor, Zelig is no mere master of disguise. He has absolutely no identity of his own and actually transforms himself bodily to look like the people he is around: when he’s near fat men, his stomach swells; when he’s near Irishmen, his hair turns red, and his nose turns up . . .

Dubbed “The Human Chameleon” by doctors and the press, Zelig becomes an overnight sensation.

Like almost everything else in the 1920s, Zelig’s condition becomes an object of roaring good fun as games, dances, and songs appear by the score. He is featured in newsreels in movie houses from coast to coast and is on page one of every New York newspaper every night for a good long time.

While everyone else is busy enjoying Zelig, psychiatrist Dr Eudora Fletcher (Mia Farrow) is fascinated by his case and sees curing him as her road to renown. She takes him to her country retreat and succeeds in making him into his own man, which leads to its own complications.

While she’s at it, she falls in love with him.

In classic Woody Allen fashion, Zelig is a movie made good by a masterfully absurd story, and made great by exceptional filmmaking. Allen creates a false documentary that is convincing and seamless, combining stock black & white footage from the newsreels of the age with phoney footage that’s been aged to look like the real thing.

In doctored stills, Zelig is pictured with famous performers, playwrights and sportsmen of the era. He makes an appearance with two presidents, the pope, and even with Adolf Hitler, and to heighten the illusion of historical documentary, Allen intersperses interviews (in colour) with contemporaries of Zelig and with literary and psychoanalytic luminaries – including Saul Bellow and Bruno Bettleheim – playing themselves.

Without Zelig there would have been no Forrest Gump (1994).

Leonard Zelig
Woody Allen
Dr Eudora Nesbitt Fletcher
Mia Farrow
Narrator 
Patrick Horgan
Dr Sindell
John Buckwalter
Glandular Diagnosis Doctor
Marvin Chatinover
Mexican Food Doctor
Stanley Swerdlow
Dr Birsky
Paul Nevens
Hypodermic Doctor
Howard Erskine
Experimental Drugs Doctor
George Hamlin
Martin Geist
Sol Lomita
Sister Ruth
Mary Louise Wilson
Actress Fletcher
Marianne Tatum
Actor Doctor
Charles Denny
Actor Koslow
Michael Kell
Actor Zelig
Garrett Brown
Miss Baker
Sharon Ferrol-Young
Charles Koslow
Richard Litt
Martinez
Dimitri Vassilopoulos
Paul Deghuee
John Rothman
Meryl Fletcher
Stephanie Farrow
Dr Fletcher’s Mother
Jean Trowbridge
Lita Fox
Deborah Rush
Lita’s Lawyer
Stanley Simmonds
Zelig’s Lawyer
Robert Berger
Helen Gray
Jeanine Jackson
Zelig’s Wife
Erma Campbell
Carter Dean
Bernie Herold

Director
Woody Allen