Zelig: I am what I am and that I know not.

Comparatively, the strivings and utter lack of identity that Leopold Zelig possesses or does not possess in Allen’s film Zelig expresses the conflict of an entire nation, or perhaps class. Leopold’s incessant behavior of morphing into the environment he is placed can be found in one symbolic fear. The “Outsider” fear, the anxiety of having anyone pointing out a difference in you that could disenfranchise, humiliate or distress you. Zelig’s fear of being an outsider can be attributed to a character void of self-confidence and knowledge of his identity in addition to intensified neuroses. Zelig’s super-human “chameleon-man” tendency acts as a defense-mechanism in order to avoid having attention brought onto him as he mentally and physically transforms into characters with stronger, firmer, more distinct identities that are in close proximity to. Inevitably as the public turns against him after praising him as a novelty earlier, his enclosed world begins to crumble and his gift of transformation becomes the very culprit of the stain he was effectively, at least for a period, avoiding. The stigma, the stain of standing out is not only Zelig’s angst but the restlessness of an entire society chasing after identification and acceptance of others, eagerly conforming to any and everything. As his talent becomes the very thing that alienates him and distinguishes him from the rest of society, Allen is stringing along a forceful discourse on the power of persuasion, the deteriorating Individual and the pressure to NOT be “unique” or to not act yourself that is associated with the affluent and debauchery-ridden era and society of the 1920s.



Guiding and aiding Leopold into an identity and leading him out of the foreboding position as a novice and an uncommon freak is his therapist and the scientist who observes him Dr. Eudora Fletcher, and looks at him, not as a cipher, empty of any solid beliefs and thoughts, but with sympathy and quite simply, as a human in need. Her ability love him as he is sheds his skin of conforming and is the foil to the sensation-grasping society around him. Love, which is summed up as acceptance and faithfulness despite the flaws and weaknesses, frees Zelig and was the one thing needful that society in the 1920s had forgotten and had suffocated.

Presentation Monologue for Dmitri: A Dedication

Crime and Punishment- Dmitri’s Reflection

Good day comrades! I hope I find you well. Let me introduce myself. I am the equally destitute and poverty stricken student, Dmitri Razumihin, an old comrade from Raskolnikov’s days at the university. My nature is not capricious and changeable, nor do I succumb to the temptation or opportunity to harm, judge and affect others in order to gain or change my circumstances, in the way that Raskolnikov so shamefully does. I worry for him at times. My nature is all together reliable, as I found myself on what is right and good and morally acceptable. I am not self-righteous and that is what distinguishes me from other characters: my genuineness and deep sincerity in all I do. I keep to myself and provide what is necessary for survival in accordance to what is honorable and acceptable in society, though in rags and not riches, I stay. Yet I am perfectly content in my current state. I have a pure heart though called a “simpleton” at times but I remain possessing a sincerity that is lacking in dearest Rodya. I own no breed of superiority because of my personal convictions about how society should conduct itself and I do not have the ability to look at the lives of others as worth taking. Though my education and brightness is impressive, I have are heaved these facts over others who know less than me. There is a consistency and confidence in myself that is unlike Raskolnikov’s crumbling state of mind and furthermore unlike many of Woody Allen’s characters who seek the ultimate meaning of life and death, and try to uncover the standards and values of which that meaning sinks or stands.

I’m the ideal foil to Raskolnikov as well as to Woody Allen’s characters who cowardly trifle with elementary anxieties but are gripped by great fear at times. Allen’s characters generally are distorted and frustrated by petty intellectual disagreements; I can withstand extreme poverty, hunger and cold, and do it pleasantly; it’s not my inclination to whine about relationships or circumstances, or something as miniscule as my inability to earn a date with a woman but I’m described as a man by which “no failure could distress him.” Though I love Dunya, I do not pine recklessly for her, and my contentment blesses me in the end. My resilience and most importantly, my identical circumstances of poverty and education portrays me as the type of human being that Raskolnikov could potentially be and serves to develop Dostoevsky’s idea about the destructiveness of living in a world where values and morals have no merit and have no purpose. I have an intense care for my ailing, and throughout most of the novel, mentally unhinged friend Rodya and I combat the portrait of the defiant intellectual that is summed up in him, with which kindness and compassion have no place.

Woody Allen’s film “Love and Death” has a character whose concerns and foundation of morality and religion are found vividly in me. As Woody Allen has characters that exaggerate or point out his neurotic anxiety by being level headed and having an understanding, comprehension, and most importantly, a confidence in life, and in its unknowns, , whose name means “reason” the vehicle for such thinking. The character of Sonya in “Love and Death” is confident in the existence of God, in the depth, pursuit and worth of humanity the way that I am. Caring to a fault to simplicity and regarded as blameless in my esteem for others signifies myself as an opposing but not threatening character. I idealistically am the same way as many of Allen’s lovers: not proud and snobbish the way that Raskolnikov and Allen’s characters presuppose they have greater superiority or rights because of their intelligence. Rather, but I am gregarious and enjoy humanity, I am not “an island” as Annie calls Alvie in Annie Hall, and am not isolated and alienated from society and those I’m most close to, the way that Raskolnikov and Allen are.

Reflection:
As our group puppet show presentation was incredibly successful, it is all attributed to everyone’s mutual effort and devotion to writing, reading and analyzing the scope of Allen’s films with Crime and Punishment. The contribution I gave was my own monologue and puppet for Dmitri, and ideas for clips regarding the film “Fight Club” as an outside text relating to nihilistic views found in Crime and Punishment, as well as reaping clips from Woody Allen’s film, “Love and Death,” a satire on Russian epic novels, whose main character Boris struggles humorously with adopting values and morality of his own.