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Crimes and Misdemeanors
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Genre | Drama |
Format | NTSC, Subtitled, Anamorphic, Multiple Formats, Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen |
Contributor | Alan Alda, Anjelica Huston, Sam Waterston, Martin S. Bergmann, Zina Jasper, Donna Castellano, Martin Landau, Jenny Nichols, Claire Bloom, George J. Manos, Dolores Sutton, Woody Allen, Gregg Edelman, Joanna Gleason, Caroline Aaron, Stephanie Roth Haberle, Joel Fogel, Bill Bernstein, Mia Farrow, Thomas Crowe See more |
Language | English, French |
Runtime | 1 hour and 44 minutes |
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Product Description
An eye doctor and a documentary filmmaker are married men with different moral dilemmas in Manhattan.
Product details
- Aspect Ratio : 1.85:1
- Is Discontinued By Manufacturer : No
- MPAA rating : PG-13 (Parents Strongly Cautioned)
- Product Dimensions : 7.5 x 0.7 x 5.4 inches; 4 ounces
- Director : Woody Allen
- Media Format : NTSC, Subtitled, Anamorphic, Multiple Formats, Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen
- Run time : 1 hour and 44 minutes
- Release date : June 5, 2001
- Actors : Caroline Aaron, Alan Alda, Martin S. Bergmann, Bill Bernstein, Claire Bloom
- Dubbed: : Spanish
- Subtitles: : French, Spanish
- Language : English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), Unqualified, Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
- Studio : MGM (Video & DVD)
- ASIN : B00005AUJK
- Number of discs : 1
- Best Sellers Rank: #26,001 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
- #4,224 in Drama DVDs
- Customer Reviews:
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Woody has been nominated 16 times for screenplay Oscars, and has won three: for "Annie Hall"(1977), "Hannah and Her Sisters"(1986) and "Midnight in Paris"(2011). Even in such celebrated company, "Crimes" stands out as the most penetrating and well knit of his New York based films as he explores the moral choices that define who his characters are and the course of their lives.
While parallel story lines follow an extremely successful ophthalmologist (Martin Landau, in an Oscar nominated performance which is arguably his best) and a perennial failure of a documentary filmmaker (Woody himself, earning Best Director and Best Screenplay nominations) and their various romantic, sexual and familial relationships, no less than God himself figures prominently in the dialogue.
Dr. Judah Rosenthal (Landau) finds his perfect seeming life upended by the demands of his mistress (Anjelica Huston), who morphs into a stalker when he tries to terminate their two year long affair. Driven to desperation because Dolores knows about his financial shenanigans ("Moving funds around isn't stealing") as well, he plots with his hard edged brother (Jerry Orbach), to arrange a contract killing. Before and after the killing, Judah grapples with his conscience and the possibility of getting caught. In one of several soulful conversations with his life long friend Ben (Sam Waterston), a rabbi on the verge of blindness, Judah proclaims that "God is a luxury I can't afford." In his fevered imagination, he interrogates his family members, especially his socialist aunt, at a long ago seder, raising profound moral and religious questions. His father espouses his belief in God, even over truth and expresses his governing credo: "the eyes of God are on us always." Judah, however, is determined to put aside the guilt associated with the murder he orchestrated and continue with his life as if nothing had ever happened.
Cliff, the documentary filmmaker, finds his job has been cancelled when the media mogul sees footage linking him to Mussolini; his ice princess of a wife, Wendy Stern (Joanna Gleason), who hasn't slept with him in the year since the anniversary of Hitler's birthday, has "found someone" as she says to her brother, the media mogul (Alan Alda) and the film producer (Mia Farrow, when the mutual flame burned hot) with whom Cliff has fallen in love, rejects him for the media mogul. The philosophy professor, whose search for meaning in what he fears is a cold and indifferent universe has been life-affirming, leaves a suicide note, saying simply, "I went out the window."
What's left? Well, since this is a Woody Allen movie, there are always old movies, such as the ones that Cliff watches with his niece and those he watches with the film producer, in a room surrounded with film stock and
canisters. Expert use is made of clips from Hitchcock's "Mr. and Mrs. Smith"(1941), with the line "I've given you the best years of my life" echoing Dolores' complaint to Judah and "This Gun for Hire" (1942), in which a squeamish character objects to the mention of cat gut as a murder weapon.
Old music also permeates the soundtrack of "Crimes"; Cole Porter and Irving Berlin hold sway alongside J.S.Bach and Franz Schubert.
There is so much to enjoy in "Crimes", not the least of which is the evocative and perfectly lit cinematography of Sven Nykvist, the longtime medium of Ingmar Bergman, Woody's primal inspiration since the days of "Love and Death"(1975).
"Crimes" is a perfect finale to a decade which began with "Manhattan"(1979) and embraced "The Purple Rose of Cairo"(1985), "Hannah and her Sisters" and "Radio Days"(1987). Savor the best video incarnation of "Crimes and Misdemeanors". Appreciate its brilliance. Just don't expect a laughfest, although the one liner, "the last time I was inside a woman, it was the Statue of Liberty", might cause you to choke on your popcorn, or Milkduds.
There is a very neat symmetry between two parallel series of events in the movie. The parallelism and it's nature are signaled by the title and the promise is realized far better than other works with similar titles. The liner notes compare the subject in this movie with `Love and Death', but I think the comparison is strained at best. The real issues in this movie are guilt and loss.
The Crime is the murder of Landau's mistress (Angelica Houston) arranged by Landau's brother (Jerry Orbach), a gangster with access to contract killers. The motive for the murder is fact that the mistress has become impatient in her expectation that Landau will leave his wife (Claire Bloom) and threatens to reveal the infidelity to Bloom and the world. What makes the risk to Landau even greater is that he is a very successful and wealthy doctor of ophthalmology who has contributed much to local hospitals and other charities.
The Misdemeanor is the dalliance of Allen's character with his assistant (Mia Farrow) while his marriage with wife Joanna Gleason is souring. The connection between Allen and Landau is based on the fact that one of Gleason's brothers is a rabbi (Sam Waterston) who is going blind and is being treated by Ophthalmologist Landau. The misdemeanor plot is enriched by Gleason's other brother, a highly successful television producer gloriously played with great ambiguity by Alan Alda's slipping between attractive and unattractive traits as easily as a duck takes to water.
Allen is a marginally successful documentary filmmaker whose great ambition is to do a documentary on the life of a philosopher (probably a professor at NYU, loosely based perhaps on Sydney Hook). He is hooked up with Alda's TV producer to do a biographical documentary on the producer's career for PBS. Alda recommends Allen to PBS only as a favor to his sister.
While the events leading to the `Crime' causes intense guilt and remorse on the part of Landau, his connection to the crime goes undetected by the police and he wakes up one morning with his sense of guilt lifted from his shoulders. The irony is that Allen's trivial misdemeanor is published by his loosing his wife, loosing his contract to do the documentary for the producer, and loosing his potential romantic interest (Farrow) to Alda.
I'm reluctant to give away much more of the plots, but I will say that the events are shot through with this kind of irony, including the fact that while Landau gets off Scott free, the rabbi, a totally virtuous character, goes blind. On top of this, the two principles are depicted in such a way that you admire the criminal, Landau and feel little sympathy for his victim or the inept, nebbish filmmaker who gets the short end of the stick from all his colleagues and relatives.
And through all of this, there is a finely crafted vein of humor, including a little aphorism from Alda on the nature of humor when he says that `If it bends, its funny. If it breaks, it's not'.
This movie twists and turns and bends and threatens to break, and never does. Truly one of Allen's best!.