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| Crimes and Misdemeanors | |
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 original movie poster |
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| Directed by | Woody Allen |
| Produced by | Charles H. Joffe |
| Written by | Woody Allen |
| Starring | Martin Landau Woody Allen Mia Farrow Alan Alda Anjelica Huston Jerry Orbach |
| Editing by | Susan E. Morse |
| Distributed by | Orion Pictures |
| Release date(s) | October 13, 1989 |
| Running time | 107 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $19,000,000 |
Crimes and Misdemeanors is a 1989 film written and directed by Woody Allen. It stars Allen, Martin Landau, Mia Farrow, Anjelica Huston, Jerry Orbach, Alan Alda, Sam Waterston and Joanna Gleason. The film was met with critical acclaim and was nominated for the following Academy Awards:
- Woody Allen, for Best Director.
- Martin Landau, for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.
- Woody Allen, for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen.
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Plot
The film is set in New York City and follows two main characters: Judah (Landau), a successful ophthalmologist, and Cliff (Allen), a failed documentary filmmaker. The two men are each confronted with moral crises.
Judah's crisis concerns his affair with an airline stewardess named Dolores (Huston). After it becomes clear that Judah will not end his marriage for her, Dolores, scorned, threatens to tell his wife about their affair.
Early in the film, he confides in a patient — Ben (Waterston), a rabbi who is rapidly losing his vision. Ben advises openness and honesty between Judah and his wife, but Judah does not wish to imperil his marriage.
Desperate, Judah turns to his brother, Jack (Orbach), a small-time gangster, who hires a hit man to kill Dolores. Stricken with guilt, Judah turns to the religious teachings he had rejected as a child, believing for the first time that a just God is watching him and passing judgement.
Cliff, meanwhile, is hired by his pompous brother-in-law, Lester (Alda), a successful television producer. Cliff is to make a documentary celebrating Lester, whom he grows to actively despise. While filming, he falls in love with Halley (Farrow), Lester's associate producer.
At the time, Cliff is despondent over his failing marriage to his wife Wendy (Gleason), and he woos Halley, showing her footage from his ongoing documentary about Prof. Louis Levy, a renowned philosopher. He tells Halley he's shooting Lester's documentary for the money so he can get Levy's documentary made.
Cliff's plain hatred of Lester (and his resentment for Lester's courting of Halley) show up in the film. It juxtaposes footage of Lester with shots of Benito Mussolini addressing a throng of supporters from a balcony; it also depicts Lester yelling at his employees and clumsily hitting on an attractive young actress.
Alda portrays Lester as at once Cliff's polar opposite — a dimwit who mispronounces "foliage" ("foilage") and "nuclear" ("nukuler") — but also his equal. Lester quotes Emily Dickinson in one key scene, impressing Halley and upstaging Cliff.
Halley leaves for London, where Lester is offering her a producing job; when she returns several months later, Cliff learns that she and Lester are engaged. Hearing that Lester sent Halley a bouquet of white roses every week they were in London, Cliff is crestfallen as he realizes he is incapable of that kind of affectionate display. His last romantic gesture to Halley had been a love letter which, he quips, he had plagiarized almost entirely from James Joyce.
In the final scene, Judah and Cliff meet by happenstance at the wedding of the daughter of Ben, Cliff's brother-in-law and Judah's patient. Judah, who has worked through his guilt and is enjoying life once more, draws Cliff into a hypothetical discussion that draws upon his moral quandary. Judah says that with time, any crisis will pass; but Cliff morosely claims instead that one is forever fated to bear one's burdens for "crimes and misdemeanors."
The film ends with a narration by Prof. Levy, who had earlier committed suicide, about the interplay between morality and happiness.
Influences
The film appears to be heavily influenced by the films of director Ingmar Bergman. There is one key scene in which Judah relives a memory from his childhood while visiting his former home that is nearly identical, in terms of thematic intent and staging, to a scene from Bergman's Wild Strawberries. Additionally, the film's cinematographer is Bergman's long-time collaborator Sven Nykvist.
The philosopher committing suicide is influenced by Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, where a similar character also commits suicide, although in Fellini’s film, he murders his children before doing so.
The outline of Judah's moral dilemma - whether a person can continue on his everyday living with knowledge of having committed a murder? - evokes the pivotal idea of Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (and providing a resolution opposite to one in the novel).
Music
As with most of his films, Allen makes use of classical and jazz music in many of the film's scenes. The soundtrack includes Franz Schubert's String Quartet #15 in G, which is used in the scenes leading up to Dolores' death, and Judah discovering her body.
Box office
The North American box office tally for Crimes and Misdemeanors was $18,254,702.
External links
- Crimes and Misdemeanors at the Internet Movie Database
- Roger Ebert's Review of Crimes and Misdemeanors
