Crimes and Misdemeanors

Plot synopsis:
The story follows two main characters: Judah Rosenthal (Martin Landau), a successful ophthalmologist, and Clifford Stern (Woody Allen), a small-time documentary filmmaker.
Judah, a respectable family man, is having an affair with flight attendant Dolores Paley (Anjelica Huston). After it becomes clear to her that Judah will not end his marriage, Dolores, scorned, threatens to inform his wife of their affair. Dolores's letter to Miriam is intercepted and destroyed by Judah, but she sustains the pressure on him with threats of revelation. She is also aware of some questionable financial deals Judah has made, which adds to his stress. He confides in a patient, Ben (Sam Waterston), a rabbi who is rapidly losing his eyesight. 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 (Jerry Orbach), who hires a hitman to kill Dolores. Before her corpse is discovered, Judah retrieves letters and other items from her apartment (where he sees her bloody corpse) in order to cover his tracks. Stricken with guilt, Judah turns to the religious teachings he had rejected, believing for the first time that a just God is watching him and passing judgment.
Cliff, meanwhile, has been hired by his pompous brother-in-law, Lester (Alan Alda), a successful television producer, to make a documentary celebrating Lester's life and work. Cliff grows to despise him. While filming and mocking the subject, Cliff falls in love with Lester's associate producer, Halley Reed (Mia Farrow). Despondent over his failing marriage to Lester's sister Wendy (Joanna Gleason), he woos Halley, showing her footage from his ongoing documentary about Prof. Louis Levy (psychologist Martin S. Bergmann), a renowned philosopher. He makes sure Halley is aware that he is shooting Lester's documentary merely for the money so he can finish his more meaningful project with Levy.
Cliff's dislike for Lester becomes evident during the first screening of the film. It juxtaposes footage of Lester with clownish poses of Benito Mussolini addressing a throng of supporters from a balcony. It also shows Lester yelling at his employees and clumsily making a pass at an attractive young actress. Cliff learns that Professor Levy, whom he had been profiling on the strength of his celebration of life, has committed suicide, leaving a curt note, "I've gone out the window." When Halley visits to comfort him, he makes a pass at her, which she gently rebuffs, telling him she isn't ready for another romance.
Adding to Cliff's burdens, Halley leaves for London, where Lester is offering her a producing job; when she returns several months later, Cliff is astounded to discover that she and Lester are engaged. Hearing that Lester sent Halley white roses "round the clock, for days" while they were in London, Cliff is crestfallen as he realizes he is incapable of that kind of ostentatious display. His last romantic gesture to Halley had been a love letter which, he admits with humor, he had mostly plagiarized from James Joyce.
In the final scene, Judah and Cliff meet by happenstance at the wedding of the daughter of rabbi Ben, who is Cliff's brother-in-law and Judah's patient. Judah has worked through his guilt and is enjoying life once more; the murder had been blamed on a drifter with a criminal record. He draws Cliff into a supposedly 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". Judah cheerfully leaves the wedding party with his wife, and Cliff is left sitting alone, dejected. Ben the rabbi, who is now blind, shares a dance with his daughter while the voice of Prof. Levy is heard, saying that the universe is a dark and indifferent place which human beings fill with love, in the hope that it will give the void a meaning.

Tags: realism, murder, flashback, satire, philosophical, romantic

Review:
This is a lesson that Woody's character, Cliff, doesn't even fully grasp at the end of the film, but Allen gives us the insight, even though what Hally reveals about Lester goes against what we've seen of him.Crimes and Misdemeanors is certainly not for all tastes.
How much was Allen able to meditate on life, death, God, religion, morality, crimes and the responsibility, love and lust, happiness and the price one pays for it, and among those eternal subjects - how much fun it is to skip work or school and to sneak to the movies.
It would be a simplistic and narrow-minded view of this film to say that it was simply about adultery because it is really far more complex than that, and essentially a film about all varieties of human nature and relationships, and one could even argue- the relationship between reality and film as explored through the lens of genre- romantic comedy, Film-Noir, and documentary, and what parts of this film are- satire."Crimes and Misdemeanors" is one of Allen's best scripts.
This film practically defines the 'tragicomedy' sub-genre, with neither overpowering the other and much of the humor is dark humor originating in tragedy, something that is acknowledged by Allen through the character of Lester (played to perfection by Alan Alda), who comments that comedy is nothing more than "tragedy plus time".
This is an expertly-written movie."Crimes and Misdemeanors" is the culmination of a decade of consistently brilliant, evocative, original, and fascinating films from Woody Allen, whose 80's output I would personally consider to be his best.
Martin Landau, a successful doctor, contemplates murdering a former mistress who threatens his easy life while Woody Allen, an unsuccessful filmmaker, contemplates having an extramarital affair.
Any movie that contains these three great actors will be a pleasure to watch.The second plot concerns Cliff Stern (Woody) who's married to Wendy (Joanna Gleason) but is in love with Halley (Mia Farrow).
Because Ben is a rabbi, Judah confides in him about the love triangle in which he finds himself.Allen is a brilliant writer and director, and his strengths are in getting dialog right and carefully portraying the milieu in which his characters live and work.
With the subject matter and how the comedy and seriousness is blended Crimes and Misdemeanours is one of Allen's most ambitious, and along with the likes of Annie Hall, Hannah and Her Sisters, Husbands and Wives and Manhattan it's one of his best too.
But the acting honours go to Alan Alda and especially Martin Landau, Alda plays an absolute weasel to perfection while Landau gives a performance that has not only only been matched by his Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton's Ed Wood but also one of the greatest performances of any Woody Allen film.
It essentially involves two plots, one about crimes (murder that goes unpunished) and the other about misdemeanors (involving Woody's character as a decent person who is inevitably a loser in such a world, and Alan Alda in one of his best roles as a memorable pompous villain with unforgettably mocked line "if it bends it's funny, if it breaks, it is't not funny").
Crimes and Misdemeanors is, to me, Woody Allen's greatest film and he's made a lot of great ones.
At times leading its story with a dramatic seriousness and other times with a sharp humor, Woody Allen divides this film in two segments (serious/funny), often intertwining both stories with one common theme: the worst blindness of all, of the one who doesn't want to see.The stories: ophthalmologist Judah Rosenthal (Martin Landau) is living the life of his dreams with a perfect family, a great job and being a respectable man but there's one thing bothering this man: his mistress, the flight attendant Dolores (Anjelica Huston) got tired of being on the second plan of his life and she wants to live with Judah, without caring about his family and reputation as an honored citizen.
On a less serious take there's the story of Clifford (Woody Allen), an filmmaker in a low point of his career trying to make the project of his life when he's approached by his brother-in-law Lester (Alan Alda), a guy he despises with all of his force, to make an documentary about him.
No, he's jeopardizing everything in trade of some adventurous love affair he doesn't know how to end it; his mistress can't see he's never gonna leave his family and risk his reputation for her, therefore, she's blinded as well; the filmmaker had its vision of reality obscured by failing to notice that life isn't like movies where showing your deeply affects to someone might be returned, no matter how much he tries to conquer the woman of his dreams, she'll always turn her back on him, preferring his egocentric rival on business; Halley is blind for not seeing how much Clifford loves her, instead concentrating her thoughts on Lester; the latter is blind to his own egocentrism, refusing to be seen as someone cynical, unfunny and not so bright, he's too focused on himself although he pays a certain attention to Halley; and at last we have a real blind person but this one seems to see more than any of this character altogether.
Conclusion: with the exception of Ben, all of them can see (physically) but they refuse to do so (spiritually/morally) and at the end they're caught in their own silly entrapment."Crimes and Misdemeanors" is an exceptional story about life consequences, love, human relations at its good and bad times, guilt, the things which determines failure and success on everything, and the often mentioned blindness of all kinds, particularly the worst kind of it.
Please, see this movie and at least you'll remain with the taste of: "Am I right about the meaning of living?".Probably the second history with Allen character and his former real life wife could be deeper or with more details, but many things are treated in the movie that, at the end, leave you with different thoughts in your head, and that's probably why the movie is ageless and material for any philosophical discussion.Don't miss it.
The many (humorous and serious) ways in which Woody Allen wrestles with this question is what makes "Crimes and Misdemeanours" so beautiful and endearing.I could go on and on about this movie which is so dear to me, but I want to end with a quote from the brilliant Professor Louis Levy who survived the concentration camps in World War II.
If you only think of Woody Allen movies as comedies, rent Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Woody was nominated for Best Director and Original Screenplay at the 1990 Oscars, rewarded for this bold change of pace in his films.Martin Landau is married to Claire Bloom, but he's having an affair with Anjelica Huston.
The 1989 feature of Woody Allen grapples with morality, serious questioning of religion, and the idea of damnation through exploring the life of an ophthalmologist who carried on an affair with a woman who threatened to tell his wife about his misdeeds.
In the other moral story of the film the audience meets Cliff (Woody Allen) a man who is living in a marriage that's seemed to have lost its spark, in the bedroom anyway.
Crimes and Misdemeanors is another Woody Allen film I don't hear talked about nearly enough as one of his best, and in a way I'm happy to keep stumbling upon these surprises..
An ophthalmologist (Martin Landau)'s mistress threatens to reveal their affair to his wife, while a married documentary filmmaker is infatuated by another woman.Allen excels when he takes philosophy, theology and other intellectual pursuits and blends hem with his love of cinema and classical music.
Another Woody Allen delight, a diptych of two moral conundrums, Laudau, a well-off ophthalmologist who ultimately gets away with the murder of his badgering mistress (Huston), meanwhile a frustrated documentary filmmaker (Allen) flunks to win his love interest (Farrow) over a pretentious showbiz magnate (Alda).For Laudau's story, one can easily sniff out the comparability of Allen's later London-based MATCH POINT (2005, 7/10), the other women are merely dispensable in favor of wealth, social status and ostensibly stable matrimony.
As for Allen's romantic entwinement with Farrow and his doomed marriage, it brims with casual wisecracks and addicted cinema-goings, but the scene-stealer is Alda, whose character is blatantly based on the late writer Larry Gelbart, utters bon mots like, comedy is tragedy plus time; or if it bends, it's funny, if it breaks, it isn't.
Still, the incredibly rich performances from a well-chosen group of actors strengthen the film, including Woody as the filmmaker, Alan Alda as his egomaniacal film subject and brother-in-law, Mia Farrow, Martin Landau (in the film's best turn), Anjelica Huston, Caroline Aaron and Jerry Orbach.
Of course many people will not give Woody Allen films a chance and will just assume he was trying to be funny but failed, or trying for a crime story but failed but then those people will just stick to multiplex action movies and rarely wander into the work of other American filmmakers (god forbid any non-US work).
Larry Gopnik was a born-schmuck but Judah Rosenthal, the central figure of Woody Allen's "Crimes and Misdemeanors", played by a wonderful Martin Landau, is the quintessential 'Serious' man.He's an eye doctor in his late fifties or early sixties, married to a loving wife (Claire Bloom) with grown children, living in three acres in Connecticut, and he's an established figure of the Jewish community.
Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors ranks with the very best of his work in the 1980s, as it provides serious subject matter for its audience without being (overall) preachy, and acts as a terrific precursor to other Woody films (ie Deconstructing Harry, Melinda & Melinda, and Match Point to an extent).
Other actors like Jerry Orbach, and Caroline Aaron (in one of the funniest scenes describing a date), are also great supporting players.If maybe the film isn't a flat out masterpiece, it might be because it leaves things a little too 'this is how it is' at the end, despite the good points made in the narration.
Released in 1989, Crimes and Misdemeanors asked the question posed by many a philosopher: Can you live with yourself after committing a murder or will the shame gradually eat away your soul?The man at the centre of the story, Judah Rosenthal (Martin Landau), seems to have it all.
Jack has a simple answer: He will hire someone to murder Dolores and Judah won't have to lift a finger.While all of this is going on, struggling documentary filmmaker Cliff Stern (Allen) is thrown a gig by his brother-in-law - the obnoxious, self-obsessed sitcom writer Lester (Alan Alda) - and meets cute associate producer Halley Reed (Mia Farrow) on the job.
The storyline with Judah is surely the emphasis of the film (Allen himself has even admitted that he wished he hadn't written the story with his character), but I think these insightful moments with Cliff add a lot more weight to everything going on with Judah.I always find myself having a hard time caring about adulterers and that was true at the beginning of this film, but as Judah was fleshed out more I found myself caring for him in an interesting way.
Ophthalmologist Judah Rosenthal (Martin Landau) has been having an affair for some years, but is now considering having his mistress murdered, while filmmaker Cliff Stern (Allen) is trying to have an affair.Yeah, that sounds like something that would appear in a Woody Allen movie, but he does an OK job with it here.
Woody Allen didn't have to include the love affair between him and Mia Farrow, but it does lighten the movie, even though it doesn't end to well for his character.
Another point Woody Allen makes using the character, Lester, is that comedy is murder plus time.
Crimes and Misdemeanors is probably the most stable and focused Woody Allen film I have yet to see, but definitely the most thought-provoking and philosophical, questioning its viewer if they could potentially go on to live with themselves if they, theoretically, "got away with murder?" Allen takes the camera and the pen to write a film that cleanly intertwines two stories heavily built on moral and ethically questionable situations, with one character committing infidelity with his mistress, and another trying to stay afloat with life never giving him a reasonable break.The first man we are introduced to is the respected, successful ophthalmologist named Judah Rosenthal (Martin Landau) who has a marriage of twenty-five years on one hand and a stable affair going on the other.
We take a look at how his family believed in a vividly detailed flashback late in the film, showing the issue of morality and punishment coming up at a conversation over dinner, with Jack's similar attitude in play.Crimes and Misdemeanors is blackly funny, richly detailed, smartly and deeply written, and functions as a terrific entry in Allen's never-ending filmography.
This is a hard slice of life, and it takes a capable director to give us this sort of blunt, honest realism in a film.Starring: Martin Landau, Woody Allen, Anjelica Huston, Mia Farrow, Alan Alda, Jerry Orbach, and Joanna Gleason.
In this film, he brings the two elements together, creating two similar story lines that come together and paint a viciously sardonic, dark and mostly realistic portrayal of life as a human being.In the tragic plot, Martin Landau is brilliant as Judah, a well-respected and successful ophthalmologist whose life is threatened by his volatile mistress (Angelica Huston) and considers the ultimate and worst option.
"Crimes and Misdemeanors" follows two main characters: Judah Rosenthal (Landau), a successful ophthalmologist, and Cliff Stern (Allen), a struggling documentary filmmaker.
There isn't that much comedy in this film, but what little there is of it works well and is funny (Allen's repulsed reaction to what happens to his sister, and some funny lines from Woody which are among his better ones).
"Crimes and Misdemeanors" is probably Woody Allen's darkest film, or at least it was until his British crime thriller duo of "Match Point" and "Cassandra's Dream" from the last couple of years.In fact, "Match Point" borrows heavily from "Crimes" and both borrow from Dreiser's "An American Tragedy." Martin Landau plays a prominent doctor who pays to have his unhinged mistress (Anjelica Huston) bumped off when she threatens to make things unpleasant for him and his accepted social standing as an upright citizen.
In a parallel story, Woody Allen plays a man in an unhappy marriage who is making a documentary for a regular T.V. show about a pompous T.V. exec (Alan Alda) while falling for one of the show's producers (Mia Farrow).
Loosely connected main narratives elegantly associate, one of a serious, cold-blooded crime with Martin Landau's beloved opthalmologist and family man Judah Rosenthal at the center, another of everyday indiscretions, rejection and romantic envy between Woody Allen's struggling documentarian Clifford and Alan Alda's insufferable TV producer Lester, together with the trouble of lofty moral aim.
More truly means less to really good performers like Martin Landau, Alan Alda, Mia Farrow, Anjelica Huston, Woody Allen.
Allen's character admires the philosophy professor who theorizes this; this while discussing another subject as Alan Alda absconds with his female interest; and a distant relative (very well done by Martin Landau) has his ex-mistress executed by his estranged brother (Jerry Orbach).Brilliant, strange and real, for those who watch film and not reality TV.
There are two stories in this movie.In one story Martin Landau plays Judah Rosenthal, who has had an affair with Dolores (Anjelica Huston) for years.Now she threatens to tell everything to his wife Miriam (Claire Bloom), if he won't marry her.His brother Jack (Jerry Orbach) suggests he could get rid of her.With a little cash he'd get him killed and the problem would be gone.Judah has to struggle with a moral dilemma;could he live with that on his conscience?
In the other story Woody Allen plays documentary maker Clifford Stern who has to make a movie about his brother-in-law, a big TV producer Lester (Alan Alda).He despises the guy and does the whole thing for money.Clifford is married to Wendy (Joanna Gleason) but that doesn't stop him from having feelings for Halley Reed (Mia Farrow), with whom he's working on the film.Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) is a brilliant movie, a true masterpiece.He makes both of those stories really interesting.Martin Landau is a true legend and in this movie his acting is really superb.Allen is being Allen and does it with his own classy way, as always.The whole cast does their job with dignity.Allen is also the master in the use of music.The jazz pieces and Schubert are all in the right places.I found many absolutely brilliant scenes in this movie.One fascinating scene is the one where Judah goes to his childhood home.There he watches his family talking about God and all those religious matters.He even participates in the conversation.It's really fascinating to listen to the professor Louis Levy's (Martin S.
"Crimes and Misdemeanors" (1989): This is, without a doubt, one of Woody Allen's most significant films.
Crimes and Misdemeanors may be Woody Allen's best film.
CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS (1989) **** Martin Landau, Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Anjelica Huston, Claire Bloom, Alan Alda, Sam Waterston, Joanna Gleason, Jerry Orbach, Caroline Aaron.
Easily Woody's masterpiece of comedy and drama: parallel stories perfectly meld and share similar themes;  beloved philanthropic optometrist Judah (Best Supporting Actor nominee Landau in a tricky role deftly portrayed) faces a moral dilemma involving his angry mistress (Huston) and industrious filmmaker Cliff (Allen) forced to film a documentary on his loathsome, successful tv producer brother-in-law (Alda in a painfully funny change of venue perf) who he ultimately compares to Mussolini(!)  Superb screenplay and direction by the Woodman (nominated for both categories) that ultimately show the human condition for all it's worth.