Independent Films, Film Profiles

Crimes and Misdemeanors
by Woody Allen

Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) is a black comedy/thriller 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:The film is set in New York City and follows two main characters: Judah Rosenthal (Landau), a successful ophthalmologist, and Cliff Stern (Allen), a struggling documentary filmmaker. The two men are each confronted with moral crises.Judah's crisis concerns his affair with a flight attendant Dolores Paley (Huston). After it becomes clear to her that Judah will not end his marriage, Dolores, scorned, attempts to inform his wife of their affair. Dolores' letter to his wife Miriam (Claire Bloom) is intercepted and destroyed by Judah, but she sustains the pressure on him with her threats of revelation. She is also aware of some questionable financial moves Judah has made.Early in the film, he confides in a patient — Ben (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 (Orbach), a small-time gangster, who hires a hitman to kill Dolores. Later, before her corpse is discovered, Judah retrieves letters and other items from her apartment in order to cover his tracks. Stricken with guilt though, Judah turns to the religious teachings he had rejected, believing for the first time that a just God is watching him and passing judgement.Cliff, meanwhile, has been hired by his pompous brother-in-law, Lester (Alda), a successful television producer to make a documentary celebrating Lester, whom Cliff grows to actively despise. While filming, he falls in love with Halley Reed (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 finish the documentary on Levy.Cliff's plain hatred of Lester (and his resentment of Lester's courting of Halley) are evident in a screening of the documentary 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 making a pass at an attractive young actress.Lester is at once Cliff's polar opposite — a dimwit who mispronounces "foliage" ("foilage") and "nuclear" ("nuculer") — 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 has worked through his guilt and is enjoying life once more; the murder had been blamed on a drifter with a 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."The film ends with a narration by Prof. Levy, who had earlier committed suicide, about the interplay between morality and happiness.