Themes: Crisis of Conscience, Infidelity, Love Triangles
Main Cast: Martin Landau, Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Alan Alda, Anjelica Huston, Jerry Orbach, Sam Waterston
Release Year: 1989
Country: US
Run Time: 104 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
Woody Allen spent most of the 1980s and '90s veering between comedy and drama, and he rarely combined the two with greater success than in Crimes and Misdemeanors, in which he weaved together two stories, one deadly serious, one often funny, both ending in sadness. Martin Landau plays Dr. Judah Rosenthal, a prominent ophthalmologist with a successful practice, a loving family, and a reputation for generous charity work. But Rosenthal also has a secret: his mistress, Dolores (Anjelica Huston). What began as a casual fling has become uncomfortably intimate, and as he tries to break off the relationship, Dolores threatens to expose his infidelity to his wife and some unorthodox financial arrangements to his colleagues. Fearful that Dolores will make good on her threats, Judah confesses his secret to his brother Jack (Jerry Orbach), who has ties to organized crime and offers to "make the problem go away." Meanwhile, Cliff Stern (Woody Allen) is a filmmaker working on his pet project, a documentary about philosopher Prof. Louis Levy (Martin Bergmann). However, films about philosophers don't pay the rent, so Cliff's wife Wendy (Joanna Gleason) arranges for him to make a documentary for public television about her brother Lester (Alan Alda), a famous TV comedian whose vapidity is exceeded only by his arrogance. While Cliff tries to bite the bullet and finish the film, he finds himself falling in love with PBS producer Halley Reed (Mia Farrow). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
One of Woody Allen's most serious dramatic comedies, Crimes and Misdemeanors invoked comparisons to Hannah and Her Sisters, which Allen had made three years earlier. Similar to Hannah in its novel-like scope, interweaving stories, and rich ensemble acting, Crimes took the previous film's moral and ethical issues one step further: whereas Hannah was primarily concerned with love and loss, Crimes presented questions about the very meaning of human existence. Unabashedly philosophical, Allen's film was also one of his darkest, powered by a relentless pessimism, evocative of Allen's heroes Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, and Anton Chekhov, coming to rest at the conclusion that true love will go unrewarded and the bad will go unpunished. It is a mark of Allen's strength as a director and storyteller that, despite such pessimism, Crimes managed to be a surprisingly funny film, a masterful demonstration of Allen's ability to weave together high comedy and sober drama. An ambitious project that Allen helmed with remarkable self-assurance, Crimes and Misdemeanors further established him as one of the cinema's most reliably cerebral directors. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
Joanna Gleason - Wendy Stern; Caroline Aaron - Barbara; Claire Bloom - Miriam Rosenthal; Stephanie Roth - Sharon Rosenthal; Jenny Nichols - Jenny; David S. Howard - Sol Rosenthal; Anna Berger - Aunt May; Victor Argo - Detective; Martin Bergmann - Prof. Louis Levy; Hy Anzell - Seder Guest; Robin Bartlett - Wedding Guest; Bill Bernstein - Testimonial Speaker; Merv Bloch - Wedding Guest; Thomas Bolster - Wedding Guest; Frances Conroy - House Owner; Gregg Edelman - Chris; Joel Fogel - TV Producer; Sol Frieder - Seder Guest; Zina Jasper - Carol; Sylvia Kauders - Seder Guest; Dolores Sutton - Judah's Secretary; Jerry Zaks - Man on Campus; Justin Zaremby - Seder Guest; Nora Ephron - Wedding Guest; Warren Vache - Jazz Band; Kenny Vance - Murray; Donna Castellano - TV Producer; Thomas P. Crow - TV Producer; Randy Aaron Fink - Groom; Barry Finkel - TV Writer; Steve Maidment - TV Writer; Chester Malinowski - Hit Man; George Mason - Photographer; Stanley Reichman - Chris' Father; Nadia Sanford - Alva; Rebecca Schull - Chris' Mother; Garrett Simowitz - Young Judah; Marvin Terban - Seder Guest; Grace Zimmerman - Bride; Rabbi Joel Zion - Rabbi; Derek Smith
Credit
Speed Hopkins - Art Director, Helen Robin - Associate Producer, Thomas A. Reilly - Associate Producer, Juliet Taylor - Casting, Jeffrey Kurland - Costume Designer, Woody Allen - Director, Susan E. Morse - Editor, Charles H. Joffe - Executive Producer, Jack Rollins - Executive Producer, Fern Buchner - Makeup, Santo Loquasto - Production Designer, Sven Nykvist - Cinematographer, Joseph Hartwick - Production Manager, Robert Greenhut - Producer, Susan Bode-Tyson - Set Designer, Woody Allen - Screenwriter
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 documentaryfilmmaker. 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), 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 (although fictional in real life). 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 and success) 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, since Lester is considered, by Cliff, to be 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 admits, he had plagiarized almost entirely from James Joyce.
Adding to Cliff's burdens, he learns that Prof. Levy, whom he had been profiling on the strength of his celebration of life, had committed suicide, leaving a curt note, "I'm going out the window."
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 the late Prof. Levy about the interplay between morality and happiness.
The outline of Judah's moral dilemma — whether a person can continue on his everyday living with knowledge of having committed a murder — evokes [1] the pivotal idea of Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (and provides a resolution opposite to one in the novel).
The scene where Judah revisits his childhood home, and sees his family at the dinner table is a twist on the scene in Wild Strawberries, directed by Allen’s idol, Ingmar Bergman, where Isak Borg revisits his childhood home and sees his family at the dinner table.
Music
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.
^ Mary P. Nichols, Reconstructing Woody: Art, Love, and Life in the Films of Woody Allen (Rowman and Littlefield, 2000) ISBN 978-0-8476-8990-3, pp 149-164 (Part 10 The Ophthalmologist and the Filmmaker)
