Friday, June 14, 2013

Crimes and Misdemeanors

Crimes and Misdemeanors remains my all time favorite Woody Allen movie. It is perfect. I saw it in the theater when it first came out (1989), then years later watched it on VHS, and today watched it for the third time. It is taut, sensitive, complex and nuanced, and tense.

The movie centers on an adulterous opthamologist whose situation comes to a crisis and he has a serious moral dilemma. Crimes and Misdemeanors is an existential drama that includes many segments and references to Jewish law, philosophy, and moral structure and meaning of the universe. Unlike many of Woody Allen's other movies, these references aren't just thrown in for humor's sake, but add emotional and philosophical cohesion to the whole film.

A real treat is Sam Waterston as the Rabbi who is losing his sight.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

next to see--a place in the sun--b/w from the 60's--

Diana said...

Seen it, and read the Dreiser novel it's based on.

Diana said...

An American Tragedy: http://whatireadandwatched.blogspot.com/2012/08/an-american-tragedy_31.html