Zelig
Zelig is a 1983 film written and directed by Woody Allen, in which he stars as Leonard Zelig, a man who can alter his appearance to match any of the people around him.
Leonard Zelig
- Oh... the pancakes!
- I love baseball. You know, it doesn't have to mean anything. It's just very beautiful to watch.
- I have an interesting case. I'm treating two sets of Siamese twins with split personalities. I'm getting paid by eight people.
- I worked with Freud in Vienna. We broke over the concept of penis envy. Freud felt that it should be limited to women.
- But I've never flown before in my life, and it shows exactly what you can do, if you're a total psychotic!
- I would like to apologize to everyone. I... I'm awfully sorry for, for marrying all those women. It just, I don't know, it just seemed like the thing to do.
- My deepest apology goes to the Trochman family in Detroit. I... I never delivered a baby before in my life, and I... I just thought that ice tongs was the way to do it.
- I'm twelve years old. I run into the synagogue. I ask the rabbi the meaning of life. He tells me the meaning of life, but he tells it to me in Hebrew. I don't understand Hebrew. Then he wants to charge me 600 dollars for Hebrew lessons.
Narrator
- That Zelig could be responsible for the behavior of each of the personalities he assumed means dozens of lawsuits. He is sued for bigamy, adultery, automobile accidents, plagiarism, household damages, negligence, property damages, and performing unnecessary dental extractions.
- The Ku Klux Klan, who saw Zelig as a Jew, that could turn himself into a Negro and a Chinaman, saw him as a triple threat.
Quotes about Zelig
- Zelig is not only pricelessly funny, it's also, on occasion, very moving. It works simultaneously as social history, as a love story, as an examination of several different kinds of film narrative, as satire and as parody ... Zelig is a nearly perfect — and perfectly original — Woody Allen comedy.
- Vincent Canby, in his review in The New York Times (17 July 1983)