01
F for Fake
Why this pick
A nimble, mischievous essay-film about performance, authorship, and belief, delivered with the same delight in blurring documentary authority and invention.
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
MOVIE1983 1h 19m USA
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Movies like
Zelig
Comedy
CINEHUNCH / THE NEXT FRAME
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
If you loved Zelig, try these.
01
02
The Watermelon Woman
Why this pick
This witty faux-documentary investigation invents a lost Hollywood history while using archival textures to question who gets remembered and how identities are constructed.
03
Bob Roberts
Why this pick
A sharply observed mockumentary whose news footage, interviews, and campaign imagery create the same convincing satirical realism beneath its comic surface.
04
David Holzman's Diary
Why this pick
Its self-conscious home-movie form turns a man’s attempt to document himself into a dry, inventive study of persona, self-mythology, and unreliable images.
05
A Mighty Wind
Why this pick
The affectionate mockumentary format lets tiny social performances and carefully observed interview details generate comedy, much like Zelig’s cultural impersonations.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
A little about the film.
Set in the 1920s and 1930s, the film concerns Leonard Zelig (Woody Allen), a nondescript man who has the ability to transform his appearance to that of the people who surround him. He is first observed at a party by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who notes that Zelig related to the affluent guests in a refined Boston accent and shared their Republican sympathies, but while in the kitchen with the servants, he adopted a coarser tone and seemed to be more of a Democrat. He soon gains international fame as a "human chameleon".
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
The people who bring it to life.
Woody Allen
Leonard Zelig
Mia Farrow
Dr. Eudora Nesbitt Fletcher
Patrick Horgan
The Narrator (voice)
Marvin Chatinover
Glandular Diagnosis Doctor
Richard Whiting
Other Doctor
Mary Louise Wilson
Sister Ruth
Paula Trueman
Woman on Telephone
Richard Litt
Charles Koslow