Crimes and Misdemeanors

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Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox film Crimes and Misdemeanors is a 1989 American existential comedy-drama film written and directed by Woody Allen, who stars alongside Martin Landau, Mia Farrow, Anjelica Huston, Jerry Orbach, Alan Alda, Sam Waterston, and Joanna Gleason.

The film was met with critical acclaim, receiving three Academy Award nominations: Allen, for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, and Landau, for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Several publications have ranked Crimes and Misdemeanors as one of Allen's greatest films.

Plot

The story follows two main characters: Judah Rosenthal, a successful and reputable ophthalmologist, and Clifford Stern, a small-time documentary filmmaker.

Judah, an upper class respected family man, is having an affair with flight attendant Dolores Paley. After it becomes clear to her that Judah will not end his marriage, Dolores threatens to disclose the affair to Judah's wife, Miriam. She is also aware of some questionable financial deals Judah made before becoming a wealthy ophthalmologist, which adds to his stress. He confides in a patient, Ben, 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, a gangster, who hires a hitman to kill Dolores. Before her corpse is discovered, Judah retrieves letters and other items from her apartment in order to cover his tracks. Stricken with guilt, Judah turns to the religious teachings he had rejected, believing for the first time that a just God is watching him and passing judgment.

Cliff, meanwhile, has been hired by his pompous brother-in-law, Lester, a successful television producer, to make a documentary celebrating Lester's life and work. Cliff grows to despise him. While filming and mocking the subject, Cliff falls in love with Lester's associate producer, Halley Reed. Despondent over his failing marriage to Lester's sister Wendy, he woos Halley, showing her footage from his ongoing documentary about Professor Louis Levy, a renowned philosopher. He ensures Halley is aware that he is shooting Lester's documentary merely for the money so he can finish his more meaningful project with Levy.

Cliff learns that Professor Levy, whom he had been profiling for a documentary centered on his philosophical views and the strength of his celebration of life, has committed suicide, leaving a curt note that only says: "I've gone out the window". When Halley visits to comfort him, he makes a pass at her, which she gently rebuffs, telling him she is not ready for another romance. Cliff's dislike for Lester becomes evident during the first screening of the film. Cliff has maliciously edited the film, which juxtaposes footage of Lester with clownish poses of Benito Mussolini addressing a throng of supporters from a balcony. It also shows Lester yelling at his employees and clumsily making a pass at an attractive young actress. Lester fires him.

Adding to Cliff's burdens, Halley leaves for London for a producer position. When she returns several months later, Cliff is astounded to discover that she and Lester are engaged. Hearing that Lester sent Halley white roses "round the clock, for days" when he unexpectedly met her in London, Cliff is crestfallen as Halley falling for Lester is his “worst fear realized.”<ref name=":0" /> His last romantic gesture to Halley had been a love letter which he had mostly plagiarized from James Joyce, including references to Dublin.

Judah and Cliff meet by happenstance at the wedding of the daughter of Rabbi Ben, who is 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 criminal 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 that “very few guys could live with that on their conscience.”<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Judah cheerfully leaves the wedding party with his wife, and Cliff is left sitting alone, dejected.

The wedding party continues. Rabbi Ben, who is now blind, shares a dance with his daughter while the voice of Professor Levy is heard, saying that the universe is a dark and indifferent place which human beings fill with love, in the hope that “future generations will understand more.”<ref name=":0" />

Cast

Production

After viewing the first cut of Crimes and Misdemeanors, Woody Allen chose to get rid of the first act, call back actors for reshoots, and focus on what turned out to be the film's central story.<ref name=ebert>Template:Cite news</ref>

Music

Allen makes use of classical and jazz music in many of the film's scenes. The soundtrack includes Franz Schubert's String Quartet No. 15 (a recording by the Juilliard String Quartet), which is used in the scenes leading up to Dolores' death, and Judah discovering her body.Template:Citation needed

Influences

The outline of Judah's moral dilemma—whether a person can continue everyday life with the knowledge of having committed murder—evokes the pivotal idea of Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment (1866), despite suggesting a resolution nearly opposite to that of the novel.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Soundtrack

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Reception

Box office

The film grossed a domestic total of $18,254,702.<ref name="mojo">Template:Mojo title</ref>

Critical response

Crimes and Misdemeanors received mostly positive reviews. It holds a 92% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 50 critics, with an average rating of 7.9/10.<ref>Template:Rotten-tomatoes</ref> It holds a 77/100 weighted average score on Metacritic, based on 10 critics.<ref>Template:Metacritic film</ref>

Vincent Canby of The New York Times lauded the film, remarking:Template:Cquote

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four out of four, writing:Template:Cquote

Though normally a fierce critic of Allen's work, John Simon of National Review declared the film to be "Allen's first successful blending of drama and comedy, plot and subplot", and added: Template:Cquote

Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader dismissed the film, writing:Template:Cquote

Jim Hoberman revisited the film in 2014 for The New York Times, writing:Template:Cquote

Accolades

The film was nominated for three Academy Awards: Allen for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, and Martin Landau for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.

In Empire magazine's 2008 poll of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time", Crimes and Misdemeanors was ranked number 267.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2010, it was the first film to win the 20/20 Award<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay (Allen), and Best Supporting Actor (Landau). It also received three additional nominations, for Best Director (Woody Allen), Best Supporting Actor (Jerry Orbach) and Best Supporting Actress (Huston). In a 2016 Time Out contributors' poll, it ranked second only to Annie Hall among Allen's efforts, with Dave Calhoun praising it as "the film in which Woody's comic and serious sides most comfortably align".<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> The film achieved the same rank in a 2016 article by The Daily Telegraph critics Robbie Collin and Tim Robey, who wrote, "Here [Allen is] thinking deeply about moral choice, the question of whether guilt in your own eyes or the eyes of the world matters more. This bubblingly wise film, rich with beautifully dovetailing metaphors about blindness and conscience and the perils of self-knowledge, [...] is Allen on soaring form, gliding so elegantly through its maze of ideas it's as if the spirit of Fred Astaire gave it lift-off."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Crimes and Misdemeanors was also named Allen's second best by Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> and Barbara VanDenbergh of The Arizona Republic,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> third by Darian Lusk of CBS News,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and fourth by Zachary Wigon of Nerve.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In a 2015 BBC critics' poll, it was voted the 57th greatest American film ever made.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In October 2013, the film was voted by The Guardian readers as the third best film directed by Allen.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Year Award Category Nominated work Result
1989 Academy Awards Best Director Woody Allen Template:Nom
Best Supporting Actor Martin Landau Template:Nom
Best Original Screenplay Woody Allen Template:Nom
1989 Golden Globe Awards Best Motion Picture – Drama Crimes and Misdemeanors Template:Nom
1990 British Academy Film Awards Best Film Robert Greenhut
Woody Allen		 Template:Nom
Best Director Woody Allen Template:Nom
Best Original Screenplay Template:Nom
Best Supporting Actor Alan Alda Template:Nom
Best Supporting Actress Anjelica Huston Template:Nom
Best Film Editing Susan E. Morse Template:Nom
1990 Directors Guild of America Awards Outstanding Directing - Motion Pictures Woody Allen Template:Nom
1990 Writers Guild of America Awards Outstanding Original Screenplay Template:Won
1989 National Board of Review Top 10 Films Crimes and Misdemeanors Template:Won
Best Supporting Actor Alan Alda Template:Won
1989 New York Film Critics Circle Best Supporting Actor Template:Won
1989 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Best Supporting Actor Martin Landau Template:Nom

Release

Home media

Crimes and Misdemeanors was released through MGM Home Entertainment on DVD on June 5, 2001. A limited-edition Blu-ray of 3,000 units was later released by Twilight Time on February 11, 2014.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Notes

References

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