The Great Movies III

He gets his answer quickly enough, but what other answer could he have expected? The problem between Luke and God is nothing more than a failure to communicate. Having seen this powerful, punishing movie again freshly, I reflect that in 1967 I didn't approach it with the proper pessimism. Today, it seems to be God does a fairly good job of getting his message across. There's an old vaudeville joke. "Doc, it hurts when I do this." "Then don't do that no more."

remember my father telling me, "The eyes of God are on us always."

The man who remembers is Judah Rosenthal, a respected ophthalmologist and community leader. As Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors opens, he is being honored at a banquet. He lives on three acres in Connecticut, drives a Jaguar, built a new wing on the hospital. During the course of the movie he will be responsible for the murder of a woman who loves him.

She dies not because of his passion but for his convenience. In this darkest and most cynical Allen comedy-yes, comedy-he not only gets away with murder but even finds it possible, after a few months, to view the experience in a positive light. If the eyes of God are on him always, what does that say about God?

Woody Allen has made more than forty movies; the best are Annie Hall (1976), Hannah and Her Sisters (1987), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), and Match Point, which premiered at Cannes zoos. The new film resembles Crimes andMisdemeanors in the way it involves a man who commits murder to cover up an affair, but Match Point is more firmly a film noir, and Crimes is frankly a complaint against God for turning a blind eye on evil.

Judah, played by Martin Landau as a man of probity and vast selfimportance, is, or thinks he is, a moral man. That has not prevented him from having an affair for two years with Dolores (Anjelica Huston), a flight attendant with whom he has walked on the beach and discussed marriage. But Judah will never divorce his wife, Miriam (Claire Bloom), to marry Dolores. Nor is he capable of confessing his sin to Miriam: "Miriam won't forgive me," he tells a rabbi. "She'll be broken. She idealizes me."That the conversation with the rabbi is imaginary takes away nothing from its ruthlessness. What Judah is arguing is that Dolores must die because if Miriam found out about the affair it would-what? Destroy Miriam? Dolores? No, it would destroy his image and stature in the eyes of his wife and his community, and he thinks that is worth killing for.

To be sure, Judah backs into murder. Dolores has been acting dangerously. She sent a letter to Miriam that Judah only barely intercepted. She called from a gas station ten minutes down the road, threatening to come to his house and tell Miriam "what she needs to know "Judah discusses his problem with his brother Jack (Jerry Orbach), who has connections with the Mafia. "They'll handle it,"Jack tells him. Handle? "I can't believe I'm talking about a human being," Judah says. "She's not just an insect to be stepped on...."

Yet he steps on her. Dolores knows about certain "financial improprieties" that Judah has committed; funds from one place were useful in another. Threatened with exposure on both fronts, Judah makes a call to Jack, and Jack calls back: "It's taken care of." Now listen to Judah: "I can't speak. I'm in shock. God have mercy on us, Jack." How about a little mercy for Dolores? Judah has mastered the art of ameliorating his crime by being shocked at it. Yes, he had Dolores killed-but if he feels terrible about it, doesn't that prove he's not an entirely bad man?

The movie intercuts this tragic story with a comedy, also about adultery. The technique is Shakespearean: the crimes of kings are mirrored for comic effect in the foibles of the lower orders. Allen plays Cliff Stern, a maker of documentaries of stultifying boredom; in one, an old man in thick glasses discusses metaphysics. Cliff is married to Wendy (Joanna Gleason). She has two brothers: Ben (Sam Waterston), the rabbi, who is going blind and is being treated by Judah, and Lester (Alan Alda), the creator of incredibly successful TV sitcoms.

Cliff detests Lester. Consider the scene where we first see the two men together; Lester is on the left flanked by his sister and another woman, holding court. Cliff is on the right, slightly more in the foreground, and half-turned away from the action and toward us. He seems barely able to prevent himself from turning to the camera and telling us directly what a jerk Lester is. The visual strategy is subtle but wonderful: Allen delivers a monologue using only body language.