Interesting point about Being There, but in that movie everyone adapts to Chance's environment and interprets what he says according to their own belief systems. Zelig adapts to the environment around him.
Zelig is a great idea and a technical marvel. Parts work better than the whole, and it's too long. The present-day interviews are wryly amusing. People may not remember this now, but two years earlier Warren Beatty's Reds had drawn a lot of attention for its interviews with "witnesses" that were interspersed throughout the movie. Zelig's interviews with people like Susan Sontag and Saul Bellow are a nod to that.
As far as the greenscreen shots, I just saw it last night for the first time in years, and I've sent it back to Netflix. But, is one of those shots in the ticker tape parade after Zelig has piloted the plane upside down across the Atlantic? I would guess the other is at San Simeon, but I've been wrong before. :)
reply
share