Potentialities and Limitations of Mockumentaries Term Paper

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Film Begets Film And Real Begets Fake: Woody Allen's Zelig

Woody Allen's Zelig represents many classic potentialities and limitations of the mockumentary. Predating the "mockumentary" designation by a full year, Zelig helped pioneer the mockumentary's use of clever parody to entertain, expose the fallibility of "historical" archival footage, prick the conscience and soothe. Simultaneously, Zelig suffered and suffers from the limitations of the mockumentary, as parasite and slave to the documentary, inherent filmed format and key components imitated to the point of triteness. Despite Zelig's relatively early techniques and presentation, it remains squarely within the mockumentary mode.

Body: Film Begets Film and Real Begets Fake: Woody Allen's Zelig

The term "mockumentary" is a synthetic word stemming from a comment in 1984's This is Spinal Tap. In that film, documentarian Marty DiBergi referred to his work as a "rockumentary, if you will" (Doherty 24). In a small leap from that term, "mockumentary" was born. Woody Allen's Zelig (Allen), released in 1983 and now deemed a classic mockumentary, pre-dated the official name its own genre. Zelig achieved well-deserved classic status, as it helped define the form and fully shows the potentialities and limitation of a mockumentary.

Briefly, Zelig is a parody of several aspects of modern life: our reliance on archival footage as reliable, complete history; human nature and particularly modern man's wish to conform, belong and assimilate; and American culture and celebrity.

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The film uses a 1970's black-and-white newsreel format, successfully mimicking and mocking the seriousness of a documentary to recount the life of a famous-then-infamous-then-famous-then obscure main character. The main character, Zelig, is a 1920's American man who is so eager to conform and belong that he mutates to the characteristics of any person -- regardless of race, size or any other characteristic -- near him. Eventually, according to the mockumentary, this quality makes Zelig a celebrity, complete with a marketing bonanza of songs, a chameleon dance and even a Hollywood film about him. Unfortunately, Zelig also suffers the downside of celebrity, being blamed by the Communist Party for monopolizing 5 jobs at once and by the Ku Klux Klan for being a triple-threat Jew, Negro or Native American, depending on whoever happens to be near him. Disillusioned by the nether belly of celebrity, Zelig vanishes but reappears on a Vatican balcony with the Pope. Discovered, Zelig is deported to America.

During Zelig's first wave of celebrity, medical experts -- including psychiatrist Dr. Eudora Nesbitt Fletcher -- unsuccessfully analyze him. Then, upon his return from Italy, Dr. Fletcher takes Zelig to the isolation of the countryside and so successfully "cures" his malady that Zelig attacks….....

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