Books, Arts & Manners: And Justice for None

One thing that distinguishes a work of art from mere entertainment is that you can give away its ending without doing damage. It hardly matters whether you know how King Lear comes out: plot is the least important thing about it, and the surprise is only in the magnificence with which the work strikes you anew, every time. So let me give Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors the benefit of the doubt and call it art, which absolves me from discretion concerning its plot (which, indeed, has holes in it). The chief strength of the movie is its courage in aboarding grave and painful questions of the kind the American cinema has been doing its damnedest to avoid.

Allen tells, essentially, two interrelated stories. One is that of Judah Rosenthal (Martin Landau), a prominent ophthalmologist being feted at a testimonial dinner for raising the money for a new hospital wing, not to mention other achievements. But Judah—with a fine career, family, and reputation—has two secret blots on his scutcheon. He monkeyed around with the hospital funds, and had a two-year affair with Dolores, an airline hostess, who became threatening, wanted him to marry her, was about to break up his marriage, even reveal his financial machinations. Whereupon, despite considerable agonizing, he finally agreed to let his shady brother, Jack, have his underworld connections bump her off.

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John Simon

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One thing that distinguishes a work of art from mere entertainment is that you can give away its ending without doing damage. It hardly matters whether you know how King Lear comes out: plot is the least important thing about it, and the surprise is only in the magnificence with which the work strikes you anew, every time. So let me give Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors the benefit of the doubt and call it art, which absolves me from discretion concerning its plot (which, indeed, has holes in it). The chief strength of the movie is its courage in aboarding grave and painful questions of the kind the American cinema has been doing its damnedest to avoid.

Allen tells, essentially, two interrelated stories. One is that of Judah Rosenthal (Martin Landau), a prominent ophthalmologist being feted at a testimonial dinner for raising the money for a new hospital wing, not to mention other achievements. But Judah—with a fine career, family, and reputation—has two secret blots on his scutcheon. He monkeyed around with the hospital funds, and had a two-year affair with Dolores, an airline hostess, who became threatening, wanted him to marry her, was about to break up his marriage, even reveal his financial machinations. Whereupon, despite considerable agonizing, he finally agreed to let his shady brother, Jack, have his underworld connections bump her off.