Stig Björkman: Why did you choose Martin Landau [for Judah]?

Woody Allen: It's an interesting thing. Of all the actors I've ever worked with, he gives expression to my dialogue exactly as I hear it. His colloquialisms, his idiom, his inflection is exactly correct. . . . I've worked with some pretty terrific actors, but he just makes it sound the way I wrote it. One of the reasons for this must be that Martin Landau came from my neighborhood in Brooklyn, right near where I lived, only a few blocks away. So he grew up the way I did, surrounded by people who speak like that. He just understood instinctively. It's baked into him, the nuance. So it was easy to work with him.

SB: And Anjelica Huston?

WA: I wanted to get a big and impressive woman who's interesting. . . . She also looks so right for the part, the minute you see her, with her hair up, when she's coming back with her groceries. Her attitude, her anger, her size. She just had enough craziness and anger. It couldn't have been better.

SB: Some of the best scenes in the film, I think, are between these two in her (Dolores') apartment. Do you remember how these scenes were prepared and staged?

WA: The trick is to keep the action moving in the right way. . . . There are many times when the actors don't have to be seen, and you don't have to worry about it. You have to know that. You have to sense when it doesn't really matter if the camera is on that person. For their biggest lines, their most effective lines, sometimes you don't need the camera on them for these lines, and it will be just as effective or more effective. You have to make sure that the choreography is such that they cross in and out of closer shots and wider shots at the right times. Usually it takes a while to stage these scenes. But that's how I shoot. I go in there in the morning and don't let the actors in. I work out the situation myself, Carlo and I, and we decide the staging of the scene. Then he does a general lighting. Then I bring the actors in, and I show them where I want them to walk. I never work with actors who question this. Of course we make certain adjustments. Certain things are guessed incorrectly. But then finally, after a long period of time, we have the shot. And then we do it, and we suck up a lot of pages at once. So you don't really lose any time at all with this procedure. There were times with Sven or Carlo or Gordon Willis when . . . an entire day was spent with planning. And then at five o'clock we'd shoot for ten minutes and we would have seven pages of dialogue in the can. And that would be it, a very respectable day's work from a production point of view.

SB: A central theme in the film is about seeing and sight.

WA: Well, eyes were a metaphor in the story. Judah was an eye doctor who heals people on the one hand, but is willing to kill on the other. And he doesn't see well himself. I mean, his vision is fine, but his emotional vision, his moral vision is not good. The rabbi is blind to other things, to the realities of life. On the other hand, he can triumph over it because he has spiritual substance. Crimes and Misdemeanors is about people who don't see. They don't see themselves as others see them. They don't see the right and wrong of situations. SB: [The rabbi, Ben,] says at one point, "I couldn't go on living, if I didn't feel with all my heart a moral structure with real meaning and forgiveness and some kind of higher power."

WA: . . . Unless you have a strong spiritual feeling, spiritual faith, it's tough to get through life. Ben is the only one that gets through it, even if he doesn't really understand the reality of life. One can argue that he understands it more deeply than the others. I don't think he does myself. I think he understands it less, and that's why I wanted to make him blind. I feel that his faith is blind. It will work, but it requires closing your eyes to reality.

SB: [Another] recurrent theme in the film is also the question of money.

WA: . . . . I wanted to make an ironic comment on success as exemplified by money, fame and the material rewards of life. It isn't enough to have a good heart and to aim high. Society pays off on success. . . . In real life, when I finish a movie, I can pound on people's chests and say, "But look, my intentions were so good!" They don't care. They pay off on winners.

Index of Films Buy CLV | View Items | Checkout Ordering Information | Criterion | Home Vision