What did you get out of Crimes and Misdemeanors? [Spoilers]

Cafe Society
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At the suggestion of several people in a previous thread (Recommend to me some “deep” movies) I watched Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). I’d never seen anything by Woody Allen before, and I really liked it. Of course, the best thing about a deep movie is the discussion that follows. So let’s discuss! I think I got a good bit out of it, but I also have the impression that there was a lot more to it, so please let me know what you got, so I have some things to watch for next time I see this film. Also, if you know of any really good reviews, go ahead and post a link. Here’s my take on the film, but you don’t have to read it in order to post yours:

The story follows two protagonists who are related only incidentally. The successful Judah, who has his mistress killed, is initially plagued with guilt. Cliff, on the other hand, seems to be a generally good guy, but he’s kind of a loser. We also see people like Ben, the wholesome, religious nice guy who goes blind; Lester, who is kind of a jerk and quite successful, but never does anything as evil as Judah; and Jack, Judah’s brother who treats murder as a matter of fact. Everyone has a different outlook on life, and in the end, everyone seems to be satisfied with life except for Cliff.

There is also raised rather prominently the question of God punishing the wicked. In a flashback, Judah’s father Sol argues for religion and morality, while Judah’s aunt May argues the opposite point, that “Might makes right.” Strange as it seems to me, both sides appear to treat religion and morality as synonymous. Despite Ben’s insistence that God deals justice, Judah gets away with murder. So maybe the point is that May is right and Sol is wrong? Somehow, I don’t think it’s that simple, though, because for a while, it looks like Judah’s guilt will overcome him.

Throughout the film, they had a philosopher (fictional, I assume) named Louis Levy give some deep thoughts that related to the lives of the characters, but do the events of Crimes and Misdemeanors also relate to any real-life philosophers? What are the philosophical references found in this film? Halley says that Levy speaks very highly of love, and I find it interesting that none of the characters in the film ever seems to be truly in love. Maybe that’s what’s missing.

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I’ve seen the movie around when it came out and attended a philosophical debate on it afterwards, unfortunately I can’t recall the specific details.

The philosopher in the movie is thought to be modeled on Levinas, a Jewish philosopher who bases his thought on the idea that you fundamentally are aware of your moral obligation to the Other whom you meet as Other, in the Face of the widow, the child. Even when you refuse to act on that obligation, that doesn’t detract from the fact that you have to recognize that pre-existent obligation.

The title obviously refers to Dostojevski (sp?): Crime and punishment. I can’t recall specific philosophic references in the movie. The central plot element of the murder of Judah’s mistress basically acts out the old theme of whether immoral behaviour is punished or not. The life of the other ‘good’ persons acts out the converse theme, whether virtue is its own reward/is rewarded in the end. It does have a whiff of the ‘girls don’t go with the nice guy’-whine in the end.

The basic question is already present in Plato’s writings, specifically the Gorgias and the Republic. The famous analogy is o the Ring of Gyges: if you had a ring that would make you invisible and would allow you to commit crimes without being caught, would you do it? The movie answers this in the affirmative. The age-old device for saying criminals will get their punishment is indeed God (as already recognized by Plato, and acted out in the movie by several characters). Another, more modern, device is guilt, which is soundly trashed in this movie as well: Judah says he lost his sense of guilt after a while.

Frankly, I didn’t like the movie because it was so thoroughly pessimistic. I’m a rather moralistic person and can’t subscribe to such a world-view. Still, I’m aware that the easy arguments for promoting virtue will not work or the reasons acted out in the movie.

In the end, I think the reason the movie goes wrong is because it acts out the discussion as one between morality and self-interest. This opposition is invalid for the same reason the nice guy-jerk opposition is invalid: the one need not exclude the other. Morality doesn’t necessitate you always letting other people pass before you. Morality only means that you refuse to act in certain ways or for certain purposes, or that you will act in certain situations. IIRC Cliffy was far too principled in his approach to his ‘art’, which made him a bit of a stiff in my view as well. I don’t equate being principled to being morally superior, on the contrary. Allowing principles to veer doesn’t mean giving up on morality completely.

I hope I haven’t dragged this into GD territory. But hey, you asked for a discussion.

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Sorry it took so long for me to get back, but I had to think about it for a while…

On the contrary, this is exactly what I had in mind; thank you!

It seems that Levinas argues for a conscience of sorts. It even seems that guilt could be God’s way of punishing the wicked. But the more I think about it, the more it seems that the message of this film is that that worldview is wrong. (This ties in with the plot event that despite his overall positive outlook on life, Levy commits suicide, seemingly without reason.) Judah says that the wicked are punished only in Hollywood movies, not in real life, and within the story, he’s really the only one who would know, the only one who was faced with guilt.

One thing you said raised a question for me. At the end, has Jonah learned his lesson? When he authorized Dolores’s homocide, he wasn’t certain that he would go unpunished, but now that he knows he can get away with murder, now that he has the Ring of Gyges, would he do it again? If the message really is that simple, I would guess so.

Also, I’m curious about Cliff’s worldview, because I’m having trouble figuring out what he believes. On the one hand, he’s really in love with Levy’s upbeat philosophy. On the other, his whole story is kind of a letdown. Plus he says some strange things, like “Don’t listen to what your schoolteachers tell ya, you know. Don’t pay attention to that. Just see what they look like and that’s how you’ll know what life is really gonna be like.” It’s kind of strange that Cliff’s niece Jenny seems to be the only person to look up to him; I wonder if her role is supposed to mean something.

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Interesting points. Unfortunately I haven’t seen the movie for several years, so I don’t know the exact details. For one thing, I don’t remember exactly what the deal was with Jenny: didn’t she have some disease (go blind?) or so? I just checked the IMDB quotes for some backup memory.

While I mentioned Levinas as being the role-model for Levy, their philosophies do not match. I’m not an expert on Levinas, but I would not say that he assumes guilt. It is more a conscience of responsibility, which even Judah showed because he had some compunction about letting his mistress get killed. But such conscience need not imply being wrecked by guilt, as the movie shows as well.

With respect to your question, I do not think Jonah learned any lesson. He noticed that he grew ‘over’ his guilt, but I did not get the impression that he would do the same thing again just for the heck of it. With Dolores he (IIRC) didn’t worry about getting found out, but more about the moral evil in having someone killed. Now he seems to still know that this is bad, but doesn’t feel it anymore, at least not for that particular person. He still seems to have suffered as a person for that, since he is ‘anaesthesized’, and we don’t know how he will feel in the future. Notice that at the end he felt the need to talk about this to Cliff.

Of course this is a moralistic interpretation. He may indeed live a prosperous and apparently happy life, maybe with a few pangs of guilt. Still, would you find his life admirable? Getting away with it should not be sufficient motivation to commit a crime; being afraid of guilt isn’t a proper motive to refrain from such acts.

When I reread your first post just now, I noticed a deep observation: that none of the characters seems to be truly in love. You may be onto something there. I doubt whether Woody Allen intentionally did that; apparently he made the movie up as he went along.

Your last remarks seem to tie in with that. Cliff is a disenchanted person who borders on cynicism. His story in the movie might be interpreted as him having his last hope taken away, in love as well as in art and in morality. Remember the last shot of Cliff’s face? The thing is, that maybe he went wrong way before the events in the movie. He seems to be a rather intransigent character, as the remarks you mention point out.

Maybe his problem is that he can’t do things for their own sake. Which is another way of saying that he can’t truly love. He seems to envy the other, succesfull people, but forbids himself to follow their directions. While I can understand he was let down by Halley’s choice to go with Lester, Cliff didn’t seem to be very nice or attentive to her when she was around. He seems unable to leave his own inner sphere, to shed his selfishness, and to reach out to the world. For all his so-called pure intentions, he neglects to put this integrity into practice: in the world, as it should be.

The other characters are not very much developed, so we cannot say too much about them.

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I think the main theme is that we as individuals are the only ones accountable for our own morality. There is no force (karma, God, or other) that dishes out punishment based upon wrongdoings. It’s only a pessimistic view if you only focus on Jonah, who has learned that he can act immorally with no negative spiritual (in the karma sense) repercussions. The flip side is Cliffy, who would presumably continue to be a “good guy” even though he knows he is not sprirtually rewarded for it (he lost the girl).

I guess I don’t really see the theme as pessimistic or optimistic. I think Woody is saying “This is the way life is, and we all deal with it in different ways.”

No, the niece had no ailments. It’s the rabbi who is going blind (but still has the positive outlook on life).

Pash