Everybody knows Woody Allen’s masterpiece Annie Hall, centered on the complicated love affair of two neurotic New Yorkers. But not as many filmgoers are aware of another great Woody Allen flick, Zelig. This 1983 film is one of the earliest examples of a “mockumentary,” a fictional documentary that both spoofs and reveals truth at the same time. Allen himself stars as Leonard Zelig, a mild-mannered man in the early twentieth century who literally has no real identity. Zelig changes his personality and looks depending on the people he’s around. If he’s speaking with a writer, he’s suddenly spouting literary terms; if he’s with a doctor, he speaks about his non-existent patients. When this uncontrollable phenomenon becomes known to the public, Zelig catapults to fame and his life quickly changes. Mia Farrow co-stars as a doctor who tries to find the real Leonard Zelig somewhere inside the carousel of other people and personalities. Woody Allen draws the viewer in with visual tricks and an animated, period soundtrack that make the movie memorable. Interviews with real historians, psychoanalysts, novelists, and “witnesses” add to the realism of the movie. Zelig is so bitingly accurate, that it was hard to tell if it was fact or fiction until almost halfway through the movie. Woody Allen also uses real newsreels and archival footage from the 1920s and adds his own footage to heighten and enhance the story. The result is clever, entertaining and personality changing!