Bobby F. Galabiz
August 3, 2014
English 2020
Existentialism
If an individual could commit a crime and doesn’t get caught than that person is his own judge. In the film Crimes and Misdemeanors by Woody Allen, he discuses the issues of morality and existentialism by introducing the life of Judah Rosenthal. Jude is a wealthy ophthalmologist. He has everything, but is on the verge of losing it all because of the attempts of his mistress to tell it all. Delores, his mistress, threatens Jude about blowing the whistle on his affair with her and his financial indiscretions. Judah’s conscience is filled with anguish after having his mistress murdered by his brother Jack. Jude fights with the religious morals that his Jewish father taught him. He is tormented in the movie by his religious beliefs that those that do wrong will be punish by God, but once he understand that he will go unpunished than he questions his faith. Four months later Jude has managed to get over those moral dilemmas. While talking to Cliff, Judah finds humor in once tragic murder of his mistress.
Judah’s perfect life is an illusion and Jack, his brother, is the embodiment of the “Real World”. When Jack says, “ She can be gotten rid of.” Judah shows his disgust, but that was exactly why he called him. In this scene, Judah is torn between the moral teachings of his father and the real world that he lives in. Later Judah tells Jack “ I think we should go ahead with what we talked about.” Although Judah Rosenthal’s vision is fine, his moral lens becomes blurred after his decision.
Unlike Judah Rosenthal, Rabi Ben is blind both physically and metaphorically. In one of his discussion with Judah, he says:
“It’s a fundamental difference in the way we view the world. You see it as harsh and empty of values and pitiless. And I couldn’t go on living if I didn’t feel it with all my heart a moral structure, with real meaning, and forgiveness, and a higher power, otherwise there’s no basis to live.”...