:07:00
Oh, me? I'm a psychiatrist.
:07:03
I work mostly
with delusional paranoids.
:07:07
Tell me about it.
:07:09
There's not much to tell.
:07:11
I work mostly
on the continent...
:07:13
and I've written quite a few
psychoanalytic papers.
:07:16
I worked with Freud in Vienna.
:07:19
We broke over the concept
of penis envy.
:07:22
Freud felt that it
should be limited to women.
:07:26
It's not that he was
making any sense at all.
:07:30
It was a conglomeration
of psychological double-talk...
:07:33
that he had apparently heard...
:07:35
or was familiar with
through reading.
:07:37
The funny thing was
his delivery was quite fluid...
:07:39
and might have been
convincing...
:07:42
to someone
who did not know any better.
:07:45
Who was this Leonard Zelig
that seemed to create...
:07:48
such diverse impressions
everywhere?
:07:50
All that was known of him
was that he was the son...
:07:54
of a Yiddish actor
named Morris Zelig...
:07:57
whose performance as Puck...
:07:59
in the Orthodox version of
"A Midsummer Night's Dream"...
:08:02
was coolly received.
:08:05
The elder Zelig's
second marriage...
:08:07
is marked by constant violent
quarreling, so much so...
:08:11
that although the family
lives over a bowling alley...
:08:14
it's the bowling alley
that complains of noise.
:08:17
As a boy, Leonard is frequently
bullied by anti-Semites.
:08:21
His parents,
who never take his part...
:08:24
and blame him for everything,
side with the anti-Semites.
:08:28
They punish him often
by locking him in a dark closet.
:08:32
When they are really angry...
:08:34
they get into the closet
with him.
:08:37
On his deathbed,
Morris Zelig tells his son...
:08:40
that life is a meaningless
nightmare of suffering...
:08:43
and the only advice he gives him
is to save string.
:08:48
Though brother Jack
has a nervous breakdown...
:08:51
and sister Ruth becomes
a shoplifter and alcoholic...
:08:54
Leonard Zelig appears
to have adjusted to life.
:08:58
Somehow, he seems to have coped.