The director’s influence on Crimes and Misdemeanors might be misleading. After all, the director is also the screenwriter so the directorial effort is, by definition, built into the screenplay. In order to fully appreciate the extent to which Woody Allen’s directorial duties guided the screenplay, however, it is important to understand the historical context in which the film was produced.
The late 80’s introduced a new term into the pop culture language: the dramedy. Applying mainly to TV at the time, it served as an evolution of the mouthier "comedy-drama." The comedy-drama, of course, is a generic hybrid for entertainment that is too funny to be purely dramatic and too dramatic to be labeled a comedy. In most case, of course, the dramedy (or comedy-drama, if you prefer) is a genuine hybrid: the narrative alternates between scenes that are funny and scenes that a dramatic, but the characters are expected to produce both.
Woody Allen is famous for both having worked in television and for having a distinct distaste for most of what airs on television. Allen has a dichotomy at work when it comes to TV, you might say. In order to produce true dichotomy, however, one must be aware. Therefore, it is not going too far to suggest that Woody Allen was aware of the rise of the dramedy structure on TV characterized by such shows as Moonlighting, Thirtysomething, Sisters, and other popular examples of the era. As to whether his taste for or distaste of any of these show or the dramedy in general had any specific impact on the writing of Crimes and Misdemeanors remains an open question. One thing is beyond argument: whether intentional or not, the comedy-drama structure of the film can be interpreted as a response to the dramedy evolution.
As earlier indicated, the structure of the dramedy is one in which the characters play out their narrative with scenes of comedy juxtaposed against scenes of drama. Crimes and Misdemeanors is therefore not a dramedy; it is, however, a comedy-drama. In the truest sense of the term. The direct0rial influence of Allen is most perfectly realized in his decision as director—not screenwriter—to remove timing, pacing, camera placement, composition and editing effects that would have added comedic elements to the felonious section of the movie or added dramatic elements to the misdemeanor story.
Crimes and Misdemeanors does cross-pollinate its twin narratives until the very end. And it is only at the end that any real dramatic tension is allowed to seep into the comedy section. What is perhaps most telling, however, is that the dramatic story remains unpolluted by comedy. Woody Allen has made many very funny comedies that feature elements of drama. Woody Allen has also made many serious dramas, none of which contain enough comedy to allow them to be confused with dramedies.
The directorial influence on Crimes and Misdemeanors may, therefore, stand as Woody’s ultimate statement on where the line should be drawn between comedy and drama. In comedy: rarely. In drama: almost always.
