God according to Crimes and Misdemeanors

God is always watching. This is what the first couple of scenes in Woody Allen’s movie Crimes and Misdemeanors would seem to imply but as the movie continues its message about god and a just universe flips back and forth as events go unpunished or the good go unrewarded. God and who god is are the main themes of this movie and as the movie progresses each character shapes his beliefs of god on what happens as they live their life. A main character, Judah, an ophthalmologist

who runs into some issues and takes the unmoral path, struggles with his idea of god throughout the entire movie. The other poignant character played by Woody Allen, is Cliff Stern whom is an aspiring documentary director making his masterpiece about a philosopher who seems very optimistic about life and acts as a commentator throughout the movie. The final analysis of god comes in the end when these two charters finally meet at a party and discuss Judah difficulties. Though the views of god flip flop throughout the movie at the end it is obvious that Judah has lost all faith in god in this world and Cliff believes in a just universe where wrongs burden the wrongdoers forever. The comments Cliff makes would seem to indicate that god is present in our lives through our conscious; however, Judah has lived through the worst with little consequences and now back to his life implying that god is simply a watcher of this world and doe not interact with it. The movie implies that though are perception of god may shift through life eventually we are left with nothing in term of a diety.

Judah in the beginning of the movie makes a speech at a special ceremony in which he reveals hat he does believe in some form of god just not his fathers god who he describe...

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...t or even necessary for life and one can live unharmed in this world without any morals—implying the absence of a god.

The entirety of the film is summed up by some words from Cliff’s philosopher that he has filmed. The professor of philosophy comment on the interplay of morality and happiness and comes to the conclusion that while our choices, moral or not, define us our morality plays no role in our happiness. He talks about the universe having been created without human happiness in mind and that we alone create happiness joy and faith. This final soliloquy in the movie leaves us with the statement that we are alone in this universe and we alone construct god almost as another human emotion. Throughout the movie concepts of god change and shift with what happens yet with these final words it is apparent that Allen’s view of god is of a non-existent one.