:53:39
Zelig, no longer a chameleon,
is his own man.
:53:43
His point of view
on politics, art, and love...
:53:46
is honest and direct.
:53:49
Though his taste is described
by many as lowbrow...
:53:53
it is his own.
:53:55
He is finally an individual,
a human being.
:53:58
He no longer gives up
his own identity...
:54:01
to be a safe part
of his surroundings.
:54:04
His taste wasn't terrible.
:54:06
He was a man who preferred
watching baseball...
:54:09
to reading "Moby Dick"...
:54:11
and that got him off
on the wrong foot...
:54:15
or so the legend goes.
:54:17
It was much more
a matter of symbolism.
:54:19
To the Marxists
he was one thing.
:54:22
The Catholic Church
never forgave him...
:54:25
for the Vatican incident.
:54:26
The American people...
:54:28
in the throes of the Depression
as they were...
:54:31
found in him a symbol
of possibility...
:54:34
of self-improvement
and self-fulfillment.
:54:37
And of course,
the Freudians had a ball.
:54:40
They could interpret him
in any way they pleased.
:54:43
It was all symbolism...
:54:45
but no two intellectuals
agreed about what it meant.
:54:49
I don't know if you can call it
a triumph of psychotherapy.
:54:52
It's more like a triumph
of aesthetic instincts.
:54:55
Dr. Fletcher's techniques
didn't owe anything...
:54:57
to then-current schools
of therapy...