Woody Allen is Woody Allen. He always has some very thought provoking subjects to write and ultimately film about. Crimes and Misdemeanors in a lot of ways, in my opinion, is his most thought provoking film to date. What really brings the movie together is the ending where Martin Landau's character is talking to Woody Allen's character. I won't get into the whole movie here, but what Landau's character talks about to Allen's character is the fact that if you kill someone or had someone killed, you feel bad at first about it, but you ultimately move on with your life, and as time goes by, the killing becomes further away in your thoughts, like the phrase, 'This too shall pass.'
Allen's character talks about how if a person kills someone and/or had someone killed that they would ultimately confess to the police from feeling to guilty about it. Landau's character says, to the likes of, 'at first you feel guilty, but that's movie stuff confessing, no you get through it and move on with your life.'(again he didn't say this verbatim, but to the likes of he did).
Very interesting thoughts come at the movie viewer like fireworks bursting into the sky at this point such as- Is it truly only about survival and do we move on and adapt no matter what? Do we get through the lulls of life and learn to adapt, live and survive in this world the that way we like to no matter what? Do we learn to live with life, as it was, whether it be Crimes(something horrible as in we killed someone) and/or Misdemeanors(Cheating on your girlfriend or wife or both-for the polyamorous)? Another thought provoking subject that comes up is of what's 'real'(that has concretely happened, been seen in the world) and what 'isn't real or what hasn't and/or can't be seen'(God; Faith; all of this according to what the movie is stating).
Allen really makes you think in this film, and he's one of the best for this kind of writing. The answer is really simple since there isn't a solid black or white answer, which there never is anyway(And I believe ultimately, that's Woody Allen's point), it's pretty much to the individual. The funny thing is both Landau's character and Allen's character are both right.
There are some people in this world that would think like Landau and go on living their lives after killing someone and then there are some people in this world that make Allen's argument right, where they would breakdown and confess about their crime of killing someone, and that's real life, not a movie, it goes both ways, depending on the person. It comes down to 'What is Truth?' as Pontius Pilate said(Pronounced Pawnchuss Pilot).
Truth is to the eye of the beholder, it's different for everyone. Some people's truth would be on the side of Landau's character and some on the side of Allen's character. Some people are realists and see the truth as only what they can see and only what has happened, and some people's truth is what you can see but also what you can't see too, God and Faith in particular. What can't be seen is sometimes as real as what can be seen. There are things that happen in life through events of faith and worship and other ordeals that come to a fruition in the here and the now, and the realists wouldn't have believed it when it wasn't seen, but when it became seen, then they believed it. A very crafty movie by an absolute brilliant man in Woody Allen. It's a must see for the deep thinkers.
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