Woody Allen's Apropos of Nothing

Woody Allen is one of my favorite filmmakers. I have seen almost all of his films from Take the Money and Run to Wonder Wheel (even the abysmal Amazon mini-series Crisis in Six Scenes). (I'm only missing the second half of Hollywood Ending on DVD which I will get to eventually and I'm pretty sure I've seen What's New Pussycat and What's Up Tiger Lily, but I have to double check if I only viewed bits and pieces or the whole running time of both films.) Friends in Israel have seen A Rainy Day in New York and liked it.

I've also read his collections of New Yorker pieces--Getting Even, Without Feathers, Side Effects--and seen most of his plays on and Off-Broadway. (I was too young to see Don't Drink the Water and Play It Again, Sam, I missed the Floating Light Bulb, but I've read them. Everything else including his one-acts paired with short works by Elaine May, Ethan Coen and David Mamet I've seen.) So I was excited to read this memoir, particularly to get Allen's version of the whole Soon-Yi/Mia Farrow/Ronan/Dylan molestation accusation mess that's been going on for 30 years.


As expected, the prose is dazzlingly funny and informative. We follow Allen's amazing career arc from smart-aleck kid supplying gags to gossip columnists to TV comedy writer to brilliant stand-up performer and America's favorite nebbishy nerd to respected, Oscar-winning screenwriter-director.

Up until the 1990s, Allen seems to have a charmed life with beautiful women at his side and a

Diane Keaton and Woody Allen in Sleeper

devoted fan base gobbling up whatever cinematic treats he produces on an annual basis. (I remember it used to be a yearly summer event, lining up to see the new Woody Allen movie on the weekend it opened. I did that from Sleeper to Curse of the Jade Scorpion. The rest I caught either on DVD, streaming or in theaters.) Then it all comes crashing down with his producer and close friend Jean Doumaine bilking him out of millions of dollars and his quasi-not-quite girlfriend Mia Farrow accusing him of sexually assaulting their adopted daughter Dylan after he took up with Mia's 22-year-old adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn. Allen and Soon-Yi were later married and have remained so for nearly 30 years, adopting two daughters of their own.

The author ably defends himself against the charge of molesting Dylan and points out that two investigations found that no assault took place and he was never criminally charged. He makes a convincing case that Farrow manufactured the event and rehearsed the seven-year-old Dylan in a false narrative in order get revenge against her former lover for "stealing" her older daughter. Allen claims the single incident of impropriety was when he put his head in little Dylan's lap during a court-ordered visitation with several of the older Farrow children plus a babysitter present. Farrow allegedly has spun this into a groping session in the attic and leveraged it into a campaign to destroy Allen's life and career. A novelistic detail of a toy train running in the attic during the incident was added to the scenario. Moses Previn, another adopted child, refutes Dylan and Ronan's version of their childhood and sides with Woody.

At the time, Farrow did not succeed in obliterating the man who had betrayed her. His career went on, though his string of successes came to a halt. Though he still churned out at least one film a year, they

Jason Biggs and Woody Allen in Anything Else

were not all universally praised and, as mentioned Doumain attempted to keep his share of the profits for the films they did together. (In the book, Allen displays a bizarre lack of awareness, believing he and Jean can smooth things out and stay friends even as she is ripping him off and he is suing her. Similarly, he seems utterly clueless that his liaison with Soon-Yi would lead to such consternation.)

Orion Studios was no longer willing to give Allen a blank check so he had to go searching for new financing. His efforts during this period--Hollywood Ending, Anything Else, Melinda Melinda--were poorly marketed and died at the US box office. He recovered with a series of British and European-set dramas and comedies--Match Point (which I found boring), Scoop (much better and funnier), Cassandra's Dream, Vicki Cristina Barcelona, Midnight in Paris (Oscar for Best Original Screenplay). But Allen seemed largely unscathed by Farrow's accusations.

But then the MeToo movement gained momentum, rightfully exposing a culture of rampant harassment and exploitation, led, in part, by the reportage of a now grown-up Ronan Farrow which exposed the disgusting behavior of film mogul Harvey Weinstein. Outraged that Allen was not meeting the same public vilification as Weinstein, Louis C.K., Bill Cosby, Kevin Spacey, Charlie

Allen (r.) directing Timothee Chalamant and Selena Gomez in
A Rainy Day in New York

Rose, Bill O'Reilly, Roger Ailes, Matt Lauer, Jeffrey Epstein, and others, the Farrow family redoubled their efforts to "get" Allen. After Allen received a lifetime achievement award from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association at their Golden Globes, Dylan wrote an open letter accusing anyone who defended her father or even enjoyed his movies, of condoning child assault. Actors who had appeared in his latest features Magic in the Moonlight and A Rainy Day in New York were pressured to denounce him. Many stated they would never work with him again and donated their salaries to charity. Allen reports in the book that Timothee Chalamant did the denouncing because he did not want to hurt his chances at an Oscar for Call Me By Your Name.

Amazon dropped their contract with him. The publisher dropped his book after Ronan demanded they do so and employees walked out in protest. (Fortunately, another publisher picked it up) American studios would not back his pictures or distribute them. He takes a measured approach to these travails, musing the universe has bigger fish to fry than him and in the history of the cosmos his troubles are insignificant.

To all appearances, Allen will survive this latest onslaught. Even without an American distribution or DVD sales and no presence on Netflix, Amazon or Hulu, A Rainy Day is one of Allen's most financially successful films of recent years. European, Asian, and international audiences apparently don't believe the Farrow clan's accusations or they are willing to presume Allen is innocent. Allen's next film Rifkin's Festival, set during the San Sebastian Film Festival with an international cast, is set to open the festival in Spain. The festival might actually take place in the fall since Spain appears to have the COVID-19 outbreak under control, unlike the US. (It would be ironic if Allen could not attend because Americans might be still be banned from EU countries because Trump can't manage the pandemic.)

Only Dylan and Woody Allen know if he did assault her in that attic--or if they even went into that attic--nearly 30 years ago. As noted, two investigations found no evidence of assault and no criminal

Woody Allen, Joy Behar, and Elaine May in
Crisis in Six Scenes.

charges were ever brought, plus Moses corroborates Allen's assertions. Unlike Weinstein, Cosby, Spacey, Lauer, and numerous others including President Trump, Allen has no long list of accusers. Outside of this one claim which is supposed to have happened in a house full of people, he has no history of harassment and there have been no complaints from anyone on his films of predatory or lecherous behavior. Allen has done himself no favors by defending Bill Cosby or appearing at a party at the home of the notorious Jeffrey Epstein. Plus basically puritan America was primed to castigate him for launching an affair with a woman 35 years his junior who happened to be the daughter of his girlfriend. (Fellow comic genius Charlie Chaplin suffered a similar fate when he wed Oona O'Neill, also 35 years younger.) Leaving nude photos of Soon-Yi out where Farrow could easily find them was obviously a passive aggressive move to hurt Farrow as deeply as possible. But accusation and bad judgement do not equal conclusive guilt. I believe Allen is innocent of the accusations, I will continue to watch his movies and read his books.