Woody Allen

I don't give a flying fuck and I don't understand why Mia and co bring the story up every 2-3 years. Fucking Christ. Living well is the best revenge. Try it.

Claire Dederer’s point of view fascinated me most. It is likely this piece which brought her to Allen v. Farrow.

[quote]I don't give a flying fuck and I don't understand why Mia and co bring the story up every 2-3 years. Fucking Christ.

Gurl, have you not considered how much they were paid to do this recent thing?

Get off the site, frau.

Strange, I guess. I was never a Woody Allen fan.

Of the films I've seen, I prefer those like "Purple Rose" or "Midnight in Paris" with fantasy elements and without his favorite themes. I supposed his other work strikes a chord with a group of fans who consistently view his movies, so there must be a market for them.

As for the artist and the art question, I can understand the argument in some cases. But, let's face it, there is no "Chinatown" in his body of work, no "Godfather," nothing worth seeing in 100 years. OMG, nothing as evil yet compelling as "Triumph of the Will." "Saving Private Ryan" has more breadth, scope, and more to say about the human condition.

Allen's work is about its time, its place, and its narrow group of people. At least to me. Now others may differ, and that's fine.

We don't need to formulate an opinion about everything.

I've always thought that Moses Farrow made a very credible, believable case that Woody was innocent of molesting Dylan. I've been avoiding this documentary, but I've decided to watch it. I'll come back here and give my opinion when I'm done watching.

Vanity Fair March 5, 2021

R6 here. Just finished episode 1. So far, it's just very sad.

Wow. That picture they flashed of Mia's father was shocking. HE looked like what Frank Sinatra looked like when he got old. And Mia's dad is the spitting image of Ronan Farrow.

This should put to rest any notion that Frank is Ronan's father. I mean, look!

Interesting information at 1:11:46

Nothing those two nobodies say is interesting, R10. They're just typical internet detritus trying to profit off of a hot topic. One is even a nutjob pretending to be an attorney. No thanks.

R11 are you Ronan?

I think they are all weird, creepy, and probably guilty of something, and thank Baal every day that it has been confined to a single family.

That poor girl has been raised as a vehicle for Mia's revenge. She has no other identity.

Farrow is insane, a child hoarder, a control freak, and a manipulative, dishonest bitch hiding her disorders (and crimes) behind the saintly Catholic facade. Even a cursory review of the evidence and the statements of ALL "her" children reveals this. Allen is a creep at best and a self-absorbed whack, but he has not ever been charged for a reason.

In this case he has been mercilessly hounded to be punished by the woman he offended by fucking around with her "difficult" adopted daughter. He married the woman and has remained married for 24 years, with two adopted children.

The Allens' response to the latest hate-for-profit screed by Farrow and her little pet, "Not Woody's Son but Mama's Special Boy" R. "Farrow":

[quote]: "As has been known for decades, these allegations are categorically false. Multiple agencies investigated them at the time and found that, whatever Dylan Farrow may have been led to believe, absolutely no abuse had ever taken place," the statement continues. "It is sadly unsurprising that the network to air this is HBO – which has a standing production deal and business relationship with Ronan Farrow."

I hate Woody Allen with a passion.

He is one of the most repulsive men on the planet.

I think he’s guilty and disgusting.

I think Farrow is sick too. Not pedo sick like Woody but still sick like narcissistic sick.

Woody’s finger smells of soon-yi

Hi Woody at R15.

You sound unhinged yourself. Allen is guilty af and everyone knows it.

Can you imagine "Manhattan" being made today?

42 year old man dates a high school senior and his friends and her parents are all cool with it?

[quote]and her parents are all cool with it?

Conveniently, we didn't even see them.

R6 here. Just watched the documentary. What a downer.

It moved the needle for me. First of all, I think over 30 years, the shocking behavior and devastation of the boyfriend taking up with the daughter kind of fades away. The documentary really brought home how devastating Woody's behavior with Soon-Yi was to a large group of people. Woody was always very matter-of-fact and cold and rational about it. It's easy to be rational when you're not the one who's being dumped for your daughter. You're being betrayed on the most fundamental level by the person you love the most. And he's incapable of feeling regret over it or being sorry. I get why Mia Farrow freaked out.

The Dylan stuff is harder, but the needle on that moved for me too, to a lesser extent. After reading Moses' account, I was pretty much convinced the molestation didn't happen. One of the key things in Moses' story that helped convince me was the toy train. Moses said there couldn't have been one in the attic. Well, there's plenty of proof that there was a toy train in that attic. And Dylan mentioned it many times over the years. I can never claim to know for sure, but now I understand that Dylan may be telling the truth.

It still seems crazy. Why does a guy who's persona non-grata around the house steal away for 20 minutes to do what Woody supposedly did? There was no real time for anything to really happen for Woody. I don't really see what's in it for him that day.

I'd like to hear Moses respond to the documentary.

I guess the thing I came away with was these are real people with real pain and real mental problems. This was not at all a fun watch. Nothing like "gossipy fun" about it. It was thoroughly unpleasant. It was very nice to see Dylan with her daughter and husband.

OH one thing that bothered me was the tapes of the phone calls. If you're going to play clips, you have to make them all available. I have a feeling clips were selected carefully so as not to make Mia Farrow look bad at all.

I was saddened by all the back and forth of little Dylan telling her sad, disgusting story. I do believe the child. She never changed her account of the events, even after 9 NINE interviews with different professionals. The entire family is affected deeply by these sad events. There wasn’t anything pretty about the documentary, and I’m still trying to figure out what I learned.

As far as sounding coached, you can coach and over-prep someone who's telling the truth. Coached doesn't equal lying for me.

[quote]R22 It still seems crazy. Why does a guy who's persona non-grata around the house steal away for 20 minutes to do what Woody supposedly did? There was no real time for anything to really happen for Woody. I don't really see what's in it for him that day.

He had become obsessed with his daughter Dylan, almost stalking her.

Obsession drives people to irrational behavior.

Dylan's account did change. That was one of the big issues for the Yale-New-Haven team. They even noted that in one instance when asked where Woody touched her during the incident, Dylan pointed to her shoulder.

And the documentary did not show viewers the entirety of the video shot by Mia over a period of days. It's like the poster noted above with the taped phone calls--we need to review all of them in their entirety or it's skewed. Same with the videos of Dylan. Former child sex crimes prosecutor Linda Fairstein has stated that Mia shot FOURTEEN segments of Dylan on different days, at least one while Dylan was completely nude in the bathtub, and another while Dylan was partially unclad outside. "Dylan, Dylan, what did Daddy say? Say what Daddy did," over, and over again. Fairstein said in hundreds of cases she never once encountered one where a parent taped the kid like that, and she was gobsmacked that Mia would do this to Dylan while Dylan was naked. The case wasn't prosecutable due to what Mia did.

Throw in there that MIa was an actress very used to rehearsing and repeat-shooting. Throw in there that after the Soon-Yi uproar but before the alleged attic incident, on a night Woody spent at the house after a birthday party for Dylan, Mia affixed a note to Woody's bedroom door several days calling him a "child molester who did one daughter and now was moving in on the younger. " (Something like that) Combined with all the videotaping, that note also helped make the allegation impossible to prosecute.

The documentary cherry-picked. But in court or any authentic investigative process subject to evidentiary standards of proof, the allegation can not be substantiated. It can only be substantiated if you throw standards of proof out the window. Hence its life on Twitter.

Team Mia. Always have been, always will be.

R23 What are you talking about? She changed her story multiple times.

And your original post is so fucking annoying and pearl clutching. You are either a Frau or a MARY!

R6 here.

I never considered myself to be on anyone's "team" really. I don't know these people. But previous to seeing this doc, Moses had really convinced me that Woody did not molest Dylan.

I went into the documentary today completely open minded, and as I said, they did made some inroads with me.

Until I hear Moses respond, and/or hear the rest of those taped phone conversations, I really wouldn't be comfortable holding an opinion on the matter.

Point is - whichever way you look at it, Woody fucked her over...there are[bold] a million young girls in New York[/bold] he could have fucked but he chose to fuck her daughter and decimated her family whilst doing so.

He then goes off and has a long succesful marriage and family with this girl and continues to be lauded and praised for his work.

She wants her revenge.

[quote]Until I hear Moses respond

The documentary would have been the perfect place for him to respond, but clearly they weren't interested in having his perspective being presented.

Moses doesn't have to "respond." His account of the day of the alleged attic incident is not make-or-break concerning the allegations. What is make-or-break is the fact that in not one but two states Dylan's interviews with clinicians coupled with the multiple videos shot by Mia, were assessed as not supportive of charges, let alone conviction.

One would hope Woody himself didn't want to see Moses put himself through more stress in this. If anybody has followed Moses various website statements, blog posts, and youtubes, he seems to have lots of deep issues about the experience of being a cross-racial adoptee. Regardless of whether Mia was or not abusive to him and his POC siblings, there seems to have been an insensitivity to the issues they faced, particularly given the frenzied acquisition of more, more, more of them, even during this whole Allen/Farrow firestorm. He also seems riven by grief over the deaths of two of his Asian Farrow siblings. He has enough on his plate. One would like to think Woody is a big enough person to want him spared. Moses said his piece, take it or leave it. He doesn't need to "respond" to this polemic--er, "documentary."

He made a statement in support of Woody and also in support of his own right to state "his truth" about what he experienced growing up in that household.

Can you imagine being accused of something you didn't do? And having an aggressive mob of people on-line trying to destroy you? I actually feel sorry for Woody. I think he's an odd dude but... I'm not buying this narrative of Dylan's at all. It doesn't pass the smell test. But dumb people and women/gay men who hate straight men are eating it up.

I haven’t seen the, what’s being called a “documentary”, but, from the outside, it sounds as though it’s far from comprehensive in presenting the evidence that the police, the investigators, some apparently trustworthy witnesses, and the courts believed to be exculpatory. In short, it sounds like it presents more of a biased, one-sided view (Mia’s) of events. Is that wrong? I really don’t want to watch the thing and have to wade through the sordid story yet again, and I have no horse in the race. Someone who isn’t firmly convinced that he/she know what really happened either way, please give an opinion on the doc’s validity. Thanks.

He molested her 100% believe that as I believe Mia has deep seeded issues from her own molestation ans her brother is a pedo. She gravitated to one herself. Woodys always shown his attraction to young girls (his movies speak volumes) and Mia along with Woody DEFENDED RAPIST RomanPolanski so it’s a mixture of mental issues collecting kids and one old creeper who fixated on one little child. The dating hai girlfriends daughter/sister to his kids is always a huge gross issue.

R34 the presentation was as if it was out together by a prosecution team. As far as I could tell, there were no lies.

The most interesting (and disturbing) evidence were tapes of phone calls with Woody made my Mia Farrow. Parts of them would seem to be damning for Woody.

I feel that I could make a much better informed opinion on the matter if I could hear those tapes in their entirety.

As it is, the presentation just made me very sad. But, as I said, it does close on a note of hopefulness for Dylan.

My thoughts:

1. Never form an opinion based on a “documentary.”

2. It is none of my business.

r30 - I think that is the point. In Episode 4 you see how Allen's behavior destroyed Mia and the family that depended on Woddy. He walked out, leaving his responsibilities behind along with enormous emotional wreckage. [bold] This is why you don't let a boyfriend essentially support (financially and emotionally) your household if you have children.[/bold]

True crime is littered with low-rent versions of this story. A woman needs help supporting herself and her family; a great boyfriend moves; her daughter disappears and turns up dead. It's common enough that women look at such arrangements suspiciously, but the woman involved is so initially happy for the help, she doesn't listen to anyone else. Despite a Soviet parade of red flags.

I mentioned that the Allen-Mia story is trilogy:

Vol 1 - Mia and Woody cinema darlings

Vol 2 - The grotesquerie of the breakup - polaroids father-daughter time in the attic, court battles, etc.

Vol 3 - Ronan's revenge.

See a picture of Mia and Ronan in an Elle photoshoot from 2018. She was on the cover.

I believed Dylan until episode 4. Now I doubt it. She seems like someone who NEVER can get enough attention.

That said: Woody is a total perv.

Dylan went for decades without getting attention, R39. What are you talking about?

I do not believe a word the brainwashed daughter of child-collector Mia says.

Authorities found her "coached".

Mia has made making Woody Allen a pariah her life’s work. I’m not saying he’s innocent, but I don’t think I’m the only one who is tired of hearing about all of this mess in the press. It never goes away. It’s like the Manson murders. How many re-hashings of the same fucked up people do we need?

Thanks to those who responded to my question.

I stopped watching the documentary when they conflated Woody's pervy attraction to teenaged women with the issue at hand. While it is gross that he acted upon his attraction to teenaged women (17-ish?), that is not evidence that he is in any way attracted to children or molested his own 7-year-old daughter. I realized at that point the documentary was not interested in sorting out the truth about Dylan's accusation, just burying Woody Allen by any means at hand.

[quote]I stopped watching the documentary when they conflated Woody's pervy attraction to teenaged women with the issue at hand. While it is gross that he acted upon his attraction to teenaged women (17-ish?), that is not evidence that he is in any way attracted to children or molested his own 7-year-old daughter. I realized at that point the documentary was not interested in sorting out the truth about Dylan's accusation, just burying Woody Allen by any means at hand.

If you'd followed it through you might have come to a clearer conclusion.

The way he was around the little girl, evidenced in the footage and photographs makes it very clear he was out of control in his behaviour with her.

The fact he secretly met and fucked his girlfriend's teenage daughter is another example of his evil. There are a million women he could have fucked but her choice her, because he's evil and destructive.

He married her to save face.

I was convinced that Allen did it, but the documentary made me see how questionable the evidence is.

I do not know if Allen is innocent, but after watching the documentary, I think it is possible that he is.

And Mia Farrow creeps me out.

Woody is automatically guilty by fucking and then marrying his “daughter.”

30 years ago when he did this, it was outrageous, but social criminals often got away with this stuff back then. If the same stuff went down today, Woody would be using his woody in a cell at Rykers.

R47, he is indeed guilty of breaking a social contract when he married Soon-Yi.

But that does not mean he raped a 7 year old. Those are two different types of crimes.

R44 I agree that’s when the “documentary” seriously overplayed its hand. Especially when 90% of Hollywood movies until a few years ago had that May-December dynamic (because of producer’s sick views of what they considered “fuckable”). The Juliette Lewis thumbsucking scene (which was in that 1992 “great roles for women” montage at the Oscars, for God’s sake) was far more disturbing then anything in any Woody Allen movie (and I’m sure I could think of quite a few more examples).

The filmmakers were trying so hard for some “gotcha” moment with that and it was absolutely ridiculous.

Well, he's guilty. Enough evidence to hang him in a court? To clear up any reasonable doubt? No. But Dylan's experience and her memory of it convince me he's guilty.

But what this documentary did do for me... Manhattan had always been (as i remembered it) a beautiful film... the photography, the music, the milieu, the emotions.... but looking at it now through the current zeitgeist's lenses - what a creepy movie. I can appreciate its beauty, but only like Triumph des Willens or her Olympia. Beautiful but creepy and inexcusable. That's completely different from appreciating a Picasso while knowing what a criminal misogynist he was. He didn't paint about being a creep. He didn't make a movie beatifying Chester the Molester.

You must believe the children.

So I believe Moses who says Dylan is a lying whore.

Moses is being paid by Woody to lie.

Oh, for God's sake. Hundreds of thousands of people saw "Manhattan and loved it. Voices raised in protest were like, two, and they were the same kind of sources as Tipper Gore and her rock-lyrics labeling crusade. Nobody batted an eye at it. The intellectual dishonesty around characterizing this film as sick and depraved under currently fashionable mores, is massive. And massively ridiculous

One of the few women critics at the time, and most decidedly not Tipper Gore had this to say “What man in his 40s but Woody Allen could pass off a predilection for teenagers as a quest for true values? And where are this kid's parents?" Hahahah

The intellectual dishonesty was straight men drooling over the movie a a masterpiece because it celebrated their sexual harassment of their students. Mariel Hemingway says the experience was not pleasant. Intellectual dishonesty would be claiming this movie holds up.

Nice score and cinematography, I give it that.

R44 I continued to watch but I rolled my eyes at that bit as well — serious overreaching in search of a “smoking gun.” Is Martin Scorsese a child molester as well? Because Cape Fear is every bit as skeevy — actually, a lot more so.

The point is, that wasn’t evidence of child molestation, but rather indicative of 90 percent of the Hollywood mindset. A Perfect Murder makes me ill, too.

Whoops - realized this is an old thread. Well at least I’m consistent.

[quote] Because Cape Fear is every bit as skeevy — actually, a lot more so.

Woody was so turned on by the Juliette Lewis De Niro scene he immediately put her in his next film, dropping the actor he’d hired. I forget who that was.

Emily Lloyd.

R53 So you are saying that the zeitgeist doesn't affect how art is understood? That heightened consciousness emerging from cultural changes does not change how art (movies) are critiqued?

Birth of the Nation sure showed how dangerous those darkies were! Franklin Pangborn was the perfect representation of the Secret Gay!

Please. The character was seventeen, legally of age in NY state. It wasn't merely straight men who loved the movie--there's more of today's breathtaking intellectual dishonesty. Yes, it was kind of eyebrow-raising, but that was the extent of it for tens of thousands of moviegoers, and the film remains beloved to many cinephiles of all genders. Mariel Hemingway did not say it was unpleasant to make the film. She said it couldn't be made today--guess why? Because mores have changed. Not because Woody was depraved. She also said that to her, "the integrity of his work remains intact." She's also been photographed in middle age with him, looking very affectionate.