A few days ago I read this article by Richard Brody (who I often disagree with) about Woody Allen.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/watching-myself-watch-woody-allen-films
When I read the letter by Dylan Farrow, a little bit of me died. I do believe her. The mind boggles and hits a wall when it tries to imagine any conceivable scenario where she would make something like this up. So I believe her. I have always loved Allen's philosophy-via-humor and I find myself thinking of lines and scenes in his movies often in my daily life. I am sure I will continue to do so, but I cannot recommend him to anyone without shuddering slightly. I know VS Naipaul is a horrible, horrible person, but it mitigates his sins somehow that he was only horrible to adults. Forgetting for a moment the psychology around victims and not underestimating what his wife Pat Naipaul and his Brazilian mistress Margaret must have gone through, adults always have a choice of getting up and walking out. Sins committed against children are among the worst, if not the worst. Brody is right in that Allen's movies show you in a way that he is capable of such behavior, or at least of behaving in any way he wants without worrying about the repercussions or hurt passed around. For a major movie director and icon, living in NYC, he must have met and interacted with millions of women. To choose to fall in love with his own partner's adopted daughter..that smacks of something right there. But I was convinced when I learned that he has been with Soon-Yi longer than he was with Farrow, so it must be love. But still. True love may exist but the lightning bolt, I'm not so sure.
All these years I had thought that the molestation allegations were just that - allegations that had no basis in fact; I was not aware of this letter written by the victim. But given that I believe it 100%, I went back to see when she had written it: early 2014. I wonder what I was doing and how I missed it. I guess with the excessive media we consume, we are bound to miss a link here and there. But I have been thinking about it since I read it. Somehow with a writer, it is easier to ignore their private life for they do not appear in front of you telling you and impressing themselves upon you. I suppose if Naipaul were a personal writer (how many years did we read him and not even cotton on to the fact that he was married; to his singular mind it would have been an extraneous detail) his books might have affected us more. Writers of fiction are even more secure, behind the printed word and the universe and characters they create. But a movie actor, one who famously writes his own scripts, one who does allow a similarity to exist between him and his onscreen persona, that is a different story. It becomes harder to shake off. And I dont want to shake it off, but I am finding it hard to think of his movies for any length of time before this seedy smoke creeps in.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/watching-myself-watch-woody-allen-films
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| Dylan Farrow |
When I read the letter by Dylan Farrow, a little bit of me died. I do believe her. The mind boggles and hits a wall when it tries to imagine any conceivable scenario where she would make something like this up. So I believe her. I have always loved Allen's philosophy-via-humor and I find myself thinking of lines and scenes in his movies often in my daily life. I am sure I will continue to do so, but I cannot recommend him to anyone without shuddering slightly. I know VS Naipaul is a horrible, horrible person, but it mitigates his sins somehow that he was only horrible to adults. Forgetting for a moment the psychology around victims and not underestimating what his wife Pat Naipaul and his Brazilian mistress Margaret must have gone through, adults always have a choice of getting up and walking out. Sins committed against children are among the worst, if not the worst. Brody is right in that Allen's movies show you in a way that he is capable of such behavior, or at least of behaving in any way he wants without worrying about the repercussions or hurt passed around. For a major movie director and icon, living in NYC, he must have met and interacted with millions of women. To choose to fall in love with his own partner's adopted daughter..that smacks of something right there. But I was convinced when I learned that he has been with Soon-Yi longer than he was with Farrow, so it must be love. But still. True love may exist but the lightning bolt, I'm not so sure.
All these years I had thought that the molestation allegations were just that - allegations that had no basis in fact; I was not aware of this letter written by the victim. But given that I believe it 100%, I went back to see when she had written it: early 2014. I wonder what I was doing and how I missed it. I guess with the excessive media we consume, we are bound to miss a link here and there. But I have been thinking about it since I read it. Somehow with a writer, it is easier to ignore their private life for they do not appear in front of you telling you and impressing themselves upon you. I suppose if Naipaul were a personal writer (how many years did we read him and not even cotton on to the fact that he was married; to his singular mind it would have been an extraneous detail) his books might have affected us more. Writers of fiction are even more secure, behind the printed word and the universe and characters they create. But a movie actor, one who famously writes his own scripts, one who does allow a similarity to exist between him and his onscreen persona, that is a different story. It becomes harder to shake off. And I dont want to shake it off, but I am finding it hard to think of his movies for any length of time before this seedy smoke creeps in.
