Amazon: Woody Allen's #MeToo comments wrecked movie deal

[Steve Timko]

NEW YORK (AP) - A lawyer for Amazon says Woody Allen breached his four-movie deal with the online giant by making statements about the #MeToo movement that damaged prospects for promoting his films.

Attorney Robert Klieger told a Manhattan federal judge Friday that the company protected itself after Allen made comments that at a minimum were insensitive.

The hearing was related to a lawsuit Allen filed in February seeking at least $68 million. The lawsuit says Amazon ended his 2017 contract in June.

John Quinn, Allen's lawyer, says Amazon initially claimed it was ending the deal because of allegations made against Allen decades ago, not because of his recent statements.

Allen's adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, said in 1992 that Allen molested her when she was 7. Allen has repeatedly denied it.

[Tom Wolper]

It's stories that frustrate me about the state of journalism today. They get quotes from lawyers from both sides and add a sentence about an accusation from 27 years ago. I haven't been following the trial so what can I learn from this about it?

I can gather that Amazon gave Allen an obscene amount of money to make some limited series for Prime. Amazon did this as a prestige move to build their streaming service brand by hooking it to Allen's brand. The first series tanked and Allen's brand is now sullied by much more than the 27 year old accusation so Amazon cut ties. Why is none of this in the story?

[Bob Jersey]

Dylan is finally getting the opportunity to give her side of the story in a multi-part HBO docu, though not without agita-inducing rehash of Woody's career nor questionable embarrassment of Mia... 

https://variety.com/2021/tv/reviews/dylan-farrow-allen-v-farrow-tv-review-1234907375/ (link)

B

Steve Timko, April 13th 2019:

[Dave Sikula]

I'll be avoiding this one the way the Farrows avoid the truth. From all advance word, it's heavily slanted in their favor and damns Allen, who refused to participate, as did Moses Farrow, who seems to have the clearest perspective of all.

What Allen did was, well, shitty, but (from what's on the record) not as reprehensible as Mia and Ronan would have us believe.

--Dave Sikula

[M-D November]

I honestly don't give much of a damn about the Allen/Farrow drama at this point; it all feels a bit like mutually assured destruction anyway.

[Paul Murray]

The filmmakers make some ludicrous statements in this interview with WP's Ann Hornaday:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/allen-v-farrow-hbo-documentary/2021/02/16/32c0d9b2-6d71-11eb-9f80-3d7646ce1bc0_story.html

Most notable: "Well, it’s really not about him." Yes, the film called "Allen v. Farrow" is not about Woody Allen, according to them.

[Diner]

As Roger Friedman points out, the documentary leaves out a *lot*.

https://www.showbiz411.com/2021/02/17/hbo-doc-about-woody-allen-mia-farrow-ignores-mias-3-dead-kids-her-child-molester-brother-other-family-tragedies

[daves...@gmail.com]

I enjoyed the part about "Well, he made 'Manhattan,' about a man in a relationship with a teenager, so he's obviously guilty." It's like when he murdered a woman after making "Crimes and Misdemeanors," or when he robbed that jewelry store after making "Small Time Crooks," or had a brain tumor after "Hannah and Her Sisters."

--Dave Sikula

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[M-D November]

So by that logic, Donald Fagen of Steely Dan is similarly guilty because of the lyrics of the song "Hey Nineteen"...?

[PGage]

I probably should avoid it too, but I watched the first episode just now, as I suspect it will come up at work.

Dave’s summary of the bias and distortion is accurate, though they represent Woody with audio from his book, in his voice, which seems like they would need his permission to do?

Dylan is allowed to tell her story of course, but I would have more respect for this series if it was in fact titled something like “Dylan’s Story” (though, frankly, it would probably more accurately be called “Mia’s Story”) than something implying both sides are being told.

The series could go a long way towards redeeming it self if it spends an hour somewhere on what we now know about the suggestibility of human, and especially childhood, memory, and the complications of child abuse allegations in the context of custody and relationship conflict. However, the failure to present this at the very beginning of the series so it could contextualize (to use a favorite word of Ronan’s) the story to come is a major failure.

For me the most revealing moment in episode 1 was Mia’s friend saying that Mia was “very forgiving” of Soon-Yi when Mia first found the pornographic pictures of Soon-Yi in Woody’s apartment. Soon-Yi was 21 (or, by some accounts, 19) at the time, having an affair with a man in his late 50s, and to that extent not that different from her mother Mia’s relationship with Frank Sinatra. Woody was never married to Soon-Yi, and never adopted her, and she had an adoptive father, but even so clearly had some form of father figure role for much of her childhood. This is the most obviously shitty behavior on the part of Woody, and is the part that come closest to his avatar in *Manhattan*.

That remark from Mia’s friend though suggested to me that Mia is functioning during this period more as a hurt and jealous romantic parter to Allen (and rival to her daughter Soon-Yi) than as a concerned mother.

None of that means that Allen did not molest his adopted daughter Dylan. But the documentary assumes an ominous tone of his guilt being inevitable, which it never justifies or earns. I am open to evidence that Allen is guilty- God knows in my own work I have seen enough horrific instances of men doing horrible things to their daughters. But I still have not seen that evidence. We know that several competent agencies investigated at the time and found no evidence, though of course it would not be the first time rich and famous people got favorable treatment (though in this case there were rich and famous people on both sides). I am going to need more than horrified memories from Mia’s friend that Woody let 3 year old Dylan suck on his thumb.

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[daves...@gmail.com]

I know you're not doing this, but your mentioning of it brings up something that annoys me. In a lot of the writing on this case (I won't elevate it by calling it reporting), Allen is called "a powerful figure in Hollywood," or "an example of the rich getting away with crimes."

While I have no doubt Allen is wealthy (not crazy rich, but he's not going to have to worry), he's never been a part of the power culture. He doesn't socialize, isn't seen in the company of other rich people, and doesn't seem to have access to the networks that, say, Trump, Epstein, and Weinstein had. Yes, he's a "rich white guy," but not everyone who meets that description is plugged in and invulnerable.

As well, yes, he's won Oscars and directed scores of films, but he's not exactly a power player. For decades, to be in "a Woody Allen" picture was a prestige move, but his pictures always had relatively-miniscule budgets, rarely made a lot of money and, over the last decade or so, he's scrambled for financing and casting actors concerned with being connected with him. It's not like he could make or break a career by casting or not casting someone. His was a niche business at best. For quite a while now, his pictures have ranged from okay to terrible, as he essentially juggled the same tropes over and over in different combinations. Sometimes they hit (I generally liked "A Rainy Day in New York," for example, despite the usual modern young people acting as though they were born in the 40s and one uncomfortable scene with Elle Fanning in her underwear [which would have been uncomfortable even without the smear campaign hanging over them], but "Wonder Wheel" was all but unwatchable), so maybe it's time for him to retire.

Because of the charges--and especially because of HBO thing--I think his career is essentially over, anyway. He still hasn't found a distributor for his last movie, actors are disowning him, and Farrow has succeeded in smearing his reputation. The former part of this probably doesn't bother him. I'd imagine he'll be just as happy raising his kids, watching the Knicks, and living his remaining years in relative obscurity. The latter, I'm sure, concerns him, but that ship has sailed. Despite the YouTube documentary proclaiming his innocence (I've yet to watch it), to the general public, his reputation is toxic. This is apparent from all the writers I've seen online whose argument boils down to "I always found him creepy, so of course the charges must be true,"  which is circular logic at its best.

Another charge that keeps coming up again is "He played a man in love with a teenager in 'Manhattan,' so he's obviously guilty," even though they never charge him with being a bank robber, a revolutionary, a small-time criminal, or hiring a hit man, all of whom were protagonists in his films -- and ignoring the criticism his character gets in "Manhattan" itself about his relationship. (The whole "he married his stepdaughter!" thing is just more evidence why Trump still has a following. Too many people are basically stupid and don't read beyond the neon headlines.)

I'd never deny that what he did was shitty and handled badly, but if everyone who's done something appalling in a relationship is open to being called a pedophile, a lot of people are in trouble.

I'm assuming that the HBO series won't mention Farrow's own issues (Moses's charges of abuse, her children's suicides, her own marriages to much older men, and Ronan's father), because that might actually muddy the waters and lessen her (in my mind, nonexistent) credibility. The producers and HBO have invested a lot in her story, and they're not going to dilute it.

--Dave Sikula

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[PGage]

We are (somewhat oddly) kind of on the same page with this, so I will try to avoid just echoing back. I will note that I deleted in my last post a mini paragraph that suggested that, in Connecticut anyway (where the initial investigations occurred) Mia Farrow is likely the more influential celebrity than Woody Allen.

I think the more common, and serious (though still bogus) argument made is not the Manhattan analogy, but that, since he had sex with 21 (or 19) year old Soon-Yi he must also be the kind of man who would have sex with 7 year old Dylan. While it is possible the same man would do both, there is nothing about the first that makes the second more likely. 

It may be shitty or immature, but plenty of men in their 50s are sexually attracted to women in their early 20s; there is nothing pedophillic about that. 

What is shitty about the Soon-Yi thing is mostly that he was cheating on his long time partner, and doing so with the woman most likely to hurt her; as if he were cheating on his wife with her (much) younger sister. I think that does qualify him as an asshole, but again is uncorrelated with being a pedophile. 

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[Adam Bowie]

I'm curious to learn whether this series makes it over to the UK. Sky has a big deal with HBO which means most of their output ends up on Sky's channels - and indeed they launched a Sky Documentaries channel just a few months ago that would be perfect for it. And ordinarily Sky moves quickly to get shows that are generating online heat. For example, they purchase the recent Britney doc and had it on-air last week (for all the misgivings I know have been spoken about here).

But the UK does have tougher libel laws than the US, and I'm wondering if that will come into play here. E.g. It's notable that the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard case was in a UK court. On the other hand, I know that despite threatened legal action from Scientology, they showed Going Clear very quickly when that was released.

While I wait to see whether this series reaches us, I would note a couple of Hadley Freeman interviews from The Guardian over the last year that somehow feel the fairest to me. She has interviewed Woody Allen and more recently Moses Farrow, but I think in each instance dealt with them fairly and not dodged any of the issues.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/may/29/do-i-really-care-woody-allen-comes-out-fighting

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/dec/11/moses-farrow-id-be-very-happy-to-take-my-fathers-surname

Adam

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[PGage]

I agree with you Adam about the Guardian stories. The author, Hadley Freeman, weighed in last night on the HBO “doc” on Twitter, saying she had not seen it, but using the hype it generated to pump her stories. She is getting smacked around a bit on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/hadleyfreeman/status/1363602815579533314?s=21

Dave brought up Moses, the other adopted Mia kid also later adopted by Woody (in addition to Dylan), whose very pro-Woody, anti-Mia views were not mentioned in episode 1. Almost certainly they will be, which Ingather both because to ignore them would lower the credibility of the HBO show even lower than its very minimal standards, and because they set it up in the first episode with a couple of references by Mia to Moses as being enthralled and overly identifying with Woody (the subliminal message I got was ‘Nerdy Asian kid brainwashed by nerdy Jewish adopted father’.

For those who have not read the take on the allegations by Moses: 

http://mosesfarrow.blogspot.com/2018/05/a-son-speaks-out-by-moses-farrow.html?m=1

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[Dave Sikula]

I watched the YouTube video “By the Way, Woody Allen Is Innocent” last night. At 2.5 hours, it’s a haul, but the writer/presenter (in my mind, anyway) blows the Farrow case to smithereens. There are some problems with the video (being so long, it’s gets a little distracted; he reads his text in a rapid monotone; he gets inappropriately jokey in some places), it’s pretty devastating.

One of the most relevant points he makes, though, is to ask why Dylan hasn’t taken him to court. The statute of limitations on the criminal charges has expired, but the civil deadline is more than a decade away. The reason, he speculates, is that the Farrows don’t want to take the chance of lying under oath in a courtroom and would rather fight it out in the media, where there are no penalties.

— Dave Sikula

[PGage]

So, I was wondering about the use of Allen’s book (and voice) in the HBO doc. Why would he give permission to them, but how could they use it without permission? 

The LAT reported yesterday that Allen’s publisher (Skyhorse Publishing) is considering a lawsuit for copyright infringement. The Filmmakers are claiming it is Fair Use, which - Wow, does that seem like a stretch. Not only are the excerpts several and extensive, but they are not presented as quotations from his book (though there is on screen text attribution) but as parallel to sound from interviews the makers did with other sources. In other words, the excerpts are used not for educational purposes, not as a prime for discussion, but to create the misleading impression that the makers interviewed Allen and are providing his point of view as part of a balanced presentation.

I have embraced a liberal view of Fair Use over the years, but this seems way, way over the line.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2021-02-22/woody-allen-documentary-memoir-lawsuit-skyhorse

On Sun, 21 Feb 2021 at 7:56 PM PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dave’s summary of the bias and distortion is accurate, though they represent Woody with audio from his book, in his voice, which seems like they would need his permission to do?

[daves...@gmail.com]

Well, they're not applying ethical journalism practices to the rest of it, so why should this be an exception?

I'd love to see Allen sue both Farrows for defamation and get them on the stand under oath. It would never happen, because Allen doesn't want to go there and the caterwaulers who hate him would go ballistic, but it'd be nice to see a good lawyer shred them.

--Dave Sikula

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[Paul Murray]

It's disappointing to see serious news organizations (NYT, WaPo) taking the bait and covering each individual episode, giving the project a certain gravitas that it doesn't appear to deserve. 

That's especially true given the issues raised about the filmmakers'  two previous documentaries, where some say they put advocacy over facts (example: "How The Hunting Ground Blurs the Truth"; something like 19 Harvard Law professors had serious complaints about that doc). I have not seen any of them, nor do I intend to, based on what I've read.

They have claimed, apparently with a straight face, that the public hasn't heard the Farrow side until now. As I observed earlier, they also told the Post critic that their film is not about Allen.

Yes, they got Dylan to give an on-camera interview. That's something new, although that doesn't necessarily increase our factual knowledge. I believe that Dylan believes it happened. But that doesn't mean that it did happen.

I think news organizations ought to at least wait to see all the episodes to cover them. Let's see what they include and also what they leave out that would contradict or muddy their narrative. But that ain't gonna happen these days.

[daves...@gmail.com]

I want to clarify my statement below. Whether one believes her or not, Dylan Farrow has been through hell. She apparently believes that what she says happened, happened and whether those memories are real or implanted is irrelevant; they're a part of her.

While she's hardly been a shrinking violet over the past hew years (the "By the Way ..." documentary shows numerous interviews--where she's perfectly composed--and mentions she has a book coming out), the story has never been really been challenged in a court of law, and even Mia Farrow's interview in Part One that reportedly claims she treated Soon-Yi calmly and in an adult manner after finding the photos directly contradicts her previous sworn testimony that she went ballistic and beat her.

I don't want to see Dylan Farrow broken on the witness stand, but I do want to see the family's claims put under oath.

--Dave Sikula

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[Kevin M.]

I confess I was predisposed to think the worst of Woody Allen, despite being a fan of some of his films and a huge fan of his stand-up years. However, the way all this has been mishandled for years in the press instead of a courtroom where it belongs, it makes me less sympathetic towards the alleged victims. My heart goes out to any and all who feel wronged, abused, or betrayed by those who purport to love them, but there are outlets to address grievances, and using the media seems to be the absolute worst and even most dishonest approach. 

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[Tom Wolper]

On Wed, Feb 24, 2021 at 11:16 AM Kevin M. <drunkba...@gmail.com> wrote:

I confess I was predisposed to think the worst of Woody Allen, despite being a fan of some of his films and a huge fan of his stand-up years. However, the way all this has been mishandled for years in the press instead of a courtroom where it belongs, it makes me less sympathetic towards the alleged victims. My heart goes out to any and all who feel wronged, abused, or betrayed by those who purport to love them, but there are outlets to address grievances, and using the media seems to be the absolute worst and even most dishonest approach.

Not related to this case there is enough evidence of bias and/or corruption in the court system that journalists and documentarians should take an interest in controversial cases. Of course I won't accept a claim of wrongdoing without evidence from the journalist. Making a court decision the final arbiter of justice is too limited. And the whole appeals process exists to make sure the court arrives at the best decision.

I can't get interested in this documentary series for two reasons: a lot of recent HBO+ and Netflix series would be better as a movie and dragging them out to a number of episodes makes for bloat and repetition. And there's no good reason to air this stuff after 30 years. It's possible that the producers wanted to poke into the story to see if any new information would turn up, and from what I read about the series, it hasn't. And there's really not a lot at stake. Even if Allen isn't forced into retirement nobody is looking at his recent output and wondering why he doesn't make more films. Nothing has emerged to bring the case back to court so what makes airing the story worthwhile?

[PGage]

Episode 2: Oh brother...

I will inhibit a play by play, but will just repeat that I don’t know if Woody Allen sexually abused his 7-year old adopted daughter, but, based on the HBO series so far, neither does anybody else. Nothing in the second episode can be considered reliable evidence of abuse (although with Carly Simon they really brought out the big guns).

But wait, that’s not really true. More precisely, the second episode is full of evidence that young Dylan was abused, but there is no way to tell if it was sexual abuse by her father or psychological abuse by her mother. 

Even that is not quite right, because even if Allen did what he is accused of, what Mia did (videotaping her 7 year old daughter repeatedly in intense interviews with leading questions (and its clear from the Gaithersburg questions and the girls answers these have been rehearsed many times prior to what we are seeing) is harmful, both psychologically and legally. 

So, what I take away, is she was abused by her mother, and may or may not have been abused by her father.

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[Stan S]

Rehearsed? Not only rehearsed but in the clip showed last night it looked as if Dylan was reading her statement. 

[PGage]

I agree. But the evident pre-rehearsals is most relevant for the question of her mom having tampered with Dylan’s memory and understanding.

At this point it seems likely to me that Mia’s over controlling, hyper intense, jealousy fueled style led to her young daughter having her schemas related to her interaction with her father distorted. Meaning it is very possible both that Woody did not abuse her, and that now adult Dylan genuinely believes he did, and has been as damaged by this false memory as she would have been had it been actual.

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[Dave Sikula]

When I make the mistake of reading the comments on this show on social media, I'm reminded of nothing so much as the Trump cultists who refuse to listen to anything other than their Dear Leader's bilge.

Early on, I tried to respond to one by asking what the evidence was and got answered with something along the lines of "Ugh! It's always -men- who want evidence!"

I dunno. Maybe Mia Farrow is Q.

--Dave Sikula

[Adam Bowie]

The previously mentioned Hadley Freeman from The Guardian has a decent piece just published on what the documentary makers appear to have to left out:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/mar/03/allen-v-farrow-woody-allen-mia-farrow-documentary-is-pure-pr-why-else-would-it-omit-so-much

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[Adam Bowie]

A key paragraph perhaps considering what @Pgage has been saying:

"Ziering and Dick don’t know what happened between Dylan and her father. Neither do I and neither, perhaps, does anyone at this point, as repeated retellings take the place of real memory. Braver and better film-makers would drill down into how historical truth can change over time, and how two people can look at one image and see very different things."

[PGage]

She stole my line...except, that is pretty much the only thing to say about this case, at least if you want to bend over backwards to be fair to Mia and Dylan.

Freeman appears to have seen all four episodes in the last couple of weeks, after saying when episode 1 aired that she hadn’t seen it at all. If she’s right then the series is worse than I assumed, in that it never addresses most of the contrary evidence.

The filmmakers have been saying in the media that their documentary does not need to be balanced, because Woody’s version has for 25 years been dominant, and they are bringing balance by supplying Maia and Dylan’s version. I’m not convinced there was ever a time that this was true - Allen has said relatively little over the years, and a search of Twitter will show that most people expressing an opinion about this assume “Woody Allen married his step daughter and molested his own child; WHY ISN'T HE IN JAIL?”

I have been reluctant to bring this next point up, because it is ugly and has the effect of undermining Mia Farrow’s version even though as far as I know she has no connection to it. As I have been reading Twitter comments on this story I have been surprised at a steady stream of both latent and manifest antisemitism animating much of the anti Woody posts. (Raising this of course risks enacting a central trope from Annie Hall, but then I always preferred that to Manhattan). 

I’m not saying that anyone who believe the worst about Allen must be suspected of being an antisemite, but it does seem that, far more than with Harvey Weinstein (or Matt Lauer, though perhaps that is more understandable), Allen’s Jewishness is referenced in some way by a surprisingly large fraction of his detractors. I suppose that is due in large part to Allen making his Jewishness a big part of some of his films, and that for many Americans he has been their most influential exposure to Judaism. The ugly sense I get though is that for some, the molestation charges, even with relatively low levels of validity, free them up to basically say: “I always found that weird little Jew to be creepy.”

My point in bringing that up is to suggest the explanation lies in the ambiguity surrounding the charges, which allows observers a less constrained field to project their own biases into the story.

On Wed, 3 Mar 2021 at 5:12 AM Adam Bowie <ad...@adambowie.co.uk> wrote:

A key paragraph perhaps considering what @Pgage has been saying:

"Ziering and Dick don’t know what happened between Dylan and her father. Neither do I and neither, perhaps, does anyone at this point, as repeated retellings take the place of real memory. Braver and better film-makers would drill down into how historical truth can change over time, and how two people can look at one image and see very different things."

On Wed, Mar 3, 2021 at 1:09 PM Adam Bowie <ad...@adambowie.co.uk> wrote:

The previously mentioned Hadley Freeman from The Guardian has a decent piece just published on what the documentary makers appear to have to left out:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/mar/03/allen-v-farrow-woody-allen-mia-farrow-documentary-is-pure-pr-why-else-would-it-omit-so-much

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[PGage]

Okay, so Episode 3 is the strongest of the three hours shown so far, (though still in my view not very good) after Episode 2 last week, which was by far the weakest (and again I so agree with the point made by others that the bloat in the documentary is atrocious). 

The heart of any argument that the evidence is clear that Allen molested Dylan has to be in explaining why the official investigations into the allegations  did not find them convincing. Episode 3 engages these issues, and raised some valid questions (e.g, why did the Yale Child Sexual Abuse Clinic destroy their notes? Why did they interview a 7 year old child so frequently?). Unfortunately the documentary is again not transparent or complete in its discussion of these issues. They have a couple of experts say that notes are never destroyed in a forensic assessment like this, but neglect to report that in the early 1990s it was not just common professional practice, but state law, to destroy notes after a determination was made that alleged abuse had not occurred. I agree that frequent interviews of young children are poor practice, but the doc does not say (and, having read the summary of the Yale Clinic’s findings, I still do not know) how long each of these interviews were, or how many of them covered the same ground. The documentary also fails to point out that the video Mia made of her daughter prior to taking her for formal evaluation was itself composed of many sessions, with the camera turned off and on repeatedly.

I have been thinking that if the Doc had any chance to justify itself, it would be in presenting new evidence to show malfeasance in the CT and NY investigations, but there is nothing new here, mostly warmed over (often directly quoted) allegations from long time Allen critics like Maureen Orth. I also thought there might be reports that Mia was alleging multiple incidents of abuse, but so far the focus is on those missing 20 minutes allegedly in the attic. It’s not impossible that Woody Allen is a single incident child molestor, but that is hardly the typical pattern. Dylan was examined by physicians and even her mother acknowledges no physical evidence of sexual abuse was ever found; this does not rule out many kinds of sexual abuse, but again there is no evidence here that abuse occurred. The long section of Ep 3 that is Allen critics annotating the custody trial and outcome is of no bearing on the central issues. As the doc point out, it is common for fathers accused of abuse to sue for custody (sometimes vindictive punishment by psychopaths, other times genuine and heartsick attempts to rescue children from toxic envionrments), but in my experience even conventional fathers most often do not win, and putting child abuse allegations to the side, Woody Allen is hardly a conventional father.

Maybe episode 4 will bring something new (one would think they would try to end with a bombshell - and they hint at some explosive explanation why the CT DA did not file charges at the end of Ep 3) but after 3 bloated hours there is nothing substantively added to what was previously known about this case.

[daves...@gmail.com]

I applaud your persistence and fortitude in watching this farrago, but have two questions, neither of which is dealt with in the show (I refuse to call it a "documentary"), I assume. This first is that I thought it had been established that the infamous "twenty minutes" were actually no more than five. Is that not the case? Second, is the concept of Allen choosing that day, when he was under extremely close watch, to be the perfect time to make his alleged move dealt with, or is it ignored, as with any other exculpatory evidence?

--Dave Sikula

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.

[PGage]

You are correct that the show does not address either of these, though I think sometimes it refers to something like “about 20 minutes”, which may be an attempt to hedge.

I agree it’s not really a documentary about the dispute between Mia Farrow and Woody Allen (it doesn’t even pretend to give his side). It’s not a documentary about whether Dylan Farrow was sexually molested as a child (it presents no new evidence on this question). It could have been a documentary about Mia Farrow’s story (how her world crumbled when she found those pictures of Soon-Yi with Woody), or about Dylan; near the end of episode 3 there is a scene in which Dylan says the video her mother took of her accusing Woody of molesting her captures her true self - “I am that 7 year old girl.” It’s heartbreaking, but probably not in the way the filmmakers intend.

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[Bob Jersey]

Your descriptions (all of you) make this docu sound like the docu equivalent of Seinfeld...   B

 

[PGage]

So, nobody not last named Allen is happier than I am that this HBO series is over. This week I have had the unique experience of both being accused of being in favor of the sexual abuse of children (by online interlocutors, not on this list) and spending a couple of hours reporting one of my patients for sexually abusing a child.

For me the most notable part of E4 was Mia Farrow saying to the interviewer off camera that she never brought a BF home after Woody, because she did not trust herself to bring home a man who ~ “would not fall for one of my kids” (quote approximate). To my ears this telegraphs that, both in the immediate aftermath and today, what Mia Farrow is most fixed on is that Woody cheated on her with her older daughter, since I don’t think any mother who really believed her BF had sexually molested her 7 yo daughter would refer to that as him having “fallen for her”.

E4 opens by picking up what the show thought was a big cliffhanger from E3, which is the Press Conference by the Connecticut States Attorney announcing he was not going to trial. He does signal that he leaned towards believing the allegations, but he also says that after getting on the floor to interview Dylan (in the approved manner of such things) he and the most aggressive prosecutors on his staff concluded that they could not put the little girl on the stand. He frames that as not wanting to traumatize Dylan again, but based on my experience, that is mostly bullshit; not that I doubt that he didn’t want to harm the child, but that this was not likely the determining factor for not going forward.

Every case of child sexual abuse requires having a child testify about the abuse. Without for a moment trivializing the harm entailed in the kind of behaviors alleged by The Farrows against Allen, I have been part of lots of cases where the abuse alleged was even more horrific and over a longer period of time, and while I have seen families decide they did not want to put their children through a trial, I have never seen a prosecutor decide that. Keep in mind that the courts do not allow children to be cross examined in the same brutal ways we have come to expect key adult witnesses to be grilled on TV shows. The courtroom is often cleared of all but essentials, and defense attorneys speak in calm, measured and usually affirming tones when questioning the child.

More likely, in my experience, when a prosecutor decides, based on their interview with the child, not to proceed, it means that, however much they might be inclined to believe the child, they do not believe she would make a credible or compelling enough witness to get a conviction. 

E4 also addresses the most obvious criticism of the show, that it is one sided. This is identical to the defense they have been giving in the media all month, which interestingly, is the exact same response that defenders of Fox News give to the same accusation. First they throw up a kind of weak denial that they are one sided, then they say that since the other side has been over presented for so long, the only way to bring balance to the universe is to be very one sided in the opposite direction. 

Aside from being a self deligitimizing argument for any news project, this response serves to illuminate the very narrow cultural space occupied by the makers of the program. I think the suggestion that the majority of Americans have been passionate Woody Allen fans and have been on his side since the allegations were made is demonstrably untrue. Most Americans have never cared about Woody Allen, and of those who do at least as many have disliked him, even before the allegations. What is probably true is that the Hollywood elites have loved Woody Allen, and this seems to be what angers Mia Farrow so. It doesn’t take much to suspect that second only to the identity of the current Mrs Allen, Mia is angry that young actresses like Scarlett Johansson have taken her place not just in his heart but his films. (Note Woody has now been married to the now 50 year old Soon Yi for almost 25 years, more than twice as long as his non marital relationship to Mia Farrow, and longer than any other romantic relationship of his life). So, maybe if this was a long piece in The New Yorker it would be bringing balance to the force, but not the nationwide HBO audience.

I will inhibit my impulse to go on at length about the sound bites from talking head mental health experts and briefly flashed text crawls, except to say that the exaggerations and imbalance embodied in them decreases my confidence in the Program as a whole.

Again, if this show were called “Mia’s Story” or “Dylan’s Story” I would be much less critical of it (though no more convinced of its claim to have finally provided the smoking gun evidence for their allegations). Also, again, I leave this show as I came to it, agnostic as to whether Allen is guilty of this crime. It’s possible. But I would say that I am less inclined to believe this now than I was a month ago, only because I have  always assumed that if we heard the full story from Mia and Dylan’s side, it would include allegations of more specific incidents of abuse, either of Dylan, or of one of Mia’s other young children, or of other children he had access to. While not unheard of, it is rare that a man in his 50s starts molesting children for the first time, and even more rare that he only does so one time, in a situation that was providing him with anything but a secure target of opportunity. Having his 7 year old daughter suck his thumb, putting his head in her lap, having sex with a 21 year old he knew from her childhood, however typical, or atypical are unrelated to pedophilia. There is nothing in the 4 long hours of this show that is new evidence to support the claim. What was new was seeing the home film Mia made of her young daughter talking about the allegations, but we knew that film existed, and for me anyway seeing them if anything made the allegations less credible.

The show ends with what to me is it’s most infuriating aspect: framing the debate as “do you believe Dylan?” This is most emphatically not the question. I doubt anyone thinks Dylan Farrow, now or 27 years ago, is lying. 

I was in grad school a little less than a decade before these allegations came out, during the McMartin Preschool Trial. The mantra among psychologists at the time was “Believe the children!”, and for a while I repeated that too. But as the trial played out it became clear that while the children were not lying, important parts of the story they were telling were not true. Throughout the 1980s and 90s we went through emotionally and sometimes physically violent storms of hysterical claims of sexual abuse of children which simply were not true. Even as we became more cautious about these claims, we always were clear that sexual abuse of children was all too real, and way too frequent. But we also learned something the makers of this show clearly have not, which is that as much harm can be done in perpetuating untrue claims as in ignoring true claims. 

[Dave Sikula]

While not being accused of being in favor of sexual abuse of children, the majority of the posts I've seen on the show this week have fallen into three main categories:

1) "Woody Allen is a creep, so of course he did it."

2) "I never liked his movies, so of course he did it." ("Manhattan" is usually cited here)

3) "He married his stepdaughter (or daughter, in rare cases), so of course he did it."

Occasionally, an Allen supporter will show up (sometimes linking to the "By the Way ..." video, sometimes to the Moses Farrow article, sometimes to other videos), but they are invariably shouted down as supporting pedophilia. The article in the LA Times today, with its "the reason Allen supporters believe him is because they want women to shut up and be abused" conclusion was a new low, even for the dog-trainer (which is as nothing compared to the NY Times). The Daily Beast came close, though, with its article that tarred Allen with the Jeffrey Epstein brush (including the charge that he apparently supported Roman Polanski -- neglecting the small detail that so did Mia Farrow).

Most often, the Allen-haters remind me of nothing so much as Q supporters, refusing to listen to counter-facts and evidence in favor of the narrative they've been fed.

Dylan Farrow seems to have no trouble talking about all of this now, so why doesn't she take Allen to court and have it out once and for all? If he were proven guilty, I'd have no qualms in wanting him locked up or -- more likely -- fined heavily. Given the inconsistencies in the Farrow accounts, though, and their abhorrence of being put under oath and questioned -- and the attendant penalties for perjury -- I don't expect it.

Allen's career is over. That's certain, so in that sense, the Farrows have won. Even if he were definitively acquitted, the true believers would claim the trial was rigged and no studio is going to finance him.

--Dave Sikula

[Paul Murray]

I would add to Dave's list the accusation that anyone doubting the "evidence" is a paid shill from Allen's PR team.

Boy, that LAT column is really cringeworthy. 

[PGage]

The LAT “Commentary” Is by Lorraine Ali, and was part of an ongoing thread in which I was accused by someone of being in favor of pedophilia (though they allowed that perhaps I was not an actual pedophile myself) for criticizing the Farrow program. The piece is so embarrassingly flimsy that I had to look up the author, thinking perhaps she was some lesser functionary at the LAT. but no, she appears to be their main entertainment editor, and has a fairly impressive resume.

I am not sure what is going on here, but I refuse  to start sentences with “I’m not a pedophile, but I do have a few criticisms of XXX.”

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[Bob Jersey]

A July 2020 interview of Allen by CBS' Lee Cowan, that couldn't be properly shown on "Sunday Morning," will instead be put into a "SM" section of the news area of Paramount+...

https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/woody-allen-interview-cbs-sunday-morning-paramount-plus-1234939350/ (link)

B

PGage, to Paul Murray and Dave Sikula, March 15th:

[Bob Jersey]

Since still not all of us are joining Par+, Variety watched it... one guess as to what he said... and his sister/spokeser adds that News was less than forthright about moving the piece to the streamer...

https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/woody-allen-dylan-farrow-cbs-interview-1234939719/

Moi, March 27th: