I naïvely thought the accusation would be dismissed out of hand because of course, I hadn’t molested Dylan and any rational person would see the ploy for what it was. Common sense would prevail. After all, I was a 56-year-old man who had never before (or after) been accused of child molestation. I had been going out with Mia for 12 years and never in that time did she ever suggest to me anything resembling misconduct. Now, suddenly, when I had driven up to her house in Connecticut one afternoon to visit the kids for a few hours, when I would be on my raging adversary’s home turf, with half a dozen people present, when I was in the blissful early stages of a happy new relationship with the woman I’d go on to marry — that I would pick this moment in time to embark on a career as a child molester should seem to the most skeptical mind highly unlikely. The sheer illogic of such a crazy scenario seemed to me dispositive.Is it fair to wander how many drafts did he go thru before striking the tone he wanted?
Is the essence of writing indistinguishable from whether we categorize it as fact or fiction?
And finally, why do think Woody chose "champing" instead of "chomping", do we read anything into that?
"The district attorney was champing at the bit to prosecute a celebrity case...
103 comments:
"Champing" is what educated people say.
"Different from" over "different than."
Don't say "you can always change your mind."
Go with "one can always changes one's mind."
There's no charge for that lesson, by the way, in case one was wondering.
Chomping at a bit is like unto William Shatner chewing the scenery, only when doing comedy.
The food here is fit for a king.
Is it fair to wander how many drafts did he go thru before striking the tone he wanted?
Sure it's fair. But Althouse, for example, does her best to leverage that sort of thing into some kind of weird grand unification theory about how we're all oppressed by the man and that's why you should use her Amazon portal.
It's extreme cynicism masquerading as well-intentioned sophistication.
That's what mary meant, years ago, when on some thread or another she commented, "You're all being played."
... when I was in the blissful early stages of a happy new relationship with the woman I’d go on to marry...
I laughed out loud over that one. That's a pretty bland statement of the rather outrageous facts.
Most women I know would have cut their man's dick off over Allen's "new relationship."
I suspect lawyers helped Allen to frame this statement.
Althouse refuses to acknowledge why the Allen thing is so disturbing.
Allen used to be a feminist hero. He was the way we men were spozed to be. In college, back in the 60s and 70s, men took their girlfriends to see the latest Allen movie to prove that they were properly sensitive, feminist New Men.
Allen was what we were supposed to be... the self-denying, shambling nebbish. This was supposed to deliver us from our role as oppressors.
The New Man failed spectacularly, as he always does. Now comes the rationalization.
I thought he stated/wrote his case very persuasively.
The theory of how Mia picked the scene of the alleged molestation was good stuff.
@Lem
A pox on both houses.
Actors have always had the lowest morals of any group out there.
Ask Shakespeare.
If it is all made up, why does he recall so many details of such an uneventful day from 16 years ago?
21 years ago... for accuracy sake ;)
I think the nature of ... the seriousness of the charge would compell one to 'recollect'... seered to use JF Kerrys word.
Woody sounds like he's spinning.
What stands out as particularly spinningfull?
Other than a gut feeling.
@ Lem. The details seem a bit dramatic. A lot of details for an ordinary day.
I think he's a creative genius and a child molester. But - I have no proof. None of us will ever know the truth. It's word against word with no evidence at this late stage. I don't know these people, none of us do.
We don't know which one is nuts and perhaps they all are. I can only use my gut. I don't think Dylan would make it up, and I do think that Woody is a creepy guy.
Woody is a master story teller and writer. He knows how to win people over and make us swoon.
That's why his movies are so good.
Do mothers have the ability to brainwash their daughters into telling such lies? That's where I get caught up. I cannot get beyond that. I cannot imagine allowing someone to control me to lie about something that important.
(1) If I ever get around to doing a dinner theater version of Streetcar, The Musical, I'm going to try to cast Shouting Thomas as Stanley and Althouse as Blanche.
(2) By the way, big guy, I'm not so sure rock and roll musicians should spend a whole lot of time comparing and contrasting reputations for piety by profession.
@Eric
Actors are the only group I know of that has lower moral standards than musicians.
Which is saying a lot.
There's no charge for that lesson, by the way, in case one was wondering.
One wasn't, but thank you.
And, I'd make a hell of a Stanley.
Stella! Stella!
Is it fair to wander how many drafts did he go thru before striking the tone he wanted?
Em, it's a little funny that you would read so much into mistaking the word "champing" for "chomping" after mistaking "wander" for "wonder". But on a serious note, no matter how many drafts you wonder about, as a talented director, it's fair to believe he's just good at getting his point across. Doesn't mean he's innocent, but what he's saying certainly makes sense and I don't see anything wrong or even suspicious how effective his tone was in making it.
Althouse, for example, does her best to leverage that sort of thing into some kind of weird grand unification theory…
Lol. I'm liking the physics analogy. Althouse is the Grand Arch-Mistress of Innuendo, whatever the cause or topic. Her obsession with fish-eye lenses seems to fit into that impulse, too - at least when done visually.
I also agree that "different from" makes more sense than "different than".
The British drive me nuts by saying "different to", which seems to completely defeat the purpose of the expression.
From Vanity Fair, punching back at Allen.
This gives much more of a "Where there's smoke there's fire" vibe.
Allen does raise a few good points, but does he bother to explain why his story changed at the time?
Also, the idea of "Why then? isn't really much of a defense. It might have been THEN because he knew he wasn't going to get an opportunity again with that particular child. And we don't know that he hasn't molested children before or after, we just know that he hasn't been accused. People can be bought off, and sadly, children can be bought, if one believes all the news accounts.
(Been a big push down here lately to publicize human trafficking, so we've been hearing a lot about it in Central Florida lately. Or perhaps I should say, "One hears a lot about it in Central Florida lately", but fuck it, I'm low rent.)
Also, the "never before or since" argument doesn't really prove much. Polanski has admitted to raping a 13 year-old girl. Had he been accused of it before? Or since? Perhaps he has and I missed it, but he definitely did it that one time.
Finally, one of the Coreys came out an made quite the stink in the last couple of years talking about the trade in sex with children in Hollywood. It's possible he was making it all up, but really, would anyone be surprised if he wasn't? It isn't like child molesting hasn't turned up in Hollywood lore in the past. (See "The Godfather" for an example of Hollywood tattling on itself.)
Do mothers have the ability to brainwash their daughters into telling such lies? That's where I get caught up. I cannot get beyond that. I cannot imagine allowing someone to control me to lie about something that important.
Oh come on. Get real. You must have never seen a custody proceeding. Everything else you said up to that point made sense. This strange supposition however does not.
Actors have always had the lowest morals of any group out there.
Ask Shakespeare.
Lol. Who, just like Allen, was a playwright. But it's true, at least he doesn't seem as batty as Farrow. (No, that doesn't mean he didn't do it).
OTOH, good genetic move on her part to make the baby with Sinatra instead of with Allen.
Does anyone remember the movie "Powder"? The director of that movie (produced by Disney) was one Victor Salva, convicted child molester. "Powder" was about teenage boys, IIRC, though Disney stated at the time that no one underage was on set.
The point is, it's not exactly like Hollywood, even a "family friendly" studio like Disney, shies away from child molesters. They seem pretty accommodating, one could say.
He's about at Teddy Kennedy level, reputation-wise.
If the chi-chi crowd in this country didn't see him the way the Frawgs see Jerry Lewis, he'd be off the radar (although that only comes from what Shout said about actors).
I'm with Althouse on this one. Mia Farrow is a vindictive nut who has raised her kids to hate her ex boyfriend. This story seems more likely than not manufactured. also "Champing at the bit" is an apt description for a prosecutor contemplating a celebrity pervert case. Prosecutors love pervert cases. Love them. They're easy and it makes them look like heroes.
I remember Powder. I thought it was a pretty good movie. I didn't realize they knew of the director's crimes at the time the movie was made.
Concerns about casting aside though, I generally don't like the idea of art being about moral messages. If morality is depicted, it's ideal to make it about moral exploration. That necessarily includes a view into the impulses to evil.
That being said, Orson Scott Card recently became a conservative hero/icon for his anti-gay union stance. I saw his movie last week and thought it was incredible (up until the end. That was a thematic twist way to deep and involving to fit in with the rest of the flick and detracted from the film's continuity mightily).
IMO- Brainwashing isn't so easy. You have to be locked up and tortured for a long time to make it stick. I think brainwashing is a cop-out and an over-used Hollywood plot line itself.
It's right up there with the use of amnesia in soap operas. In reality, amnesia is rare. That ceiling fan has to hit you in exactly the precise spot on the noggin.
What am I talking about? I think I'm brainwashed. Damn you, mommy.
It's true that this kid would have to be pretty damn nuts to believe something like that all these years if it wasn't true, but most kids can be and are manipulated psychologically (especially by the party of a certain gender) in custody battles. Happens all the time for a reason. Because it can be done.
True amnesia is rare but recreation and modification of all current memories is a simple psychological fact. Memory is one of the faultiest devices available to the human mind.
Hollywood is really a short-hand for the American film and television industries.
This is a reasonable summary of the case against Allen.
Lem, did I miss it or did you not cover the latest in Obama's "Smart" diplomacy?
Merkel fumes at US diplomat's curse of EU
Kiev (AFP) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed outrage on Friday over a leaked conversation in which a top US diplomat used the f-word to disparage the European Union's handling of the crisis in Ukraine.
The candid remark by the US State Department's most senior European official threatened to drive a dangerous wedge between the allies in the midst of one their most high-stakes diplomatic tussles with Moscow since the Cold War
Whoops!
Interesting, ARM.
Turns out Victoria Nuland is part of the permanent ruling class. She'll probably have a job in the State Department in the next Administration no matter who wins.
I do not know if Woody Allen did this to his daughter or not. I do know he acted poorly when married to Mia Farrow with having a sexual relationship with his step daughter (which was not illegal but still creepy).
He said the "heart wants what it wants..." sounds like more his dick wanted what it wanted. They did stay married though all these years, so the Korean BBQ must be pretty good at home.
Lol. I like Korean BBQ myself. But it's unfortunately more likely that all she makes is kim-chee.
The idea of marrying an ex-wife's (barely adult) step-daughter was so bizarre and wrong that it almost serves to help inoculate him against grosser speculation. If he came right out and did that without any qualms, then of course that's the limiting extent of his weirdness! Duh.
Since we're changing the subject... NBC is so pathetic.
Meh. The subsequent flowery and vague run-on sentences were if anything more damning. How is "pivotal experiment" a positive description?
The outrage du jour should be the simple fact that today's Russia thought Sochi's pisspoor accommodations to be fittingly Olympian, not that their proud history includes other proud disasters.
Woody Allen along with Bob Dylan and Peyton Manning are charter Members of the Overrated Douchebags Hall of Fame.
I think it is fair to hold the artist politics against his art. If you are Jewish and won't listen to Wagner I get it. If you are a Vet and won't go to a Jane Fonda movie I can see that. If you are a girlie man wearing footy pajamas drinking cocoa I think it is fine if you don't watch Sarah Palin's reality show. If you are a sentient human being with any sort of moral code I could understand you boycotting Woody Allen movies.
Lem, did I miss it or did you not cover the latest in Obama's "Smart" diplomacy?
I haven't 'covered' anything "smart" tied to Obama.
I do know he acted poorly when married to Mia Farrow with having a sexual relationship with his step daughter...
It was a common law marriage... it wasn't a real real marriage.
It was like illegals in the US today... they were in the shadows ;)
Vote with you feet. Don't go to his movie. When his name comes up say "he sucks" or "he smells children's vagina's" and change the subject.
Hey it is only six days to pitchers and catchers.
If you are a sentient human being with any sort of moral code I could understand you boycotting Woody Allen movies.
What if he puts Penelope Cruz in his movie?
Who is that girl?
Even then Ritmo. You have make sacrifices. I mean I really love "Barbarella" but I can't watch it anymore.
Having principles sucks.
I think you meant me - Lem - Trooper?
I think it is fair to hold the artist politics against his art.
It might be fair but I think people come off poorer for it.
If you are Jewish and won't listen to Wagner I get it.
Sure, but this is a hilarious way to make the opposite point.
If you are a sentient human being with any sort of moral code I could understand you boycotting Woody Allen movies.
I think it makes more sense to boycott artists violating moral codes than those who just have weird politics.
Having principles sucks.
Hey man. I get it. Duck Dynasty was my favorite show and now I just can't bring myself to watching it any longer. Our minds do weird tricks on us like that. It's like going to your favorite restaurant for years and then one day, finding a hair in the soup. Ruins it for the future. Your mind just can't get over it.
Hey it is only six days to pitchers and catchers.
Gay pride parades already? Won't they experience shrinkage?
Won't they experience shrinkage?
Where I live it seems like there's a pride parade every month, although usually more of them when it's warmer. We're not the Castro district and don't have any one "rocking out with his cock out" but for some reason sparse use of leather (and not much else) can rule the day. For the life of me I can't figure out how a metal ring on the solar plexus with four black leather straps going over the shoulders and sides became attractive attire, let alone what it's supposed to symbolize, but I guess that's what goes and when in Rome…
The other funny thing is the giant air pen to jump around in and mechanical bull rides. They really do seem to do their best to make it like a carnival here.
Perfect example Ritmo. I totally understand why you wouldn't want to watch Duck Dynasty anymore.
It happens with actors and authors too!
Lem the point about pitchers and catchers was directed to you.
I know you are really afraid of the Yankees this year so you don't want to put up any baseball post.
I get it fraidy cat.
Is it fair to wander how many drafts did he go thru before striking the tone he wanted?
Well, however many he went through, he settled on one that exactly matches my own thoughts on the subject. :)
If Hollywood were to start boycotting all the child molesters, Hollywood would probably come to a screeching halt.
Rape but not rape rape, secret pedophilia run amuck, hypocritical gun violence in movies, it's for the money, Harvey Weinstien, NBC as apparatchik central, Bill Clinton's sexual predatory status -as- hero. Is it any wonder there's a democrat party Hollywood elitist money connection?
Never mind that Sean Penn should really care about what is happening in Venezuela.
But he doesn't, because he's the grand poobah of leftwing hypocrites.
Pop quiz - Mr. Penn.
Bloggers (ahem) don't want to believe the worst about Woody Allen because they don't want to face it or feel guilty for enjoying his films.
Bloggers (ahem) don't want to believe the worst about Woody Allen because they don't want to face it or feel guilty for enjoying his films.
Is "we genuinely see no reason to believe he's guilty" really too complex a thought for you to absorb?
I own "Chinatown" on DVD. My mp3 collection has plenty of songs produced by Phil Spector or recorded by Michael Jackson. I watch movies and read books by people whose politics make my eyes bleed.
But with Woody Allen, who has made all of two movies I felt like seeing in the last 33 years, I'm supposed to be blinded by celebrity? Heh.
You can believe whatever you'd like, Reve.
I own the box set of Woody's films. Hannah and her sisters, Annie Hall, Manhattan, etc. And? I still think he's a liar and a child molester. ..And a weirdo who shacked up with his ex's adopted daughter which is beyond messed up.
I'll re-up ARM's link.
But I do not enjoy his films. Never did. Not a single one. No matter how excellent.
Oh, there are some good lines. A few good vignettes here and there. I acknowledge he is very good.
And I never had the feeling men took women to his movies to show we are sensitive.
I saw a string of his movies at a drive in one time, double date, triple dated sort of thing, a bunch of kids. We were all embarrassed.
Watching a movie by him, nebbish understates his schtick, the neurosis of an ugly undersized balding troll working work out his sexual frustrations out loud. His concerns were never anything close to my concerns or anybody else I know. I do not think.
He never worked for me. Not once. He is for somebody else.
Is it possible, after all that, to imagine him perving on a young person of either sex that comes near in a private moment? Yes. Resounding and fast yes.
I read a very good exoneration of his thing with the Korean girl that attacked each presumption one-by-one, and aren't you thick for thinking it, so that the reader must conclude sterling innocence. You must meet someone somehow after all, and lovable people love those around them. But the solid defense still left me flat.
As a pancake.
The flat kind not the puffy kind. I often wonder, you know, given my adorableness as a child, how did I manage to avoid being nonced up by a perv and also given my own early intense pervy interests, and I honestly do not know. Looking at old photos, parted hair, clean clothes, buttoned collar, leather shoes, I must have rang ))) don't touch this kid ((( that's the only thing I can think of. I'm glad I escaped what I hear others speak of.
I guess the remoteness of the nature of the accusation, child molestation, is so alien that I cant... or maybe I wont allow myself to, maybe accept is the wrong word.
I don't understand how a person could molest a child.
It's as if by accepting it, I'm subconsciously promoting the notion that anybody could be child molester.
Well, I hadn't thought of the priests until this moment. So I take back some of what I thought was an insight behind what I said, or I thought I said.
If you remove the priests from the equation, the case, in the court of public opinion, the case for molestation might be harder to make I believe. a hunch I have.
You know Chip, now that you mention it, I often thought the same towards Woody Allen. But the adulation of people sort of convinced me that my reservations as to his 'genius' was uniformed.
I'm not well read, by that I mean I haven't read much.
Watching a movie by him, nebbish understates his schtick, the neurosis of an ugly undersized balding troll working work out his sexual frustrations out loud. His concerns were never anything close to my concerns or anybody else I know. I do not think.
That's why I largely haven't bothered watching any of his movies since "Stardust Memories". It may be unfair, but it seems like he has spent most of his time riffing on the same material he covered in "Annie Hall" and "Manhattan".
His films of the 1960s and 70s, before he switched from pure comedy to comedy-drama, are a lot more varied. Kind of like how Spielberg was better when he was making fun action-adventure movies instead of Important Films.
...how did I manage to avoid being nonced up by a perv and also given my own early intense pervy interests…
Lol. Something, ironically, that Woody might have thought to himself.
Seriously, we need to think of a euphemism for "Woody Allen". What an atrocious name. And, by now, atrocious associations.
I recall an incident, NOT of a sexual nature, from when I was a child where someone was looking for a watch and I said I saw somebody take it.
The person who owned the watch, unbeknownst to me, 6 or 7 at the time, had good reasons to be disaffected by the person I thought I saw take the watch. I only learned later on.
The person I told, I saw the watch taken, was very nice to me, so I suppose I was glad, I was of some help.
She was my stepmother. She was hardly ever glad about something I did or said in those days.
Lem that is very Freudian.
I think your stepmother took your virginity. It is a recovered memory. Don't bury it man. It messed you up dude. That's why you are a Red Sox fan. You are a victim.
I remember that watch story! It was told by Christopher Walken in Pulp Fiction!
No, Trooper, if she had I would have recalled it. We don't have a history of repressed memories in our families.
We have lived ordinary, uneventful lives.
All of Lem's stories are recovered memories from movies he saw while he was drunk.
Last Easter he claimed that his real mother put him in a basket and sailed him in a river in the Dominican.
Then there was the one where his father had to shoot his old dog because it had rabies.
LOL.
When they moved to New York his brother started a gang and dated this hot chick named Anita. But he got stabbed. I think it was because he was doing all this gay dancing shit.
Apropos of nothing but that Pulp Fiction link, I shortly thereafter found this hilarious clip of Walken cooking with Richard Belzer in his CT home accompanied by two skinny black-clad models a la Robert Palmer.
Lem's Lament
Funny or Die then brought me to this Dickensian glimpse into the future of Trooper York.
I just realized that sounded like an attack on you w/ "bloggers". I was loosely referring to top.
Not you dear Lem!
Chip - you are forever refreshing.
I am a horse person and champing is more accurate than "chomping.'
Just soes ya' know.
With regard to bits and horses, that is.
Lawyers I don't know so much about.
The only good ones I know are Reynolds and Volokh and their friends.
April Apple said...
...I have no proof. None of us will ever know the truth. It's word against word with NO EVIDENCE [emphasis added] at this stage. I don't know these people, none of us do. We don't know which one is nuts and perhaps they all are.
That about sums it up.
April Apple has a hunch Allen molested the child. My hunch is that he didn't. But that's all they are, hunches. Because there's no evidence. It's all he said she said.
I happen to think he's getting awful advice, since I doubt he wrote the piece in the Times without consulting first with advisors. My advice would have been to keep your trap shut. Do you think pleading your case will rehabilitate whatever reputation you had left before the latest public accusations? Best to go to ground and let the furor die down as time passes.
She was my stepmother. She was hardly ever glad about something I did or said in those days.
Hey Lem, did your stepmother happen to have a wen on the tip of her nose?
Oh? Well EXCUSE ME for asking. Touchy touchy.
The sheer illogic of such a crazy scenario seemed to me dispositive.
To argue a possible incident child molestation to be illogical would be to claim all child molestation never occurred. Child molestation is illogical per se. The only question is how illogical might Woody Allen act. While he seems content, Allen's relationship with Soon-Yi Previn was illogical. How much illogic did he commit other than that?
Excellent thread.
Very little to add, other than the fact that I hate Farrow for making me see Allen in a sympathetic light.
They all are lunatics, but I'll take innocent until proven guilty. I'm too young to know Woody Allen as anything more than a punch line to quasi-incest jokes, so have no opinion on the merits of any of his films, which I have not and most likely will not see.
Ricpic said "We don't know which one is nuts and perhaps they all are."
I'm going with ALL.
A couple of points:
1. Woody Allen has kept his trap shut for years until this latest and unusually virulent outbreak.
2. Perverts usually have a certain age they go for. Dylan was seven years old at the time of the alleged perversion. Soon Yi was in her mid-late teens when he moved in on her. Significant age difference tending to indicate that the Dylan thing didn't happen.
3. Recovered memory syndrome is exactly the kind of pseudoscientific bullshit that a wackadoo like Mia Farrow would go for. Recovered/repressed memory syndrome is responsible for numerous wrongful convictions in the 80s-90s, including most famously the McMartin case in California and Amirault case in Massachusetts.
3. No one (except Allen and maybe Dylan) actually knows or will ever know what really happened if anything. There's not enough evidence to bring a case. So why does Mia Farrow (through her children) keep bringing this up? Who profits from this? It sure as hell isn't Dylan! Dwelling is the worst thing for a survivor of any sort of psycho-sexual (or any) trauma. Who's thinking of the child here?
I'm not bringing up these points because I want to feel better about watching Woody Allen movies or because of some need to support a girly man. I haven't seen a Woody Allen movie that I liked since Crimes and Misdemeanors (which, while compelling, also made me nauseous). I'm not a big fan of his movies nor of girly men. But I am also not a fan of witch hunts and that is what this is looking like to me. Whisper campaign, using the children to get out the message, exploiting the ancient ickiness of his [now 20 year] marriage to his former girlfriend's adopted daughter and also the general social abhorrence of child sex abuse. I suspect there's some piling on from certain quarters due to his [ridiculous] lefty politics or other personal issues having nothing to do with guilt or innocence in this specific case.
I really hope it stops soon.
Do mothers have the ability to brainwash their daughters into telling such lies? That's where I get caught up. I cannot get beyond that. I cannot imagine allowing someone to control me to lie about something that important.
Maybe actual brainwashing wasn’t necessary.
Just imagine what that household must have been like in those first months after Mia found out about Woody and Soon-Yi. Mia on a tear day after day about what a monster he was. Then add to that that it was a household in which it was darn hard to be seen among all the other kids even in good times. And then add that you're not Mom's favorite, that would be Satchel. Dylan was Woody's favorite, and he showered attention on her. Now all that attention is gone. Very painful and confusing for a little kid, which I would think could work out in any number of different ways.
Do mothers have the ability to brainwash their daughters into telling such lies? That's where I get caught up. I cannot get beyond that. I cannot imagine allowing someone to control me to lie about something that important.
Absolutely. As do social workers, psychologists and others in the "helping" professions. A significant number of "recovered" memories are actually false memories.
Fear not it should end soon. It will only be a few years until Allen is rotting in Hell.
Although they do say only the good die young.
Choosing between Mia and Woody is like choosing between Hitler and Stalin.
You want them both to lose. And in this case, it happened.
Sinatra really dodged a bullet. Smartest thing he ever did was divorce Mia's ass.
The only winner is Soon-yi. She got away from Mia, and will get her hands on Woody's millions.
Choosing between Mia and Woody is like choosing between Hitler and Stalin.
You want them both to lose. And in this case, it happened.
Memory is weird. For most things that happened when we were 7 I think that we remember remembering. And then we remember that memory. It's a bit like a self-loop of playing "telephone." That's why we remember things better that we've gotten together with other people to reminisce over. If Dylan was coached to confess to Allen's misdoing when she was 7, she could remember the memory of what she said happened.
I'm not saying that's the case! I'm just saying that this is how memory works a lot of the time.
As to the setting of that particular event... it does seem like a person would need a pretty darned uncontrollable compulsion to do it just then. Not, again, that abusers don't manage it in crowded households, but if Allen really did have that little control, not having others come forward (if not before, then now) seems even more unlikely.
Woody Allen in People magazine 1976
"I'm open-minded about sex. I'm not above reproach; if anything, I'm below reproach. I mean, if I was caught in a love nest with 15 12-year-old girls tomorrow, people would think, yeah, I always knew that about him. Nothing I could come up with would surprise anyone. I admit to it all.”
Woody Allen, Side Effects 1980
"I am in love with two women, a not terribly uncommon problem. That they happen to be mother and child? All the more challenging!"
The way it works out, Soon Yi is now more his caretaker than his lover. The marriage has lasted because both would be too embarrassed to get a divorce, and the libido of a man in his late seventies is none too anarchic........I think this affair has prompted more intelligent discussion than any of his films. Allen's movies are ok, and some are a cut above ok. But he simply doesn't have the talent and reach to write about this tragedy. Eugene O'Neill was able to immortalize his crazy mother and hack actor father. Maybe someday Ronan will write a novel or play that enlightens us about all the dark cross currents in this saga.
Do mothers have the ability to brainwash their daughters into telling such lies?
We're used to thinking of memory like a book or a video recorder, but that's not it at all.
When we think we are "remembering" something, what we are actually doing is reconstructing the scene in our mind. That's why new information or attitudes can color our memories -- something that wouldn't be a risk if we really had a fixed memory of what happened.
Young children really have no idea what's going on most of the time. It gets better as they age, but kids in primary school really have little ability to tell what's true or not -- how do you think so many manage to keep believing in Santa Claus for so long?
If authority figures encourage them to believe something they will usually start believing it. two Christmases ago I told a kid I'd heard the reindeer on the roof of his house and asked if he'd heard them too. He said that he had and repeated the story to a few other people, adding details. I guarantee you that in short order he clearly *remembered* that he'd heard hooves on the roof.
He won't remember it as an adult, because he'll get older, realize that reindeer don't really fly, and so on. But take something that cannot be disproven (like "your dad molested you"), keep telling him or her year after year that it happened? Fuck yes he'll "remember" it happening. Any of us would.
The way it works out, Soon Yi is now more his caretaker than his lover.
From the what we see of her in the documentary "Wild Man Blues" that was more or less my impression. She seemed like the boss of that relationship. It was a documentary by a friendly director, so who knows, but either she's quite an actor or she's a smart person who doesn't take a lot of crap.
They seemed like a good, if strange, couple. Who knows?
Revenant said: When we think we are "remembering" something, what we are actually doing is reconstructing the scene in our mind.
I like that. Everybody I've ever known, including myself, is into the hobby of memory reconstruction and tries to piece it together so that others don't notice and call us liars. If we lived blameless lives, which is usually out of our reach, maybe it wouldn't be necessary.
The record shows that some men have molested their stepchildren and that some women have coached their stepchildren to claim they were molested. I think Woody Allen was capable of such an act and that Mia Farrow was also capable of coaching Dylan.....On the basis of reasonable doubt, I wouldn't convict Allen, but, also on the basis of reasonable doubt, I wouldn't leave him alone with Dylan.......We can say with certainty that Allen acted dishonorably with Soon Yi and that the subsequent cascade of events was his own doing.
Anybody remember the whole "Repressed memory" scam?
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