Mia Farrow's son -- Ronan Seamus Farrow -- really creeps me out!

in Interiors it's hard to distinguish the psychobabble from the Constance Garnett-translated English they talk.

I still don't understand how Interiors supposedly cures Didion's tin ear for comedy

I"m saying that everything she says about Interiors – its awful spoken English, wooden performances, and modish conceptions for characters – is accurate.

Interiors is a pretty terrible film. Much prefer Stardust Memories, in terms of drama.

Alfred i hate to tell ya Arthur Miller is p hilarious too if you have naturalistic expectations

continued conflation of Woody film seminar w/ this shitstorm, wtf

stardust memories is a weird one cuz it has some of the most tonally confusing WA stuff: someone already discussed upthread the flirty talk abt charlotte rampling's sexual relationship w her father, but weirder and more uncomfortable to me is the scene where the fat woman describes her own rape and i've never ever been positive we're not supposed to laugh cuz she's fat. (she says "i didn't even resist" and the WA character says "well, knowing you"!) ironically this spectre of serious cruelty makes the scene much more "effectively" "disturbing" than the less ambiguous one in crimes&misdemeanors when cliff's sister describes her own sexual violation, but the scene embarrassed me the last time i watched the movie with people who hadn't seen it.

There's no reason why that awful scene with Cliff's sister is in C&M. It stops the movie cold and has no payoff unless we're meant to think "I'm so lonely I went out with a serial defecator" is akin to "I'm so lonely I'm obsessed with Alan Alda hitting on Mia Farrow"

i always wince when it starts. i think it's supposed to be something like, people are crazy disgusting rapists and you can't even tell, they seem nice. um.

xp yeah, both scenes are really awkward, and hard to sit through now. always thought, though, that the 'Well, knowing you' line underlined this sense that, ironically, before his fawning fans, nobody's actually listening to anything he's saying, they're just basking in the glory his company. It's a massively self-hating, misanthropic mess of a film, but still compelling and, the last time I saw it, sort of moving.

cliff seems legit upset at his sister's defilement, but yeah, the point of the scene seems to be "shit be crazy, what to do? \0/"

ps don't want to come off as a Woody apologist on this thread, the Dylan letter is really upsetting and pretty hard to argue with, and i have no interest in arguing with it, and no massive desire to see another Woody movie, but he has been a favourite movie maker of mine for the longest time, and while his movies are often wildly problematic, i think there's some nuances that have been missed in places here.

Yeah that scene was always a little o_O for me too, mostly just his flip attitude toward it and the character's response of sort of blaming her for it when she's had this terrible experience. But I also thought there was a thematic purpose there sort of paralleling the mobbed-up brother -- you know, there's a very thin wall between what we think of as normal decent life and the dark nothingness lurking outside.

I think the point is rather that the dark nothingness is coming from inside the house.

i admit to liking "a strange man defecated on my sister." "why?" "i-- i don't know. is there any reason i could give you that would answer that satisfactorily?"

mostly for the flat disinterest w which she says "why"

I think the dark nothingness plopped on the sister's body.

Going hard with the bitter Mia/Dylan-was-coached angle:

http://news-briefs.ew.com/2014/02/04/woody-allen-abuse-dylan-farrow-attorney/

I always though she said "why" because she's thinking, "Great. Yet another man defecated on this insect's sister."

you guys are fucking weird

I'm not ruling out the "implanted memory" theory, I just want someone to produce one single example of a traumatic memory being fabricated, "implanted," and remaining to adulthood.

i mean about the poop

Fur Hurting: www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5WOHxGw2VU

"shit be crazy, what to do? \0/"

New board description pls

good piece

http://thenewinquiry.com/blogs/zunguzungu/woody-allens-good-name/

That's a good antidote to the number of old people on my FB wall posting the Daily Beast article. It's surprising how prevalent the idea of a false charge is.

Fair enough, NV, I'm still unhappy about what happened this summer on the Zimmerman thread (generally, not you) so I reacted pugnaciously.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/178203/choosing-comfort-over-truth-what-it-means-defend-woody-allen

Oops, wrong thread. Mods should feel free to remove (HA!)

On this thread and on this topic, Prof. Gruber is my go-to feminist for pointing out the problems with the arguments in the New Inquiry and Nation editorials (intersectionality plays a strong role here).

Who is Prof. Gruber, I hope you're not talking about the tech blogger

lol

Yeah this idea of implanted memory is bonkers and even less supportable than the "false memory syndrome" cottage industry that sprung up in the 90s to protect the "good names" of parent's accused to misdeeds by their kids (mostly). You either believe she is lying or she's not lying, but this pretense that it's just her mind has been confused by Mia for all these years is completely insulting.

Aya Gruber, the law professor I mentioned earlier.

prefer film blogger to pseudointellectual masturbation New Inquiry guy

http://thefilmexperience.net/blog/2014/2/3/a-personal-note-on-allenfarrow-and-a-plea-for-sanity.html

It's surprising how prevalent the idea of a false charge is.

It is very hard to get through childhood without having suffered from numerous false charges and occasional unjust punishments. This childhood experience is, of course, on a wholly different level than what happens in adulthood, but it does create a strong experiential base for this idea.

Is the link you just posted as awful as the last ten links you've posted in this thread

presumably aya gruber though unless she's written something specifically about this case (in which case i would really like to read it) i not really seeing the specific relevance - nobody is suggesting allen be lynched or even jailed really and indeed it's allen's defenders that are leaning on our fucked up justice system as some sort of proof of innocence (not even the r kelly defenders on ilx resorted to 'well he wasn't convicted'), and i don't think you can point to this as systematic of some wave of antisemitism in america or even of anti-rich sentiment (though don't give the wsj editorial page any ideas), woody allen isn't leo frank. i'm not very familiar w/ gruber at all though (clearly lol) so feel free to clarify.

xp

aimless otm, women make up rape accusations all the time but rape itself is in fact incredibly uncommon. fucking asshole.

from that film blogger morbz prefers to "pseudointellectual masturbation"

As long time readers undoubtedly now, Woody Allen and Mia Farrow as artists and as a unit were largely responsible for making me the cinephile that I am today...Allen and Farrow were a superhero duo to wee Nathaniel and their movies, events. To this day, I'd rather think of them that way.

...

As for me, I will always opt for separating the art from the artist.

yeah, i was gonna say, i'm pulling up the abstracts to gruber's academic work and it all looks pretty interesting, but has she written anything about WA specifically?

aimless otm, women make up rape accusations all the time but rape itself is in fact incredibly uncommon. fucking asshole.

(jaw drops) take a deep breath, balls, and step away from the keyboard.

A couple of Nathaniel's comments:

Morgan -- i thank you for your longtime support of the site and for your feelings here. I'm sorry this article disappointed you but in no way shape or form am i blaming Dylan except for the part where she tried to shame people who had nothing to do with her trauma -- like celebrities who don't know her and moviegoers who don't know her who enjoy her father's movies (obviously myself among them). I am not responsible for her pain. Neither is Diane Keaton. Neither is Alec Baldwin. And so on. Is she not in therapy? What good could possibly come of blaming anyone outside of her own family for her miserable childhood?

I have known two people who were raped and it is awful terrible thing that fucks with people's self worth and mental health but even with this tangential experience I can't claim to be an expert on the topic at all. But surely the reason abuse victims are encouraged to make public statements is so that they can find peace and closure. But can peace and closure come from spreading pain? I highly doubt it. Again I don't know the current professional opinion on this but if therapy encourages the spreading of blame to people who aren't involved in your pain I can't truck with modern therapy.

I mean good christ Cate Blanchett was only 21-23 years old and living in Australia when all this was happening. She hadn't even made a movie yet!

film blogger also fretting that twitter thinks its a jury while yelling "innocent until proven guilty" as if it is a jury

there's a comment by longtime poster Morgan worth reading in full.

what the fuck morbs. the bady piece goes stepwise thru some very plain moral logic. the first line from 'nathaniel r.' is "I'm about to pull a Hannah Horvath". which one is pseudointellectual masturbation.

thanks for the textbook sample of someone mistaking separating the alleged crime from the artist for separating the art from the artist, morbz

I have to separate the art from the artist in the case of both Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, neither of whom have (to me) ever come off well in regards to the subject of Dylan Farrow,

it's very striking how often this "both parents are equally to blame" thing is popping up in defenses of allen. the idea seems to be that while we "can't know" what really happened to dylan, we somehow can know that mia farrow is "crazy," "manipulative," "selfish," and a bunch of other things that woody allen and his defenders would really like everyone to believe.

I read Nathaniel's site often, especially 'round this time of year, have linked to it in the film threads. But there's always been hero worship in his posts; he believes in movies so much he acts personally disappointed when favorite actresses and directors let him down. Never mind the rest of his post: the first three grafs are reckless sycophancy. Woody Allen movies Opened Cinematic Doors for me too or whatever but I've been slavish enough to call him my Bruce Wayne.

I'm curious what people think should happen now, as a result of Farrow's letter. Like, what's the desired outcome.