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

This thing is really a train wreck.

Trying to decide at the end of the day whether or not I'm going to let this inhibit my enjoyment of or prevent my watching Woody Allen films. Part of me feels like it should, but another part is like "fuck this is some crazy bullshit and I've paid for Emperor/James Brown/Dissection records and those people were actually convicted of pretty gross crimes."

having now seen fading gigolo trailer no

Jesus, when the thread sticks to films it's just as maddening

If I said something stupid, wouldn't be the first time and won't be the last.

the thing about the op-ed is it reads almost exactly, point for point, like a draft of the weide piece

http://www.vanityfair.com/dam/2014/02/woody-allen-1992-custody-suit.pdf

Re the discussion upthread on Bergman influence/ imitation, yeah it's pretty serious and pervasive.

Some examples not yet mentioned: there's plenty of "Scenes from a Marriage" in "Husbands and Wives" (And SFAM starts off with the couple being interviewed by a reporter, which no doubt inspired one of the interesting formal aspects to H&W, the character interviews.) And whole scenes/ chunks of dialogue in his movies are lifted from Bergman; among the most striking in "Another Woman" (homage to, but in some spots exactly mirroring, "Wild Strawberries").

Any other filmmakers, considered "great" by many, who are so blatant/ flagrant (and so frequent) in their "homage" to a specific filmmaker or two (Bergman & Fellini)-- modelling entire movies after their predecessor's movies? It's different from homage to/ playing with a genre/ genres (e.g. French New Wave riffing on American genre films). OK, two come to mind: Fassbinder-Sirk and De Palma-Hitchcock.

Sorry for going off on this tangent in this thread (Morbius is probably right, should split off film discussion from the topic here.)

― drash, Saturday, February 8, 2014 6:56 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Rosenbaum touches on this in Notes Toward the Devaluation of Woody Allen:

Most often these borrowings, when they’re noticed, are rationalized in the press as “homages”; yet arguably they reveal the same sort of aesthetic immaturity that a beginning writer shows by imitating, say, Hemingway or Faulkner. Imitation can be a sincere form of flattery, and there’s no doubting the sincerity of Allen’s Bergman and Fellini worship. But beyond a certain point there’s a question of whether this kind of emulation is being used as a tool for fresh discoveries or as an expedient substitute for such discoveries — a shield labeled “Art” that’s intended to intimidate nonbelievers.

Thanks for the Rosenbaum quote; I think I agree. Re my other examples, they're not really analogous-- Fassbinder's Sirkianism seems a very different thing; even De Palma's shameless Hitchcock imitation is different, somehow (though it's closer).

Taking "imitation" in the old-fashioned Renaissance sense of the word (imitatio)-- conceiving of all art, all creative art, as a practice of imitation-- the thing about Woody Allen's Bergmanism is that the chunks of Bergman in WA often seem so... undigested, somehow. Appropriated but not transmuted into something really his own, original. And yes, in that way, seem indicative of aesthetic immaturity. (And it's not like it works as postmodern, either... or does it.)

I don't think he's ever really seen himself as anything more than a poor imitator of Bergman tbh

On topic of the thread, find I believe Dylan more than WA. But as an erstwhile WA fan, still in psychological denegation about the implications of that. Ugh, shudder.

"twu is it yr opinion that the da planted allen's dna in the attic?"

No. It is my opinion that a DA saying the DNA was found there 1. doesn't make it so and 2. we are talking about 1992, a time when DNA evidence was way more problematic than it is today (and it's not unproblematic today). Would have answered this earlier but I just spent most of my evening at the police station, my partner and I having become crime victims. Yay!

lol no what i was referring to allen vehemently denying having ever been in the attic or even aware the attic existed, the da finding hairs that matched his dna, and then allen going 'o that attic'

Yeah, that's the DA's version of events. We don't have a transcript.

IIRC in Woody's own recent letter, he himself admits he'd gone into the attic-- just very rarely and reluctantly (claustrophobic that he is)-- when/ because one of the children wanted to show him something.

Dylan's most recent response to WA's letter: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/dylan-farrow-responds-woody-allen-678552

I'm reminded of the Danish film, The Celebration (hope this isn't too inappropriate, comparing real people's real life painful shit to a movie).

Ronan's Golden Globes tweet and Dylan's letters (during this Hollywood awards season) and some of the public reaction to them ~ Son 'disrupting/ spoiling' Dad's big 60th birthday party.

the custody suit pdf is pretty damning, nothing else I've seen has gone into quite that detail.

http://excrementalvirtue.com/2014/02/08/brainwashing-woody/

Q. Did you talk to your analyst about how this would affect a child?

A. It wasn’t so complex. It doesn’t have that quality to it that you think.

Q. What about how it would affect her siblings?

A. These people are a collection of kids, they are not blood sisters or anything.

wonder how the kids woody and soon-yi have adopted together would feel about this.

Ugh articles psychoanalyzing Woody and Soon Yi. Full circle to 92.

i just want to say that woody's op-ed in the NYT is the first thing I've read that nearly convinces me of his guilt

there are so many half-truths, incredible elisions, complete failure to recognize that anything he might have done (EVER) could have hurt anyone, a lack of feeling, obsessive vindictiveness toward mia farrow (which, even if he comes by it honestly, should not have been the main subject of any op-ed by a emotionally mature person)

maybe all this tells is something we already know: woody is a moral adolescent and a total narcissist

maybe he just "remembers things differently"

but while I'll never have the certainty that some other folks seem to have achieved, the letter convinced me he is fundamentally dishonest

Maureen Orth responds: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2014/02/woody-allen-sex-abuse-10-facts

did you see the joyce carol oates tweet

it's basically the worst thing in the world https://twitter.com/JoyceCarolOates/status/432162254406955008

Lol what a dope.

don't worry. i've responded to some of her tweets about nabokov.

one and only time i've seen joyce carol oates in person was at a screening of midnight in paris.

"woody is a moral adolescent and a total narcissist"

1) I think anyone who has seen a Woody Allen movie would probably not be surprised by this assessment.
2) I'm pretty sure most (or at least many) celebrities are both as well and I'm not sure it's relevant to the question of whether or not he's also a pedophile (except insofar as I guess it could explain why someone would go to a house filled with children and nannies and god knows who else and think that they could molest a seven year old and get away with it).

one and only time i've seen joyce carol oates in person was at a screening of midnight in paris.

― tɹi.ʃɪp (Treeship),

her first time at a movie since The Best Years of Our Lives

With JCO and Stephen King tweeting terrible shit because of all this, it's only a matter of time until Margaret Atwood fucks up as well.

lol

Glenn Kenny ‏@Glenn__Kenny Feb 8

@JoyceCarolOates Actually, they'll be coming after Nabokov and his work by spring I reckon

JCO, Stephen King, Woody Allen, Tom Perkins, et al=basically rich/famous people how have no idea how complete unhinged they sound to most people when they open their mouths.

first they came for the child molestors

Who the fuck reads Joyce Carol Oates anyway? I've been forced to read her a bunch of times in classes but I've never heard of anyone reading her voluntarily.

In the time it took you to type The New Yorker accepted a short story and she scribbled several Petrachan sonnets.

i've known some jco fans in my day xp

i think my ex-gf claimed to have read all of her novels but that might be impossible

jco in heavy damage-control/let-me-explain mode since tweeting that btw.

Andrea Pitzer ‏@andreapitzer Feb 8

.@JoyceCarolOates I'm not weighing in on Allen, but why is Lolita relevant here? No one ever accused Nabokov of abusing a child in real life

Ugh, the Nabokov analogy is despicable, repellent, and just plain moronic. All the stupidity she's projecting on others (e.g. the philistine's conflation of life and art), shines so brightly in that tweet.

Yeah, I'm sure Ronan and Dylan and those who believe them are just prudishly moralistically going after Woody Allen's ART. That's why they're upset: Woody Allen's movies.
Or is she saying that to create the character of Humbert and Humbert and to be Humbert Humbert is morally equivalent?

My god, can she really be saying that? Yeah, sure, go with that, Joyce.

Two things I have learned from this controversy:

1) A lot of people have no fucking clue about child molestation and child molestors and have some really ridiculous ideas about them and
2) A lot of people are completely incapable of following a statement to its logical conclusion and just blurt it out anyway

I kind of like how the tweet ends with "No contradiction?" like she might actually have an inkling that it's a stupid thing to say and is asking if it makes any sense

"woody is a moral adolescent and a total narcissist"

1) I think anyone who has seen a Woody Allen movie would probably not be surprised by this assessment.
2) I'm pretty sure most (or at least many) celebrities are both as well and I'm not sure it's relevant to the question of whether or not he's also a pedophile (except insofar as I guess it could explain why someone would go to a house filled with children and nannies and god knows who else and think that they could molest a seven year old and get away with it).

― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Sunday, February 9, 2014 7:53 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

did you read my post? i already suggested that (a) we knew this already and (b) this would fall short of convincing anyone that he was a child molester. so basically you are presenting a critique that already framed that phrase in my post.

reading competency LOL

maybe all this tells is something we already know: woody is a moral adolescent and a total narcissist

I love Joyce Carol Oates's writing (much of the time), but I wonder if she's not (1) senile or (2) a total fucking idiot.

a lot of great artists are total fucking idiots and/or infantile narcissists.

It's like one of the themes of this thread or something.

yeah but oates's writing seldom strikes me as narcissistic and foolish as, say, a certain woody allen's does

i'm surprised is all

i've heard rumors that she doesn't edit her tweets

I love Joyce Carol Oates's writing (much of the time), but I wonder if she's not (1) senile or (2) a total fucking idiot.

― espring (amateurist)

or (3) thinks artists get a pass for their behavior, no matter how despicable.

Not too much of a surprise from her writing, as far as empathizing with transgressive folks.

also given that she's a writer can she not imagine people appreciating lolita as literature and not identifying or excusing humbert humbert?

she's displating a level of literary savvy i would usually attribute to book-burning fundies