MountainMornings

Londoners wouldn’t get Woody

Have you been following the Woody Allen pervert/or/not show? I had not, although I’m aware that I no longer flock to the latest Allen movie. There was a time, around Annie Hall, when I loved him. His jokes, his angst, his heroines, especially Diane Keaton. A sister-in-law from MS once told me you had to be from NYC to “get” Woody Allen, and I suspected she was right. For the longest time I would quote him:  “80 percent of life is showing up,” because I truly believe it! And I dressed like Annie Hall, in a sort of androgynous mix of comfy meets funky vests.

But after Allen was given a Cecil B DeMille Award at the Globes and Mia Farrow and kids took to bashing him on Twitter, I found myself wondering again if he did it. He was accused of fondling his adopted daughter Dylan at the age of 7 in an attic. Now we all know he married his other adopted step-daughter Soon-Yi (who was actually Andre Previn’s adopted daughter), which was creepy enough. That was about the time I had seen Mia Farrow at the Big Apple Circus, in the first row right across from me. She was surrounded by so many adopted kids I was reminded of the woman who lived in a shoe, “…she had so many children.”

Maybe because my BFF had been an assistant DA, and she once told me that kids never lie, I was predisposed to believe Mia’s story, even when a judge and many investigators never found any evidence credible enough to bring charges against Allen. That was when I stopped going to his movies. Knowing what I do now about the proximity of the abuse charges to their separation over Soon-Yi, it does seem possible that Mia may have been vindictive enough and possibly “coached” Dylan to say that he touched her. Will we ever know the truth? Finally Allen is speaking out: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/feb/08/woody-allen-denies-abuse-allegations

And so is Dylan’s brother, another adopted child, Moses Farrow now 36, now speaking up in defense of Allen. He likened the atmosphere in their home as dysfunctional at best.  “I don’t know if my sister really believes she was molested or is trying to please her mother. Pleasing my mother was very powerful motivation because to be on her wrong side was horrible.” http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/feb/05/woody-allen-dylan-farrow-moses

Whatever happened over 20 years ago we may never know. But I did happen to watch Blue Jasmine on Netflix recently and it was incredible. Allen takes us back out to overly sunny California with a lapsed heiress, Cate Blanchett, who is exquisite in the role. It is a study in social class and psychology, in love and betrayal. It’s a modern day Streetcar. “Blue Jasmine feels like tragedy without catharsis—an interesting thing to pull off, but not particularly moving or maybe even admirable.” http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2013/07/movie-review-blue-jasmine-woody-allen

It left me feeling strangely sick, and singing Blue Moon for days.

“I feel that life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. That’s the two categories. The horrible are like, I don’t know, terminal cases, you know, and blind people, crippled. I don’t know how they get through life. It’s amazing to me. And the miserable is everyone else. So you should be thankful that you’re miserable, because that’s very lucky, to be miserable.” Annie Hall