Apropos of Something: An Artist and His Enemies

                                                                         Woody Allen

Filmmaker, comedian, writer, and unique American voice Woody Allen has re-emerged in the news, as a new HBO series is raking him and his wife of 20 years over the coals once again. The producers of the series went to his ex-partner and two of the children she had with him, and got the same old story they've all been pushing since his banishment--and the filmmakers bought it hook, line, and sinker. When they were almost finished, they approached Allen and his wife, who refused to participate as they assumed it was going to be another hit job from the trio who have made it a life's work to destroy his career and his life.

I write this, because I never did accept their version of the story. At the time the sordid events unfolded, I was incredulous and read everything I could about it. Woody Allen had been singular presence in the American film scene in the 1960s and 70s, and his work shone in a special way to those of us who loved movies.

Allen wrote a memoir which had been due to be published at about this time last year, but his son, Ronan Farrow, effectively slated that venture by writing an open letter to his publisher--also Allen's--that he was so hurt he would withdraw future work from them if they went forward with it. A critical mass of employees of the publisher sided with Ronan, and Woody found another publisher. When the book did come out, it got undeservedly scathing reviews from book critics of the major news outlets, who not only took it upon themselves to trash the man and all his work, but especially to vilify the man for living the life he did. I read it and published the following review on this blog: 

Apropos of Nothing, a memoir by the almost-reclusive American film director, writer, actor, and comedian Woody Allen, outlines the narrative of his existence before and after the debacle that threw him off the pinnacle of acclaim and under the bus. At age 84 he is ignored, reviled, and his place at the talbe has een all but cleared. Something happened, and in Apropos of Nothing he has had the unmitigated gall to open up about it all. Critical reaction is that he has little of no right to do this, or perhaps that it's a bore that he has chosen to. I think he has not oly a right to defend himself, but a responsibility to tell his side of the story in no uncertain terms. I think, also, that Apropos of Nothing is a good book, important to read if one has any interest in examining the art of film making--or looking at the culture of the United States from the middle of the 20th century through the present.  

For some thirty years and through fom 50-odd original films, Woody Allen was lionized,  His offbeat look at life intrigued us. His self-deprecating humor disarmed and captivated us. His overloaded brain and underestimated self-image personified the Great American Dilemma--are we misunderstood geniuses or just lonely schlemiels? Or is it possible to be both? 

His success at being insightful and funny at the same time made him something of an icon in the movie business in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Starting with gag-laden movies like What's New, Pussycat,  Bananas, and Take the Money and Run--predictable stabs at movie making, perhaps, for a standup comic--through the terrain of Ingmar Bergman (Interiors, 1978), the sci-fi spoof Sleeper, the romantic Annie Hall and thought-provoking films like the documentary send-up Zelig and the innovative The Purple Rose of Cairo, he carved out a place in the history of cinema. He produced and/or appeared in dozens of movies and could, as we used to say, write his own ticket--demand the cinematographers he wanted, choose the material to express his vision his own way. He was serious about his work and was taken seriously by both money men and artists in the field.

In Apropos, he reveals that he is not the intellectual people assume he is (he thinks because of his trademark thick, dark-rimmed eyeglasses), yet he casually critiques Kierkegaard,  James Joyce, Aristophanes, Chekhov, and Prokofiev, and displays a vocabulary that sent me to my Webster's more than once in reading this book. He may not be an intellectual by his own definition, but he sounds like one to me.

From his beginnings as a comedian, Woody played a confused, witty, heartbroken Jewish loser. That was based, of course, on himself, but as he says in Apropos, "The public believes the role you're playing is yourself," or words to that effect. We in the audience believed that his relationship with Dianne Keaton was happening in real time when they were making Annie Hall, but both of them have said that, although they had had an affair when working on Broadway in Play It Again, Sam, by the time of Annie Hall they were just good friends and still are. Annie Hall was based mostly, evidently, on his relationship with his second wife Louise Lasser, for whom he is still carrying a low-flame torch.

What he is unable to do, or maybe simply doesn't want to do, in this memoir, is calibrate the magnitude of his talent. He had such a dazzling career it may have impeded his ability to grasp what was happening over the years. His position is that he does not belong among the greats of his generation, certainly not among his heroes in the medium of film. His modesty doesn't serve him well here, even though his ability to crack wise in an unexpected place does remind us who he is. He sees himself as flawed, flailing, and never quite getting what he wants, and when he does, he assumes it was all just good luck.

He is an infinitely readable, facile writer, and this book takes us through the early years in standup through the dizzying fame and fortune of not only making money but also rubbing shoulders with the cinema and theatre figures he most admires. He has a long lunch with Arthur Miller. He meets and bonds with Ingmar Bergman. He attends a ceremony where scenes from Vicki Cristina Barcelona were filmed in Orviedo, Spain, where a statue of has been erected for no discernible reason except that the citizens wanted it.

Through all this, as well as through his cinema creations, we learn he had a weakness for women with personality disorders. His own neuroses gave him the ability to identify, maybe. Or, maybe because of his attraction to a certain personality type he just keeps going there, repeating the same behavior and expecting a different result, which many of us humans tend to do. He married early, a philosophy major who, he says, taught him as she was learning philosophy, which may account for his knowledge of the subject. He was in his early 20s and she was 17 when they started dating. The marriage lasted until she finished college and then he moved on to Louise Lasser, an actress with bipolar disorder, before that illness was widely known. He was thunderstruck, he says, by her physical attractiveness (and later in the book he notes that Mia Farrow looks a bit like her). They had great times together and are still friendly 50 years after the divorce.

Allen goes into great detail about the events that transpired when he broke up with Mia Farrow, the wistful actress who made ten of her (and his) best movies with him. The two had a relationship for a decade, and although they were never married or lived together, he was the adoptive father of two of her children and the biological father of another. He loved her, and loved working with  her, but they had an unusual relationship by any measure. Through a series of circumstances that sound implausible, his relationship to Soon Yi, one of her older adoptive children, turned to a romance,  and Farrow went, what could mildly be called ballistic.

This resulted in one of the messiest breakups in the history of the world. Incensed that he was in love with a woman 35 years his junior, and one of her adopted children, Farrow concocted a story that he had molested a 6-year-old--his adopted daughter, Dylan. In Apropos of Nothing, Allen gives details of the court proceedings, the judge, the private detectives, and the child psychiatrists and panel of abuse experts from Yale who conducted the investigation. It was determined at the time that no abuse had occurred and that Dylan appeared to have been coached to give answers indicating otherwise. Allen was never tried as there was no evidence he had done anything inappropriate with his daughter. Over the years, however, Dylan occasionally brings up this traumatic time in letters to the press and in television interviews, and Allen appears to have lost the battle in the court of popular opinion. His son, journalist Ronan Farrow, has built a career revealing behind-the-scenes sexual molestation in show business, and his work has brought down long-time executive Harvey Weinstein and set in motion the "Me-Too" movement.

Allen uses his memoir to go over the details of this dark period, and more importantly, more importantly, to tell the reader what has happened to him since. He is still making movies, but because the mood of Americans has shifted dramatically toward believing the accuser and ignoring the evidence,  his recent films have had some difficulty finding distribution in the United States. Actors, and particularly actresses, who had supported him, put out statements to the effect that they regretted ever having been in his films. Allen is puzzled why they changed, and attributes it to directives they received from higher-ups that they had to reject him publicly--their careers depended on it. Apparently some have told him privately that this is the case.

Allen is still hurt emotionally by the situation and his estrangement from the two Farrow children. He acknowledges that in the coutla-woulda-shoulda department,  it would have been better for him to back off before he and Soon-Yi were hopelessly in love and wanting to get married to each other. and he knows he should have handled the situation directly rather than leaving a revealing snapshot of Soon-Yi where Mia could find it. He didn't have to say, "The heart wants what it wants," when asked by a reporter why he was involved with his ex-girlfriend's 21-year-old daughter. But, as he says, he was only quoting Saul Bellow's rephrasing of something Emily Dickinson said. This was over 20 years ago--he is still married to, and in love with Soon-Yi.

However, in 2020, a whiff of an allegation of child abuse is enough to sink a battleship of artistic output, and, as a result of that Woody Allen is seeing his work ignored and his name going down with the ship. Something major will have to occur to effect a reassessment of his place and that of those who set out to destroy him. I don't expect his memoir is going to do this, particularly after its unduly harsh critical reception when it was published a year ago. However, the film industry must give this artist another chance. Something will have to stem the tide of vitriol flowing his way.

That was my review of Apropos of Nothing, which I recommend as light reading, laced with wit of the Woody Allen self-deprecating kind, and for a fresh look at a life that has many facets, and nooks and crannies. If you want to see an interesting rendering of his side of the story, I suggest you check the shoestring budget mini-documentary By the Way Woody Allen Is Innocent on YouTube. It's long (I suggest you adjust the speed to 75.5% and watch it in increments) but it provides much background on the story Woody Allen has been reluctant to tell all these years.