woody allen

"visited all the great capitals of europe" is a pretty low bar for worldliness btw.

woody allen is a shallow dilettante though

that is specifically just the most late-woody-allen movie phrase. surprised he didn't mention she appreciates manet.

he fucked up her life if anything. she was totally cut off from her siblings and mother at the age of -- what? 20? -- and now is stuck with an elderly condescending narcissist for a husband.

lol now who's being patronizing

Treeship knows what's best for you Soon-Yi! Take his advice!

"visited all the great capitals of europe" is a pretty low bar for worldliness btw.

I'm sure she would never have had the chance to do any of that if Mia Farrow and Andre Previn had stayed together, I mean what did that Previn guy ever do? Who's ever heard of him?

Mia would've taken her to Ljubljana by now.

yeah shakey, maybe woody's sooooo amazing he is "worth it" but i think it is supremely fucked up that, given the circumstances, he sees himself as someone who swooped into her life and saved her from hardship and/or banality

if anything, woody should be contrite, or admit that soon yi gave up a lot to be with him. she gave up her family.

to express their grief at having been abused by someone they trusted when they were too young to know who not to trust? to seek the nearest analog to making themselves whole by refusing to keep quiet about what they know is true? to bear witness? to process trauma, which is their right?

hey I was honestly just wondering, wasn't sure if legal action was on the table etc. given that this is playing out in very national media outlets, they are using the tools at their disposal in a clearly well thought out way, I figured they had a specific goal. I mean it's not like they're just posting things to their instagram, they're using national media outlets.

Treeship are you and soon-yi best buds, is she actually sophisticated y/n

he does attribute that growth to the opportunities he provided for her, but idk how anyone could really argue that point

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, May 11, 2016 3:33 PM (42 minutes ago)

true, i'm sure most parents would say the same

oh snaps

And then marry their child.

so back to that interview... he really doesn't hate LA

woody allen protagonists are constantly educating their girlfriends.

a few exceptions:

Stardust Memories
A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy
Zelig
The Purple Rose of Cairo
Hannah and Her Sisters
Shadows and Fog
Husbands and Wives
Manhattan Murder Mystery
Bullets over Broadway
Deconstructing Harry
Sweet and Lowdown
Hollywood Ending
Midnight in Paris
Blue Jasmine

also, I think it's a bit of a stretch to suggest that Alvy Singer, Isaac Davis or Judah Rosenthal are meant to be unambiguously sympathetic characters - Alvy and Isaac are neurotic clowns and Manhattan's arc is basically that Tracy teaches Alvy to trust other people, not that he shows her art cinema, and Judah is pretty much a villain

also, Woody married his ex-girlfriend's adopted daughter - that's p weird but hardly something you burn in hell for? also, she married him as much as he married her I imagine...

but obv abusing a child is something I imagine you'd burn in hell for - is there general agreement that woody is probably guilty?

Just to point out that she wasn't his ex-girlfriend when the relationship started with her adopted daughter.

As you say, weird, at the very least, but unlikely to result in eternal damnation.

hang on are we seriously debating this again? woody had an established father-daughter relationship w/soon-yi, dating from before she had hit puberty. this isn't levin and kitty scherbatsky here

can't help but feel that the disgust at Woody and Soon-Yi's weird marriage could have something to do with a "conservative" view on sexuality, that a lot of those condemning their marriage would also condemn fx gay marriage - but that's just speculation

probably also has to do with their relationship functioning as circumstantial evidence for the child abuse?

I guess I should be more skeptical wrt Woody's representation of things bcz in that interview I got the impression that they didn't have a father-daughter relationship but ofc that's how he'd like to frame it

can't help but feel that the disgust at Woody and Soon-Yi's weird marriage could have something to do with a "conservative" view on sexuality, that a lot of those condemning their marriage would also condemn fx gay marriage - but that's just speculation

Yeah, ILXors are well known for their opposition to gay marriage.

I was not referring to ILXors but rather the comment sections to the articles I've seen online

Reading comment sections? *sharp intake of breath*

it's an unhealthy compulsion, actually a new years-resolution of mine to do less hate reading... I'm sorry for dragging that stuff into ILX

when the Woody/Soon-Yi relationship broke the news in summer '92, the presidential nominating conventions were imminent, and some noise was made at the GOP fest of his having classic New York Democrat "values" (the year of Buchanan's 'culture war' speech?).

this isn't levin and kitty scherbatsky here

lol

Stardust Memories
A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy
Zelig
The Purple Rose of Cairo
Hannah and Her Sisters
Shadows and Fog
Husbands and Wives
Manhattan Murder Mystery
Bullets over Broadway
Deconstructing Harry
Sweet and Lowdown
Hollywood Ending
Midnight in Paris
Blue Jasmine

some of these still contain the trope, tho yeah not always from the protag: jose ferrer in a midsummer night's sex comedy is my favorite, most farcical rendering of it in a woody movie ("look, ariel! a fossil!"); i'd be surprised if there's no adoring remark or two of elisabeth shue's that semiqualifies deconstructing harry; i've always read the record-store reunion in hannah as implying that dianne wiest has renounced the evils of punk for the '40s pop that is, as always, the only music, but i suppose the sections could just be close together.

anyway i didn't say they were meant to be unambiguously sympathetic--

in all these movies he's much smarter about his cherishing of girlfriends' ignorance than he has become: tracy leaves; annie leaves and gets an obviously bad play written about her (which now plays exactly like late woody); anjelica huston is murdered to schubert

--though i do think that knowledge+sophistication is for these characters a real gift to give even if it's mocked or punished: at the end of annie hall the way we know the relationship enriched woody allen's life is he tells us in voiceover how much fun it was, but the way we know it enriched annie hall's is she's dragging a boyfriend to the sorrow and the pity. the voiceover correctly labels this a "triumph." (on the other hand, yes, one of the things i love about manhattan is the lack of assurance that he has molded anyone.)

i might have been wrong to say that this attitude has gotten worse or less examined with time; it's hard to tell because so much else definitely has. not trying to burn the films away w this lens or to work out woody's position vis a vis hell (tho i have my suspicions). it's just an attitude or impulse that pops up often enough for me to think it's an attitude or impulse of his, and tho yr right it's not usually rewarded in his fiction (he's never liked the happy ending he gets in hannah, for instance, tho maybe he only regrets the deus ex hystera) one can't help but suspect it's been rewarded in his life.

i've always read the record-store reunion in hannah as implying that dianne wiest has renounced the evils of punk for the '40s pop that is, as always, the only music, but i suppose the sections could just be close together.

then why does he sneak a photo of the ad for Barry Gibb's solo album at Tower?

And Duran Duran's Arena.

He checks out a Randy Weston record though, and gets Joseph Jarman section in the shot.

Soon-Yi sat behind me in my art history class freshman year. I don't remember her saying much.

Woody Allen's publicists barred Hollywood Reporter from participating in the interviews today after their op-ed by Ronan Farrow, pretty much proving his point.

i don't think it proves his point. it proves that woody wants to avoid being asked questions about that situation.

when WA wrote his NY Times piece on this a year or two ago, he said he was done addressing it.

My chief impression of Soon-Yi from the rather scarifying wILD mAN bLUES doc was that she's self-possessed.

His point was (pretty much) that the media fears retaliation. Allen retaliates. Point proven.

But Treeship to the defence! Good on you, for always having the back of people like Allen, Yacht, Trump-voters, and everyone else accused of sexism, racism and everything worse. Must be a busy job.

Fred you really are a p.i.t.a.

how did you get that from "woody wants to avoid being asked questions about that situation," which is self-evident?

xpost

fuck you frederik

My chief impression of Soon-Yi from the rather scarifying wILD mAN bLUES doc was that she's self-possessed.

^^^

they've been married for nearly 20 years, they have kids, both publicly express happiness about their relationship. it's creepy to litigate their relationship as if she has no agency.

x-post: At this point what must be thousands of hand-wringing posts all over this site. Sorry Treeship, but it gets extremely annoying after a while.

Good on you, for always having the back of people like Allen, Yacht, Trump-voters, and everyone else accused of sexism, racism and everything worse.

when have i ever had the back of trump voters? or woody allen for that matter. yesterday i posted this:

as a young woody allen fan i used to be all c'est la vie about the soon yi thing and didn't think it had any bearing on the dylan farrow thing. but now i think it's pretty strong evidence that he is a person who is selfish beyond words and i wouldn't put it past him to hurt a child.

― Treeship, Wednesday, May 11, 2016 7:04 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

don't see what's creepy about Woody's relationship, it's only the same as the judge guy in Sweeney Todd

fwiw I totally think the circumstances of their relationship is bizarre - but it obviously works for them and they're happy with it so who cares

I know, who cares? I basically hope all my friends who are dating people with young children wind up marrying them

people are so uptight

hey as long as the kids are totally okay with it, let's not deny them their agency

she is not a child

telling a grown woman she doesn't know what's best for herself, always a good look