Althouse: "An earlier version of this article misstated the age of Soon-Yi Previn when she and Allen began a romantic relationship. She was 21, not a teenager."

April 6, 2024

"An earlier version of this article misstated the age of Soon-Yi Previn when she and Allen began a romantic relationship. She was 21, not a teenager."

From "Woody Allen, Reputation Bruised, Finds Muted Reception to 50th Film/'Coup de Chance,' a milestone, is being released in the United States after opening in Europe months ago" (NYT).

And this is an interesting quote from Allen’s sister (and producer) Letty Aronson: "I’m happy that [the new movie is] opening. Woody is only interested in the creative part — once that’s done and he makes the film, he never sees it again. If you told him it wasn’t opening in the United States, it wouldn’t matter to him."

32 comments:

Joe Smith said...: Mia seems like a deranged nut.

Not saying Woody was a saint, but I doubt he was a pedophile.

She had Paul Bunyan's axe to grind...; 4/6/24, 11:17 AM
Temujin said...: Well...I've admitted many times that Woody Allen is, and has been, one of my favorite movie makers for pretty much my entire life. He's made a few I can watch over and over again, with a decent amount of time in between viewings. But compared to most movies which I can barely get through one time, Woody's movies have legs. They work years later just as they did when they came out.

As for the accusations. We don't know. Could I see Mia Farrow coaching her daughter? Absolutely. But...could I see it in Woody Allen to sexually attack their daughter? I don't know. Honestly, how do you know that?

Dylan Farrow says her dad attacked her. Woody says no.
Ashley Biden wrote in her diary about how her dad used to bring her into the shower with him. And...well. I don't believe anyone in our press has even asked him that question. And the nation elected him President and may do it again.

Not suggesting that it's OK because, hell..."We all do it." Of course not. But we don't know. And in the absence of knowing, I'll enjoy his movies. Frankly, the movies speak for themselves, even if he did do it.; 4/6/24, 12:13 PM
Big Mike said...: Soon-Yi Previn may have been 21, and she was the adopted daughter of Mia Farrow and Andre* Previn, her relationship with Woody Allen was stepfather and stepdaughter, and boinking your stepdaughter is still kind of icky. And that seems true even though (1) Farrow and Allen were never legally married (except perhaps in common law), and (2) as noted, Soon-Yi was not Farrow’s biological daughter. The 35 year age difference between him and her does not decrease the ickiness.

For all of that I think Woody Allen’s movies should be judged based on the movies themselves, not on whether their maker has led an exemplary life by Hollywood’s (very low) standards.

___________
* Look, Althouse, another Andre!; 4/6/24, 12:22 PM
Mr. O. Possum said...: He has made very good movies in the past 20 years....Vicki Christina Barcelona, Match Point, Scoop, Irrational Man, not to mention Midnight in Paris which is excellent.

Of course, some were not so good....; 4/6/24, 12:36 PM
Tom T. said...: once that’s done and he makes the film, he never sees it again.

I'm the same way with cooking and baking. I never have any interest in eating what I make.

The way they got together was shocking, but Woody and Soon-Yi have been married for 27 years. The relationship was obviously real. If we'd known back then how crazy Mia Farrow was, maybe the reaction would have been more sympathetic.; 4/6/24, 1:00 PM
William said...: He's probably guilty, but it's not beyond a reasonable doubt. If he is, he's certainly not a serial offender. There are probably dozens of people just at Nickelodeon alone who are more deserving of banishment....Soon Yi looks like a conscientious and reliable care taker, and that's probably what he has found most attractive in a domestic partner these past ten or fifteen years. Soon Yi also looks to be living an enviable life. A marriage begun in scandal ends in convenience....I've liked some of his later movies. He chooses postcard perfect backgrounds in scenic cities and against those backgrounds pretty people say witty things to each other on sunny days. It's pleasant and relaxing to watch these movies. I bet he could probably bring a sympathetic awareness to a re-make of Lolita.; 4/6/24, 2:11 PM
gspencer said...: " If you told him [Allen] it wasn’t opening in the United States, it wouldn’t matter to him."

If you told me that Allen was taken to Mars, I'd be pleased.; 4/6/24, 2:38 PM
Nancy Reyes said...: Just one more step in normalizing sex with underage children.

Adopted children are vulnerable: Often they had been sexually abused as children. Before adopting, we were warned that often these girls would be seductive to the father or other relatives because this was the only way they knew how to relate to men. as for still being married: Until she is independent and can state what happened we'll never know.; 4/6/24, 2:53 PM
Conrad said...: There was no stepfather/ stepdaughter relationship between them. Not only were Woody and Mia not married, they never lived together. In fact, Woody never once spent the night at Mia's apartment.

I'm sure it was a painful breakup for Mia, but the idea that Woody and Soon Yi's relationship should, to this day, be frowned upon as perverse or deviant is itself pretty obscene. Plenty of people are in the relationship they're in today because they or their partner "betrayed" a previous partner. There's even a word for this: It's called "life." When the "betraying" couple goes on to have a long marriage and raise happy and we'll-adjusted kids, it really is long past the time for the jilted ex to get over it. As for the rest of us, it never was any of our business.; 4/6/24, 2:57 PM
cassandra lite said...: 1. There is a less than zero chance he molested his daughter.

2. I wonder why he hasn't made an Ox-Bow Incident-themed movie.

3. Every time he begins to touch on politics, he steps in filmed dogshit. "They're Republicans" is shorthand for "Don't like them." Silly.

4. Beginning with Midnight in Paris, which doesn't stand up to a minute's worth of scrutiny (and I don't mean the fantasy), his films have been mostly mailed in.

5. Bullshit that he doesn't care whether a film opens domestically.; 4/6/24, 4:06 PM
Narr said...: I missed the 'sex with underage children' part.

A lovely couple. Talented, successful, and happy.

It freaks some folks out.; 4/6/24, 4:30 PM
Jim at said...: Fifty movies and I haven't seen a single one.

Probably goes back to my BS Meter pegging when Annie Hall won Best Picture over Star Wars.; 4/6/24, 4:48 PM
donald said...: Bananas and Sleeper. Pretty much downhill after that.; 4/6/24, 5:13 PM
Goldenpause said...: A math challenged NYT writer couldn’t gasp that a 21 year old is not a teenager? This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Besides, “teenager” makes for a much better hit job.; 4/6/24, 5:15 PM
Aggie said...: So, a little math.

Allen is 88 and has been together with Previn for 28 years. Therefore, their 'relationship' as it stands, started when he was 62 - and she was 21. He was a few months shy of 3x her age.

Now, I'm not a prude and I also think that the Farrow family seems to have a few rather twisted strands of revenge on their DNA gene pile, since they all seem to relish it more than life itself. So I don't put much stock into the 'sexual abuse charges' and Mia's apparent shock reaction from being scorned for her adopted daughter.

I think his films have their moments but are not particularly brilliant. Allen is satisfied with light humor and drollery, which is fine, but not a sign of greatness (my opinion)

He's a creep for hitting on a girl a third of his age though, especially one that started out in the context of an extended-family-type of environment.; 4/6/24, 5:19 PM
Beth B said...: There's only one thing I know for certain in the whole mess. Dylan Farrow BELIEVES she was molested. I don't doubt that for a minute. Which leaves us with only a handful of possible truths, all of them awful.

A.) Woody molested his child, which is monstrous.

B.) Mia convinced her child she'd been molested and that her father did it, thus taking her away from one of her parents in an act of vengeance, which is monstrous.

C.) Dylan was a deeply mentally disturbed child and made up the accusation, destroying several lives including her own, which is monstrous.

D.) Dylan was molested by someone else, like Mia's sicko brother, and was either too young to remember things clearly or her rape was used as a weapon, which is monstrous.

If there are other possibilities than these, I sure haven't thought of them. And which of these horrors is the truth to be wished for here? Who "wins" in any of this?; 4/6/24, 6:18 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Trump probably should get some credit here.

The anti Trump force is so robust, it doesn’t allow room to stay mad at anybody who misbehaved, or whatever, before Trump.; 4/6/24, 7:10 PM
tim in vermont said...: A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy is a great film. He has made some good ones, and some that I just don't get, and don't think are that great. I just don't care about his private life, but as some have noted he seems to have lost a step.; 4/6/24, 7:57 PM
Big Mike said...: @Aggie, Wikipedia says Soon-Yi was born circa October 1970 and that Woody Allen was born in November of 1935. Her exact date of birth is unknown because she was found as a newborn baby abandoned on the streets of Seoul. By my arithmetic their age difference is 35 years.

According to them the two of them started having sex in December 1991 but the couple did not marry until December 1997. They’ve now been married 26 years and 3 months.; 4/6/24, 8:01 PM
AndrewV said...: cassandra lite said...

4. Beginning with Midnight in Paris, which doesn't stand up to a minute's worth of scrutiny (and I don't mean the fantasy), his films have been mostly mailed in.

At the start of that film one of the characters made some joke about being embarrassed about George W. Bush while in Europe. That movie was released in 2010, two years into Barack Obama's first term. I found that bit of liberal posturing was an unnecessary distraction to the story that both dated the film and took my attention away from the plot.; 4/6/24, 8:25 PM
Marcus Bressler said...: Well, I can be a creep and a pervert and my relationship with my FWB started at the same exact ages as Woody and Soon-yi: FWB began living with me two weeks before her 21st birthday and I was 62 a month later. I really don't give a crap what others think about our on-again, off-again relationship that is now in it's seventh year this month. I don't want to get married again, and she doesn't want to marry me. Our understanding is that either one can move on and that would be cool with the other. There is an emotional attachment there but since there is no chance of long-range relationship/marriage or kids, we don't kid ourselves. I've been seeing young women for nine years now, having giving up on trying to form a steady relationship with a woman closer to my age. The FWB's mother loves me because I saved her daughter's life twice -- but her father disapproves mightily of me and ANYthing his daughter does and I have never met him. My male friends envy my lifestyle, my female friends that know about the FWB just shake their heads and go, tsk, tsk. I don't seek their approval or disapproval and I will continue to enjoy these women until my parts stop working and, even then, plan to be a good friend if they'll have me. I am NOT a sugar daddy as I am pretty poor. And lastly, my surviving and youngest daughter just turned 30 and she doesn't mention the situation. If she did, I'd tell her that if her mother didn't divorce me, I wouldn't be cavorting with young ladies.
I like some of Allen's stuff, other stuff not so much. Some of the scenes that are autobiographical in his earlier movies were hilarious. I tried to watch his streaming series and I gave up, it was so bad.; 4/6/24, 8:44 PM
effinayright said...: Who can forget Woody's cinematic triumph titled, "Honey, I Shtupped the Kids"?; 4/6/24, 9:15 PM
Left Bank of the Charles said...: It was cradle robbing for Woody Allen to take up with someone one-third his age. But, as the saying goes, a marriage is always respectable. It would be age appropriate now that he is 88 and she is 53 under the half the older person’s age plus seven rule of thumb (88 / 2 + 7 = 51).; 4/6/24, 10:08 PM
Hassayamper said...: Fifty movies and I haven't seen a single one.

Same here. I don’t think his movies were ever shown in my small rural town.; 4/6/24, 11:33 PM
Blackbeard said...: The assumption in several of the comments here, and in the media more generally, is that the affair began with him "hitting upon" her. But why would we assume that? He was a celebrity, a star movie maker, and she was an adult (21 years old) and a nobody. Perhaps she set her cap for him? Are mother/daughter sexual competitions unknown?; 4/7/24, 5:26 AM
Leland said...: #MeToo seems to have out lived its usefulness.; 4/7/24, 6:40 AM
lonejustice said...: "Midnight in Paris" is the last Woody Allen movie I watched. It's a great story, and was filmed entirely in Paris. I don't like most of Allen's movies, but I liked this one.; 4/7/24, 8:00 AM
JAORE said...: 'm approaching y 35th anniversary with a remarkable person. Perhaps that's why the Age/2+7 guideline never really struck me.

But I'm 72.

So 72/2=36
36+7=43.

43? Forty freaking three? LOL. You gotta be kidding me.; 4/7/24, 8:39 AM
Robert Cook said...: "Soon-Yi Previn may have been 21, and she was the adopted daughter of Mia Farrow and Andre* Previn, her relationship with Woody Allen was stepfather and stepdaughter, and boinking your stepdaughter is still kind of icky."

No, their relationship was not "stepfather and stepdaughter." Woody Allen and Mia Farrow never lived together. They maintained separate apartments. They never married. They were boyfriend and girlfriend. Mia's children were never step-children of Allen's and Allen was never a stepfather to them. They were his girlfriend's children; he was their mother's boyfriend.

This is not to deny a creepiness in the relationship, or of a power imbalance, or possibly of some form of subtle coercion or grooming by Allen, but we cannot know how much of that, if any, actually pertains. Allen has said he paid very little attention to and spent little time with Farrow's children. He could be lying, of course, but...do we know otherwise? Obviously, at some point, Allen and Sun-Yi became engaged in a sexual relationship, one they concealed from Farrow. How did that happen? Did Allen initiate it, or did Sun-Yi? However it commenced, even dismissing everything else, it was infidelity by Allen to his relationship with Farrow, an objectionable but common-as-dirt transgression.

Behind the walls and secrets that partition all of us from each other, there are unknown myriads of Peyton Places everywhere.; 4/7/24, 9:19 AM
B. said...: Soon-Yi said she suggested that he take the photos. She hated Mia and might have set out to snag Woody.
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1993/03/22/Woody-Soon-Yi-suggested-nude-snapshots/3405732776400/; 4/7/24, 3:09 PM
Narr said...: "was infidelity to his relationship with Farrow, an objectionable but common-as-dirt transgression."

Even assuming knowledge of the state of Woody and Mia's relationship, why would it be objectionable to anyone but her?; 4/7/24, 6:27 PM
PM said...: I used to enjoy his work, but wrote him off in the 90s.; 4/9/24, 11:18 AM