Woody Allen has responded to the recent controversies surrounded him… kinda.
ICYMI, Ronan Farrow yesterday penned a powerful essay for The Hollywood Reporter, condemning the media for helping silence his sister Dylan Farrow, who alleges that their father Allen sexually assaulted her as a child.
It was timed to coincide with the opening of Allen’s latest film ‘Café Society‘ at the Cannes Films Festival, where the director later found himself the butt of a rape joke made during the opening ceremony.
“It’s very nice that you’ve been shooting so many movies in Europe,” said master of ceremonies Laurent Lafitte, “even if you are not being convicted for rape in the U.S.”
The joke drew gasps from the audience, who only moments before had given him a standing ovation. Awks.
When asked if he would read his son’s damning essay (in which Farrow explicitly says he believes his sister), Allen essentially compared it to a film review…. and he doesn’t read film reviews.
“I never read anything,” Allen said. “I never read what you say about me or the reviews of my film. I made the decision I think five years ago never to read a review of my movie. Never read an interview. Never read anything, because you can easily become obsessed with yourself. [It’s] a bad idea to consume yourself with this stuff. You should do your work, not call up and find out how the grosses are, how is the film doing, how are the reviews. Forget about all that. Just work. It’s worked for me. I’ve been very productive over the years by not thinking about myself. I don’t like to hear that a critic thinks my film is a masterpiece and I don’t like to hear that a critic thinks my film misses.”
When the same journalist pointed out the obvious – “This isn’t a critic. It’s your son.” – Allen shut the question down: “I’ve said all I have to say about it.”
“I am a non-judgmental or [non]-censorship person on jokes,” he said. “I’m a comic myself and I feel they should be free to make whatever jokes they want.”
Blake Lively, who starts in Allen’s latest cinematic offering, feels differently.
“I think any jokes about rape, homophobia or Hitler is not a joke,” she said when asked to comment on the speech. “I think that was a hard thing swallow in 30 seconds. Film festivals are such a beautiful, respectful festivals of film and artists and to have that, it felt like it wouldn’t have happened if it was in the 1940s. I can’t imagine Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby going out and doing that. It was more disappointing for the artists in the room that someone was going up there making jokes about something that wasn’t funny.”
She didn’t comment on Ronan’s essay, however, stating that she hadn’t read it yet and it would be “dangerous” to comment on something she hadn’t read. Fair enough.
