Woody Allen has voiced his support for the #MeToo movement while promoting his new film, adding that he sometimes finds cancel culture “silly”.
The director’s career has lately been mired by a recent refocusing in social media on an allegation made against him in 1992, when his adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, said he had sexually assaulted her in an attic at the time of the custody battle between Allen and Dylan’s adoptive mother, Mia Farrow.
The allegations were investigated twice and no charges brought. Allen has always maintained his innocence. Yet restatements of the allegations by Dylan and her brother Ronan Farrow, have led many to condemn Allen.
Talking to Variety ahead of the premiere of his 50th film, Coup de Chance (Stroke of Luck), Allen, 87, said he remained an advocate of #MeToo, but with caveats.
“I think any movement where there’s actual benefit, where it does something positive, let’s say for women, is a good thing,” he said. “When it becomes silly, it’s silly. I read instances where it’s very beneficial, where the situation has been very beneficial for women, and that’s good. When I read of some instances in a story in the paper where it’s silly, then it’s foolish.”
Asked to clarify, Allen continued: “It’s silly, you know, when it’s not really a feminist issue or an issue of unfairness to women. When it’s being too extreme in trying to make it into an issue when, in fact, most people would not regard it as any kind of offensive situation.”
In 2018, Allen’s four-picture deal with Amazon was cancelled in part apparently in reaction to jocular remarks by the director that he could be the poster boy for the #MeToo movement. Allen later sued the studio for $68m (the case was settled privately in 2019, according to reports).
Speaking over the weekend, Allen stood by those remarks, saying: “The truth is, it’s true. I’ve made 50 films. I’ve always had very good parts for women, always had women in the crew, always paid them the exact same amount that we paid men, worked with hundreds of actresses, and never, ever had a single complaint from any of them at any point.
“Not a single one ever said: ‘Working with him, he was mean or he was harassing.’ That’s just not been an issue. My editors have been women. I don’t have any problem with that. It’s never been on my mind in any way. I hire who I think is good for the role. As I said, I’ve worked with hundreds of actresses, unknown actresses, stars, mid-level actresses. Not one has ever complained and there’s nothing to complain about.”
Pressed to comment on the 2021 mini-series in which the Farrows put forward their case against Allen, Allen v Farrow, Allen said his “reaction has always been the same. The situation has been investigated by two major investigative bodies. And both, after long detailed investigations, concluded there was no merit to these charges.
“There was nothing to it. The fact that it lingers on always makes me think that maybe people like the idea that it lingers on. You know, maybe there’s something appealing to people. But why? Why? I don’t know what you can do besides having it investigated, which they did so meticulously. They spoke to everybody concerned and both came to the exact same conclusion.”
Coup de Chance is a French-language thriller set in Paris, but Allen said that were he to make another film, it would be in New York. US and UK actors have divided themselves into groups who continue to support him, including Scarlett Johansson, Diane Keaton and Emma Stone and those – including Colin Firth, Timothee Chalamet and Rebecca Hall – who do not.
Yet Allen told Variety that casting was not a major stumbling block in terms of getting such a film off the ground. “It’s not challenging enough to be a factor. It’s not challenging enough so that over the years, I still keep making films. I mean what was very challenging was Covid. That was a big challenge.
“I know that over the years everything has been the same for me. I make my movies. What has changed is the presentation of the films. You know, I work and it’s the same routine for me. I write the script, raise the money, make the film, shoot it, edit it, it comes out. The difference is not from cancel culture. The difference is the way they present the films. It’s that that’s the big change.”
Allen also echoed sentiments by peers including Francis Ford Coppola that cinema was not currently enjoying a heyday.
“There used to be three or four films I was dying to see. Every week there would be a film from Truffaut and Fellini and Ingmar Bergman and Kurosawa. Now, very few European films are playing in the United States to begin with. I think we’re not in a wonderful place culturally, certainly not in cinema.”
