Charlie Chaplin married a barely 18-year old fourth wife while he was fighting a paternity suit filed by a woman with whom he allegedly had an affair while married to his third wife.
Ingrid Bergman had a child with Roberto Rossellini while still married to her first husband (with whom she had a daughter who was 11 at the time.)
It’s okay to judge performers based on their personal lives, but be prepared to dislike a LOT of them.
He (was) a comic genius. Look at his work through the 50s 60s and 70s. I don’t follow him after that, but until then he was the OG. I don’t think he’s an artist in the way he thinks he is now.
The other point to make is that if this family wanted to prosecute him for crimes they needed to do it in the same time frame as they happened. It’s not acceptable to wait until he is about to get an award 20 years later and then try to litigate it in the newspapers. I’m sorry if the child would be traumatized but we have a justice system.
A few good early comedies, lots of uneven stuff as he turned more dramatic. He’s creepy too but how much doesn’t matter to me because his movies on average aren’t appealing enough for me to watch anymore.
Whether or not he’s a scumbag doesn’t prevent me from appreciating his movies. Regarding which, I am a casual fan.
I liked Match Point, Midnight in Paris and Blue Jasmine. I saw Mighty Aphrodite when it was new and remember liking it, but I don’t remember anything else about it. I haven’t seen any of his other movies in the last 20 years, I don’t think - I don’t usually make a point of going to his movies unless they are getting higher-than-average critical acclaim.
Within the last year I watched Annie Hall, since it’s a legitimate Hollywood classic. It was okay, I guess. I appreciated the structure of the movie but didn’t really care for anyone in it, nor find it really that funny. I don’t think it’s aged particularly well.
Allen may not be in his prime these days, but over the years, he’s been one of the top directors in the Pantheon of film. So I still see him as a fine writer and director.
The Soon-Yi affair, while not good for optics, is clearly a relationship between consenting adults (she was between 19 and 21 when it started*). Sun-Yi has said that she never considered Allen to be her father (that was Andre Previn); he was just a man dating his mother. It may not look good, but they have remained together all these years – to all reports, happily.
The abuse charges are more problematic. I tend to disbelieve them for one reason – can you name a pedophile who only abused one child a single time? Sadly, there are usually multiple instances and/or multiple victims. No one else has come forward, and Dylan says there was only one instance.
In any case, it doesn’t matter to me, in the sense that it doesn’t change my feelings about his movies. It’s the same as with Alfred Hitchcock’s treatment of Tippi Hedrin – ugly, but it doesn’t change the quality of his work.
*Her birth year is unknown.
I love John Ford films, but I understand he was a major shithead. He once socked Margaret O’Hara in the jaw at a party, ostensibly because he was angry that he could never get into her pants.
Various actors and actresses that I like have led far from moral lives, too, but I still watch and like their movies.
And let’s not get started on rock musicians.
I like the old slapstick Woody Allen movies, Sleeper and Everything…Sex* are probably my favorites, but they seem pretty dated when viewing now. Does make me wonder if Manhattan was a primer for things yet to come.
Similarly with Polanski. I liked The Fearless Vampire Killers when I first saw it, but it’s kinda quaint nowadays. But I think Chinatown is still a pretty decent flick.
I couldn’t give a toss for an artist’s moral character. He might be the vilest creature on the planet, who cares? It’s the work that concerns me, nothing else.
Wagner was a disgusting Jew-hater. He wrote some of the most beautiful and powerful music ever composed, music that can overwhelm you, move you to tears. Should I deny myself such glorious art because the man was an evil wanker? Carlo Gesualdo brutally murdered his young wife and her lover yet wrote some of the most beautiful madrigals of the age. Woody Allen may be a pedophile (although nothing has been proved) and Roman Polanski is self-confessedly a child-rapist. So what? I’m not planning to be their best buddy. But they both made some great movies and shall continue to watch those with pleasure.
If people restrict themselves to only reading, watching or listening to the works of those of a high moral character who lead lives of which they approve then they are going to deprive themselves of some of the greatest works of art ever produced.
I believe that Woody genuinely fell for his girlfriend’s daughter. Awkward, yes, but surely not unprecedented. And since they continue to be in a long-term committed relationship, I’m coming down on the side of not creepy or disgusting. And I am – let’s just say skeptical – of any of the other things of which Mia Farrow has accused him.
In general, I can usually separate an artist’s work from the person, but I will never again willingly listen to a Ted Nugent song.
Incest itself isn’t that big a deal these days, assuming there’s no actual rape or pedophilia going on. Quasi-incest? Yawn. That ranks up there with “women showing their knees in public” on the outrage-o-meter.
I was never a huge Nugent fan in general, so it’s not much of an issue for me, but I’ll always love the early Amboy Dukes stuff and I have no problem whatsoever listening to it and enjoying it.
Hell, I know for sure there will come a day when I start listening to my Bill Cosby records again. There’s just way too much brilliance on those records. I’m turned off by him a bit at the moment but I expect to outlive him by a long stretch and at some point I’m going to listen to those records again and I am going to love the work as I always have.
Luckily, Gary Glitter was absolute shit as an artist so there’s no conflict there for me.
So Woody Allen. A gifted comic writer, performer, screenwriter and director. And a guy with zero, and I do mean zero, moral compass.
The fact that young Ms. Previn is still with him is a testament to the Svengali Effect, not to true love or the heart knowing what it wants. She’s a victim; he’s a disturbed old man.
I owned his nightclub recordings ( Woody Allen:Standup Comic ), read his collected writings from the New Yorker, went to his films. Raised Jewish in the suburbs of Philly, I connected with a lot of his archtypes and phrases.
His filmmaking in the late 1970’s was a revelation to me and the work that Gordon Willis did on his films was humbling and exciting and inspiring and more.
But it doesn’t matter. I just doesn’t matter.
Here’s why.
Woody Allen is a sexual predator. The fact that he also know how to do other things is in no way cause to give him a pass on his predatory urges.
Those who defend the personally abhorrent activities of Woody Allen and Roman Polanski had best check themselves to see how forgiving they are of sports figures who rape and abuse women.
The fact that someone knows how to write a joke or score a touchdown is kind of irrelevant if they’re a sexual predator.
I enjoyed his stand-up comedy, & early comedic films.
*Did *Woody Allen do something other than begin a 20-something year relationship with the adult daughter of his wife? I really don’t see how that = sexual predator.
Polanski is completely different, that was straight up rape.
I dunno. The blood spatter analysis vindicated Spector, in my partially-trained eyes.
Except maybe Broadway Danny Rose, which I’ve been meaning to re-watch. Can’t get enough Sandy Baron. Corbett Monica, not so much.
Perhaps that is too loaded a word.
Does “sexual opportunist” sound nicer? :dubious:
No, he’s not Polanski. But he is what he is.
Then again, as the adoptive father of a 25 year-old South Korean adoptee, perhaps my perspective in this regard is a bit skewed… 
By wife, do you mean “common law wife” or something? They were never married and never lived under the same roof.
He was never the adopted father of Soon-Yi Previn, Andre Previn was.
Ever seen the ancient movie “The Graduate” ? ETA - Granted, in that movie, the first relationship was with the daughter
I skipped a couple posts and someone may have mentioned but ----- Jerry Lee Lewis. I liked his songs and my parents accepted that. And while it was a different reason/reasoning (no young girls were involved as far as I know) the whole honk-off over Cat Stevens. I just bypassed that as well and kept enjoying the music.
And, really, the fact of the matter is that Hitler’s paintings were pretty damn good.
Dubya’s, though, not so much.