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Woody Allen: "Life is stupid... stupid and tragic"

2022-09-17T10:45:27.793Z


At the age of 86, the filmmaker presents a book of stories and prepares his 50th film. Regarding Mia Farrow's accusations about her alleged sexual abuse, he states: "Everything remains the same, I can't do anything about it"


Three decades have passed since the news broke in the newspapers that Woody Allen (Brooklyn, New York, 86 years old), one of the most influential filmmakers of our time, was having a secret relationship with Soon-Yi Previn, adopted daughter of who was then the filmmaker's partner, Mia Farrow.

Allen was 56 and Previn was 21. After marrying five years later, the couple adopted two girls, Bechet and Manzie.

To this day, they are still together.

Eight months after discovering the

affair,

Farrow accused Allen of sexually assaulting their adopted daughter, Dylan, then seven years old.

Dylan supported the accusations.

The matter, however, was never tried due to lack of evidence.

The situation reached a climax when, at the age of 28, Dylan renewed the accusations against his father in an interview with CBS and an opinion piece published in

The New York Times

.

The allegations could not be proven true, but they affected Allen's career in the United States.

When his autobiography,

A Purpose of Nothing

, was about to come out two years ago, the staff at Simon & Schuster openly protested, and the publisher canceled publication.

The book came out in a much less visible stamp.

At that time, Ronan Farrow, biological son of Allen and Farrow, author of

Predators

and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for journalism for his investigative work on the world of child sexual abuse, continued to maintain that his father was a sexual predator.

The United States is going through a disastrous historical moment in relation to many things, which affects culture in a particularly serious way”

The media around the world echoed the accusation.

Amazon's film division broke its contract with the director, many of the actors who had worked under him regretted doing so, his films went out of normal distribution, and HBO's

Allen vs. Farrow

television series took a damning view of the director.

the filmmaker

In the world of cinema there were some voices that came out in his defense, such as Javier Bardem, Scarlett Johansson and Diane Keaton.

Another of Allen and Farrow's adopted sons, Moses, has categorically maintained that the actions imputed to his father are manipulations by Mia Farrow, who was Allen's partner for 12 years and shot 13 films with him, although they never lived together. .

The reason for the conversation that Woody Allen agreed to have with EL PAÍS is the imminent publication in Spain of

Gravity Zero

(Editorial Alliance, translated by Eduardo Hojman)

,

his first volume of short stories in 15 years.

Before talking about the book, it is inevitable to ask if the situation that he has been living for thirty years has changed its sign.

“No”, she replies without denoting an iota of boredom.

“Everything remains the same, although I have to say that what has happened has not affected what really matters to me, which is my job.

I'm still making movies, I'm still writing books, and I'm still playing music.

Of course, it would be better if these things weren't happening, but I can't do anything about it.

As she knows, the United States is going through a dire moment in history in relation to many things, which affects culture in a particularly serious way.

But I'm moving on to other places, after the unforgettable experience of shooting

The Rifkin Festival.

In San Sebastián I will shoot my 50th film in Paris”.

Another image of the director in his New York apartment.

Pascal Périch

The interview takes place at the Manhattan Film Center, on Park Avenue, where the film director has his editing studios and his personal office.

The place is full of tapes, vinyls and panels detailing shooting instructions, as well as mountains of books on cinema.

Allen is relieved when the conversation turns elsewhere.

His eyes light up when he is asked to reminisce about his childhood years in Brooklyn.

“It was wonderful, although I didn't see it that way then because my parents had very little money and their life was very hard.

I grew up on the street, in a very small neighborhood with little shops, restaurants, bowling alleys, a fabulous library, and a dozen big-screen movie theaters, with huge chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and red carpets in the halls.

Admission was 15 cents and you could see several movies.

My mother would drop me off at the door at one with a sandwich and pick me up at six.

Sometimes I watched the same movie two or three times and never got tired of it.

Apart from the cinema, the best thing was when I was sick, because I hated going to school and I spent the whole day in bed listening to the radio and reading comics.

Do you remember Woody Allen when he first fell in love?

"In the nursery," she replies without batting an eyelid.

“From a very young age he was fully aware that there were charming and very pretty girls in class;

well, not all.

He always asked them if they wanted to go out with me, but they told me that I was too young and they never accepted.

I hated school, the subjects, the schedule, the teachers, but I could spend hours looking at the girls, immersed in an aura of happiness”.

In

Zero Gravity,

he resorts to memorable humorous texts, such as

No Feathers

or

How to End Culture Once and For All,

but this time there is something different, a signal that Woody Allen had never emitted so clearly before, a story of more of 50 pages, almost a short novel, a text of great literary quality entitled

Growing up in Manhattan.

Is writing a book very different from directing a movie?

How do you manage without the images and remain only at the mercy of the written word?

“You hit the nail on the head!” he exclaims, clutching the arms of the chair, as if he is about to jump on top of someone or want to dodge a blow.

“Growing up in Manhattan

is a long story, but it could have been a movie.

Or a novel.

The difference between cinema and literature is that in a film I have an hour and a half to hold the audience's attention and during that time I cannot be distracted for a single moment because I run the risk that people will get up from their seats and go away

You have to constantly entertain the audience with images, dialogues, conflicts and characters.

In a book things are much more relaxed.

In great literature

The Karamazov brothers

let's say, there are pages and pages in which the plot does not advance, but it does not matter at all, the other way around.

In cinema that would be suicidal.

I hated school, the subjects, the schedule, the teachers, but I could spend hours looking at the girls, immersed in an aura of happiness”

There is a constant ingredient in Woody Allen's vision of things: his interest in philosophy, which the New Yorker turns upside down by resorting to irreverent humor.

“My interest in philosophy goes back to the years of my first marriage, when I was very young.

My wife was studying philosophy, and philosophical topics were at the forefront of our conversations.

I immediately decided to incorporate philosophy into my performances as a cabaret comedian, as well as into my films.

Most cabaret comedians make jokes at the expense of issues that directly affect us in everyday life: politics, the economy, the internet, social networks, immediate problems... While I address the fundamental questions of existence, like the meaning of life,

religion and other big issues from a comedic perspective.

If you pay attention to my films, you can clearly see that there is a philosophical substratum in them.

Don't panic, I have no intention of going into that in depth now."

To the question of who are the philosophers who have always aroused the most interest in him from the beginning, he answers that it all started with the French existentialists, Beauvoir, Sartre and, in a particular way, Camus.

He also mentions Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, from whom he came to Ingmar Bergman, perhaps the director who has most influenced him.

Among his favorite writers he mentions, in addition to the great Russian novelists, Stendhal, Camus, Philip Roth, and especially Saul Bellow.

His favorite novel, he proclaims, is

Moby Dick

, "which I don't quite understand, because I don't like the sea and I'm not in the least interested in boats or whaling."

At a press conference in Cannes, he was once asked what he thought of death and he replied that he was totally against it.

Could it be said that although Woody Allen is very interested in death, death doesn't seem to be too interested in him?

“It doesn't seem like she's interested enough, but even if she wasn't, there's nothing to be done about it.

Life is too short, which seems stupid to me.

Camus preferred to say that life was absurd, but I think the word gives him an air of dignity.

It seems more accurate to me to say that life is stupid... stupid and tragic.

Of course, if you think that, you have to choose between shooting yourself or, in my case, making movies”.

Zero Gravity

is his first book in 15 years, the fifth to his credit.

“To be exact,” she specifies, “I have only written one book in my entire life,

Apropos of Nothing,

my autobiography.

The others are compilations of texts previously published in magazines such as

The New Yorker.

The curious thing is that for some time I have had a new feeling, and that is that I think I would like to write a book, a real book, a novel”.

The secret drive that Woody Allen talks about is clearly perceptible in

Growing up in Manhattan,

a long story that attracts attention because it gives the impression of wanting to be a novel.

“It could have been perfectly.

Or a movie.

When I wrote it I didn't have the time or the inclination to expand it, but the desire remains.

As soon as I finish the film that I have to shoot in Paris, I am going to seriously consider the possibility of writing a 300 or 400 page novel”.

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Source: elparis

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