"What did you do to his eyes?"

This is not the best gif technically, but it will do: it captures the "reveal", the most sublime moment in Rosemary's Baby, which I watched for the third time last night on DVD. 

Though this hardly seems possible, I saw it on TV in about 1969 - I know it's true because I watched it in the den when I was sleeping in the pull-out bed, and we  moved away later that year, so there were no more late-night fright nights. Back then, it usually took quite a few years for a movie to go from theatrical release to television, and then only in adulterated form. How could it have shown up on TV, pretty much intact, in only a year?

Then the movie completely disappeared. It never came on television, not even on Turner Classics. It was never re-released. I could not find a trace of it anywhere, so was finally forced to buy a rather shitty DVD with grainy quality, perhaps a knockoff.

43 years had gone by, but what I retained from that night in the pullout bed was amazing.

I remembered so much of it, in fact, it became apparent on second viewing that it had burned itself into my brain. Some movies barely register, but this one became part of my neural network.

Why? IT'S BLOODY GOOD. Everything about it is enthralling and strange, especially the dream sequences. Mia Farrow is excellent in it, creating sympathy while at the same time setting up doubt that any of this is real, that it isn't just a product of her fevered "pre-partum" brain.

And John Cassavetes - HE is the devil, as far as I am concerned. He is evil incarnate, far worse than the dotty old people chanting about Lord Satan. One of the creepiest scenes is when he tries to justify to Rosemary the sacrifice of their child to Satanic forces:

"Think of all we're getting in return."

Roman Polansky's reputation was forever besmirched by a statutory rape case, though the victim came out a few years ago and (bizarrely) came to his defense. That aside, there is no doubt that this is an inspired work. The sense of weirdness, of the world slipping sideways, the eerie tension juxtaposed with normalcy, does not let up for a second. It pulls tight and lets go, taking us with it.  That horrible sense of "they're all in it together", a prime feature of paranoia, plays on our fears of surrendering control. And having one special, beloved ally, one person who "gets it", then losing him to those dark forces,  is heartbreaking. 

OK, so then, why did I watch this masterpiece again? Because one of the networks decided to do a remake, which was so atrocious I only watched it to see how truly bad a remake could be.

In stark contrast with the original, nobody was good in this, and they changed all the best parts, including that astonishing "reveal" (one of the great moments in the horror genre). 

Leave it alone, I tell you! But nobody does. Did they think they could make this any better? They even wrecked the quirky charm of the short-skirt, go-go '60s by trying to "bring it up to date". 

But we've lost the ability  to make movies like this, that ruthlessly pull and claw at the emotions.  All is slash-and-splatter now, and somehow or other it does not have anywhere near the impact of a 98-pound waif  wielding a butcher knife. Married to Sinatra, in the bargain.

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Love and Betrayal: The Mia Farrow Story (1995)

This incredibly strange artifact from the mid-'90s is due to resurface in a big way, and in fact I'm surprised it hasn't up to now. (Am I the first to notice?) It's an awful soaper, poorly-acted and melodramatic, and clearly takes sides against Woody (so maybe he's trying to somehow keep it out of public view? Fat chance!). But as a curiosity, it's very. . . curious. Obviously a poorly-made TV movie wouldn't hurt Woody Allen one bit, nor will any of the crap that's going on right now, as abusive patriarchs virtually always walk free, their reputations only enhanced by "restoring their good name".

Facebook is crawling with this awful stuff now (round 2 of what Allen has always called the 'What Scandal?'), and it's horribly fascinating. Did Woody "do it"? Well, what does "do" mean? It is painfully obvious that he did things to Dylan that were intrusive and damaging to a little girl's boundaries/self-esteem. To muddy the waters, Mia Farrow KNEW he was doing those things, and aside from making him go to therapy to "deal with his feelings about Dylan," she did nothing to stop him. She saw him making Dylan suck his thumb (one of the creepiest things I've ever heard of), saw him lie with his head in her lap, facing her, so that his face would be buried in her crotch. And his hairs were found in that infamous attic, to which Allen replied (after lying that he'd never been in there), "I might have stuck my head in there."

I think the public has always seen Mia Farrow as something of a saint, taking impoverished, damaged Third World children into her home to give them a second chance. All very admirable, but that doesn't change the fact that she stayed with a creepy, abusive man for twelve years in the face of dozens of red flags. And it doesn't change the fact that she may have stayed with him  to keep her newly-revived career going. Allen had crowned her the new Diane Keaton, a heady position indeed, but it's just one of the strange things he likes to do with chicks. They're his little dolls, and he can manipulate them any way he wants, professionally, sexually, any-old-way. It makes my blood run cold.

But sometimes these things don't stay buried, and the fallout is generally awful for everyone (see Michelle Phillips and her sad attempt to "heal" her family, blowing the whole thing to pieces). Is there a way to win? Not by soapboxing on either side. Maybe by crawling up out of the muck and leading a satisfying life?

Be happy. Drives your enemies crazy.

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Woody Allen: creepier and creepier

Blogger's note: This is just a little piece that ran in Esquire, an update of a much earlier article that must have been ignored at the time. I remember trying to watch Hannah and her Sisters again a few years ago and having to turn it off because of all the child-molesting jokes. Yes, jokes. While this isn't legal proof that Woody Allen is a pedophile, it does reveal a sickening and stomach-turningly insensitive attitude towards the most horrific form of child abuse. 

That astonishing "oh, you were lucky, I WISH I had been molested" attitude is something I have actually heard people say. Everybody knows they enjoy it, after all. So it's no big deal, even pleasurable for them (or, even better, it initiates them into sex, which is doing them a favor).

What has always struck me about sexual abuse is that people can look right at it and not see it. When a lot of women and men stepped forward in the '80s and '90s to claim they had been psychologically devastated by incest, a juggernaut called the False Memory Syndrome Foundation sprang up to run them over. 

To some degree, it worked, but I can't help but notice a persistent theme in reality TV shows, the kind that feature people who weigh 600 pounds and can't get out of bed, or live in a festering landfill of rats and garbage heaped to the ceiling. Almost all of them say they were molested as children. Either they all got together and formed a Let's Pretend We Were Molested club, or they are revealing the horrific psychological aftereffects of being violated, a force that leaves a legacy of jaw-droppingly extreme damage that can be permanently crippling.

We laughed at this stuff. Think of it. I don't know why - it was like laughing at holocaust victims (which some people also do). It was a way of acknowledging abuse and burying it at the same time, joking it away as trivial, so that even if it IS happening, it's no big deal.

Dylan Farrow's accusations are, in my mind, becoming more and more plausible. But what makes me furious are the statements I keep hearing: "We can't comment on this because nobody really knows what went on in that attic." It's a neat way of avoiding indicting a beloved and rich and powerful figure, while at the same time leaving Dylan's accusations in that hazy area of "false memories", memories that were "implanted" by her hysterical mother.

Two people know what happened - I believe - but for absolute certain, one does, and he was the one who held all the cards, a father-figure to Mia's children (in spite of his strenuous denials) for years. If he did those things that Dylan Farrow is talking about, he will never confess to it because he truly can't or won't see what all the fuss is about.

Re-Watching Woody Allen

The newly-chilling themes that you can see throughout his movies

By Stephen Marche on February 4, 2014

FEBRUARY 5, 2014: This post has been updated to include more examples from Woody Allen's films.

MICKEY: Why all of a sudden is the sketch dirty?
ED: Child molestation is a touchy subject, and the affiliates...
MICKEY: Read the papers, half the country's doing it!

ED:Yes, but you name names.

The above is from an early scene in Woody Allen's 1986 film, Hannah and Her Sisters. I've been thinking about it since reading Dylan Farrow's essay in The New York Times, accusing her adoptive father of molesting her when she was a child. The allegations are nothing new. Nobody except Dylan Farrow and Woody Allen knows what happened in that attic, and no one else ever will. But the sheer vividness with which Farrow recounts the experience, as well as the forum in which she does so, is enough to make even the most ardent fan reevaluate an artist's entire body of work, especially one as personal as Allen's.

So what happens when you go looking for evidence of sex crimes in Woody Allen movies? If you look, you find it, again, and again, and again.

Take this scene from Manhattan, when the Allen character, Isaac, introduces his new girlfriend to his friends.

YALE: Jesus, she's gorgeous.

ISAAC: But she's seventeen. I'm forty-two and she's seventeen. I'm older than her father. Do you believe that? I'm dating a girl wherein I can beat up her father. That's the first time that phenomenon ever occurred in my life.

EMILY: He's drunk.

YALE: You're drunk. You know you should never drink.

ISAAC: Did I tell you that my ex-wife—

EMILY: Who, Tina?

ISAAC: My second ex-wife is writing a book about our marriage and the breakup…It's really depressing. You know she's going to give all those details out, all my little idiosyncrasies and my quirks and mannerisms. Not that I have anything to hide because, you know...but there are a few disgusting little moments that I regret.

How are we supposed to read "a few disgusting little moments that I regret" when Isaac is dating a girl still in high school? And what are we to make of the scene in Love and Death (1975), in which the wise Father Andre tells the Allen character, "I have lived many years and, after many trials and tribulations, I have come to the conclusion that the best thing is…blond twelve-year-old girls. Two of them, whenever possible”? Or this exchange from Stardust Memories (1980), in which the Allen character, Sandy, hints at incest when talking with his lover Dorrie about her father?

SANDY: What about you? Did you have a little crush on him? You can admit this to me if you like.

DORRIE: Sure, we had a little flirting.

SANDY: A little small flirt? Mother away getting shock treatment, and the only beautiful daughter home. Long lingering breakfasts with Dad.

In a later scene, Sandy and Dorrie have the following argument, while in the background a large newspaper headline on a wall reads "Incest between father's..."
SANDY: I'm not attracted to her. What are you talking about?DORRIE: Staring at her all through dinner. Giving each other looks.

SANDY: Stop it. She's fourteen. She's not even fourteen. She's thirteen and a half.

DORRIE: I don't care. I used to play those games with my father, so I know. I've been through all that.

SANDY: What games? You think I'm flirting with your kid cousin?

DORRIE: You smile at her.

SANDY: Yeah, I smile at her. I'm a friendly person. What do you want? She's a kid. This is stupid. I don't want to have this conversation.

DORRIE: Don't tell me it's stupid. I used to do that with my father across the table. All those private jokes. I know.

Incestuous themes—stated or implicit—seethe throughout the whole of Allen's career. Here's a snippet of dialogue from Honeymoon Motel, a one-act play produced three years ago:

FAY: I was a little girl. I had an Uncle Shlomo…

NINA: Oh Mom!

FAY: Three fingers, he tried to molest me. Suddenly, three fingers I feel fondling me—

JUDY: What's the three fingers got to do with it?

FAY: It's hard to explain, but most people get groped by five.

SAM (to FAY): At least you were molested. I didn't have sex till I was twenty-five—you were the first one.

That idea: that sexual exploitation and education are conjoined also runs through the Allen canon. In Whatever Works (2009), the Allen character (played by Larry David) marries a childlike twenty-one-year-old, returning to the basic romantic situation that has motivated Allen's work from the beginning, and which you can see even in Annie Hall (1977): A man educates the women he sleeps with. He raises them. Once they're raised, he's no longer interested.

So what are we supposed to do? Every comedian alive, every writer alive, has been influenced by Woody Allen. In a way, the dilemma this poses is nothing new. Artists can be scum. Every grownup knows this. Roman Polanski was convicted of violating a thirteen-year-old girl, but he still made Chinatown. A recent biography of the German essayist Walter Benjamin, a personal intellectual hero of mine, revealed that when it came to his wife and child, he was, not to put too fine a point on it, an irresponsible asshole. The first compiler of the tales of King Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory, was a well-known rapist. Separating the quality of the art from the life of the artist is necessary for anyone who wants to enjoy anything.

But with Woody Allen, such a separation is impossible, because his movies are so thoroughly about himself, and about his own condition, and, as it turns out, the moral universe in which he exists—one in which there is no expectation of justice. Consider the final conversation in Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), in which the main character, Judah, tells his story of getting away with a terrible crime, disguising it as a movie he's pitching:

JUDAH: People carry awful deeds around with them. What do you expect him to do, turn himself in? This is reality. In reality, we rationalize. We deny or we couldn't go on living.

CLIFF: Here's what I would do. I would have him turn himself in. 'Cause then you see your story assumes tragic proportions. Because in the absence of a God or something, he is forced to assume that responsibility himself. Then you have tragedy.

JUDAH: But that's fiction. That's movies. I mean, you've seen too many movies. I'm talking about reality. If you want a happy ending you should go see a Hollywood movie.

Only in Allen's case, Hollywood isn't the bringer of false light, but a willing accomplice to darkness. The end of Dylan Farrow's letter, not anything said by Sarah Palin or any other Fox News commentator, is the most stinging indictment of Hollywood I have ever read:

What if it had been your child, Cate Blanchett? Louis CK? Alec Baldwin? What if it had been you, Emma Stone? Or you, Scarlett Johansson? You knew me when I was a little girl, Diane Keaton. Have you forgotten me?
Are you imagining that? Now, what's your favorite Woody Allen movie?

But it's not just Hollywood. It's the rest of us, too. What about those of us who are Woody Allen's fans? What the hell have we been watching all this time?

 Esquire's Woody Allen Profile From 1994

Read more: Rewatching Woody Allen - Dylan Farrow Woody Allen Movies - Esquire
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Woody Allen sings "September Song"

Y'know, if you asked me abaht it, I'd have to say this: it's, kind of like a lwoong lwoong time from May to Decembah, which is when my pahrents go to Flahhrida every yeahh and stay there for, like, six months or something, and I haven't gahht time for things like, y'know dating, when I nevah know whethah the gehrl is  going to "dig" me or not, not that I think "dig" is the proper expression for what you'd cwall, amorous attachment to someone that lasts more than, say, two minutes? (pause for laughs and bodily contortions). Speaking of two minutes, I was trying to figure out why my gehrl friend awll-wees calls me "minute man". (pause) I asked my analyst abahht it and he said it had something to do with an egg timer. That I should use one. Becwosse my egg timer lasts at least twice that lwoong,you know? But then she said to me, honey, your time is up and it hadn't even, you know, beeped yet. Am I supposed to be singing a swoong here? Sahrry. I haven't got time for that, y'know, "waiting game" they twoahhk about in the sahhng, because to be hahhnest with you if I wait much lwwoonger I'm going to be dead! (riotous laughter, applause) Being dead isn't exactly conducive to amorous attachment unless you're, y'know, one of "those" people, and I'm nahht, I sweahh! No matter how it looks, I've never been that desperate.  I know it's very stylish right now to be a zahhmbie and all that sort of thing, but most of my gehrl friends have been zahhmbies to begin with! The sahhng says something about the days dwindling down. Reminds me of how I always go over-budget on my pick-chas. You know, the cash dwindles down.  (scattered applause) By the way, if you wondah why I cwaall them "pick-chas", it's becwooahs my cinematic style hasn't really changed since, you know, Take the Money and Run, when wooa-di-ences really appreciated good cinematography and really hot gehrls. I'm kind of an old-fashioned guy, y'know, I don't use a computer, in fact even typewriters are too modern for me, so I use a unique system, maybe you've seen it, it's called a Gutenberg? Run by hamstah, and hand-cranked when the hamstah dies. Most of my budget goes into replacing all the hamstahs that die of ex-woahh-stion after printing out all those pages, and besides, the Humane Society has been getting after me for some reason. So I spend a lot of twoyyme hand-cranking, you know? It's given me carpal tunnel so I can't indulge in my favorite athletic activity. Guess I'll just have to take up synchronized swimming. Thank you very much, good night.