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    Woody Allen’s ‘Rifkin’s Festival’ Is Opening in U.S. Theaters

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    Following renewed scrutiny in recent years over the sexual abuse allegations against Woody Allen brought by his adopted daughter, it was unclear whether Allen’s latest film, “Rifkin’s Festival,” would get a U.S. theatrical release.Actors and producers in the United States have increasingly declined to work with Allen, but he has continued to find support in Europe. “Rifkin’s Festival” received backing from Spanish and Italian production companies and premiered at the San Sebastián Film Festival in Spain in 2020.Starting on Friday, “Rifkin’s Festival” will get a limited run in some theaters in the United States — the list is currently 25 theaters long, according to the movie’s website. The only theater in New York City that is signed up to show the film is Quad Cinema, in Greenwich Village.It is also available to stream on several platforms, including Amazon Prime Video, iTunes and Google Play.The sexual abuse allegations against Allen, 86, received a new wave of attention last year after HBO released its docuseries “Allen v. Farrow,” which examined Dylan Farrow’s accusation that he sexually assaulted her at the family’s Connecticut country house in 1992. Dylan and her mother, Mia Farrow, participated in the project, walking the filmmakers through the events of that time, including the prosecutor’s decision not to press charges against Allen to spare Dylan the trauma of a trial.Allen, who has long denied the allegations, called the series a “shoddy hit piece” that “had no interest in the truth.”“Rifkin’s Festival” is about an ex-film professor and struggling novelist who accompanies his publicist wife to a film festival in Spain (the same one that premiered the movie). The husband (played by Wallace Shawn) only goes to keep an eye on his wife (Gina Gershon) and her flirtations with a hotshot director.The critic Jessica Kiang reviewed the film for The New York Times after its premiere, and compared it favorably to Allen’s 2019 film “A Rainy Day in New York,” which was dropped by Amazon as scrutiny increased over Dylan Farrow’s allegations and ended up having a limited theatrical run in the United States. (Allen sued Amazon for terminating his four-picture deal; the company settled.)“‘Rifkin’s Festival’ is far less objectionable,” Kiang wrote, “and though that is praise so faint it needs smelling salts, with latter-day Woody Allen, we must be thankful for small mercies.”In recent years, some actors have said that they would not work with Allen because of Dylan Farrow’s allegations, but others have come to the director’s defense.In November, Shawn defended his decision to take the role, writing in an essay in The Wrap that he has been “troubled by the speed with which some of my colleagues in the acting fraternity have distanced themselves from Woody.”In a recent interview with WGN television station in Chicago, Gershon said she chose to work with Allen because he is a “genius.”“It serves no one to keep great artists from working, even the alleged victims, right?” she said.A representative for Dylan Farrow did not comment.Letty Aronson, Allen’s sister and a producer on the film, did not respond to requests for comment. More

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      ‘Allen v. Farrow’ Episode 4 Recap: An Adult Dylan Farrow Speaks Out

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Allen v. Farrow’ Episode 4 Recap: An Adult Dylan Farrow Speaks OutThe finale of the HBO docuseries delves into the changing perception of Woody Allen and Ms. Farrow’s decision to go public with her allegations of sexual abuse.Frank Maco, the former Connecticut state’s attorney who decided not to press charges in an investigation, with Dylan Farrow, in “Allen v. Farrow.”Credit…HBOMarch 14, 2021The final installment of “Allen v. Farrow,” an HBO documentary series examining Dylan Farrow’s sexual abuse allegations against her adopted father, Woody Allen, covers the years from 1993, when a state’s attorney declined to prosecute the filmmaker, to the present.The previous three episodes explored what Ms. Farrow says happened on Aug. 4, 1992, when she was 7 years old — that her father sexually assaulted her in the attic of the family’s Connecticut country home. The filmmakers combed through police and court documents, scrutinized the integrity of the investigations into her accusation and sought expert analysis of video footage of young Dylan telling her mother what happened.Mr. Allen has long denied sexually abusing his daughter and has accused her mother, Mia Farrow — Mr. Allen’s ex-girlfriend — of concocting the sexual-assault accusation because she was angry at him for having a sexual relationship with her college-age daughter, Soon-Yi Previn. (Mr. Allen and Ms. Previn later married.) A spokesperson for Mr. Allen, who did not participate in the documentary, said that it is “riddled with falsehoods.”The finale covers the world’s reaction to the events of the early 1990s, Mr. Allen’s continued fame and accolades and, in recent years, a growing unwillingness among those in Hollywood to be associated with him after the #MeToo Movement.The prosecutor’s decisionThe episode begins on Sept. 24, 1993. That day, Frank Maco, a Connecticut state’s attorney, announced that although he had “probable cause” to prosecute Mr. Allen, he had decided he would not press charges to spare Ms. Farrow the potential trauma of a trial.Mr. Maco, who was interviewed extensively for the documentary, says that earlier that month in 1993, he had met with young Dylan in his office, with toys in the room and a female state trooper there. When Mr. Maco asked about her father, he said, she froze up and would not respond.“The strongest proponents for prosecution just looked at me, and we all shrugged our shoulders,” Mr. Maco said. “We weren’t going anywhere with this child.”In a news conference, Mr. Allen said that rather that being happy or grateful for the decision, he said he was “merely disgusted” that his children had been “made to suffer unbearably by the unwholesome alliance between a vindictive mother and a cowardly, dishonest, irresponsible state’s attorney and his police.”“I felt if I had just kept his secret,” Ms. Farrow says, “I could have spared my mom all this grief, and my brothers and sister — myself.”Credit…HBODylan grows upIn the years after the police investigation and the custody trial, which ended in her mother’s favor, Ms. Farrow says she suffered through a long period of guilt, thinking that she was at fault for the family rift.“I felt if I had just kept his secret,” she tells the filmmakers, “I could have spared my mom all this grief, and my brothers and sister — myself.”Siblings say in the series that Ms. Farrow often kept to herself and seemed riddled with anxiety. She says that she didn’t talk about the assault in depth with anyone — not even her mother or her therapist. In high school, she recalls, she broke up with her only boyfriend after only three weeks because she anticipated that he would want to be intimate with her.Ronan Farrow, Ms. Farrow’s brother, tells the filmmakers that his mother tried to distance her children from Mr. Allen. But, he says, “there was always a lot of incentive to be drawn into Woody Allen’s efforts to discredit” his sister. For example, Mr. Farrow says, Mr. Allen had made him an offer that if he spoke out against his mother and his sister publicly, Mr. Allen would help pay for his college education.After an awards showThe saga returned to the public discourse in 2014, after Mr. Allen received a lifetime achievement award at the Golden Globes. In the past, Mr. Farrow tells filmmakers, he had discouraged his sister from speaking publicly about their father and the events of the 1990s with the hope that the family could put it behind them.But after the awards show, Mr. Farrow tweeted, “Missed the Woody Allen tribute — did they put the part where a woman publicly confirmed he molested her at age 7 before or after Annie Hall?” Ms. Farrow says that her brother’s willingness to speak publicly about the subject emboldened her to write about her memory of events, which were appeared in The New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof’s blog. (Mr. Farrow, who helped his sister publish the open letter, said that after another newspaper declined to print the account, he took it to Mr. Kristof, a family friend.) Mr. Allen later published an Op-Ed in The Times denying his daughter’s allegations.For two decades, Ms. Farrow says, she felt isolated and alone because of her experience. After publishing her letter, she received an outpouring of messages from people she knew sharing their own experiences with sexual abuse.Loyalty to Mr. AllenStill, many Hollywood actors remained loyal to Mr. Allen despite the accusations, and his star power and industry reputation remained mostly intact..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1pd7fgo{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1pd7fgo{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1pd7fgo:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1pd7fgo{border:none;padding:20px 0 0;border-top:1px solid #121212;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-coqf44{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-coqf44 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-coqf44 em{font-style:italic;}.css-coqf44 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-coqf44 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#333;text-decoration-color:#333;}.css-coqf44 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Understand the Allegations Against Woody AllenNearly 30 years ago, Woody Allen was accused of sexually abusing Dylan Farrow, his adopted daughter. A new docuseries re-examines the case.This timeline reviews the major events in the complicated history of the director, his children and the Farrow family.The documentary filmmakers Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering spoke about delving into this thorny family tale. Read our recaps of episode 1, episode 2, episode 3 and episode 4.Dylan Farrow wrote an open letter in 2014, posted by the New York Times opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof, recounting her story in detail.Our book critic reviewed Mr. Allen’s recent memoir, “Apropos of Nothing.”A.O. Scott, co-chief film critic, grappled with the accusations and his complicated feelings on the filmmaker in 2018. Four days after Ms. Farrow’s letter was published, her brother Moses Farrow told People Magazine that she was never molested. He also said that Mia Farrow coached the children to hate Mr. Allen and that she often hit him as a child. When Dylan Farrow learned what her brother said, she burst into tears, saying, “It was like I had been told that this person that I knew and loved and trusted was gone.”In interviews with the filmmakers, Ronan Farrow along with two more siblings, Fletcher Previn and Daisy Previn, say that the abuse allegations against their mother were untrue.In 2018, Moses Farrow followed up with a blog post that continued to dispute his sister’s account of sexual abuse. He targeted a specific detail of her story, which she had included in The Times letter: that while Mr. Allen sexually assaulted her, she remembers focusing on her brother’s electric train set, which had been traveling in circles around the attic. Mr. Farrow said that there was no electric train set in the attic. In Mr. Allen’s recent memoir, “Apropos of Nothing,” he also disputed that detail, calling it a “fresh creative touch.”But, according to police documents, the detectives investigating the alleged assault did find a train set in the attic. A detailed drawing from 1992, which is shown in the episode, includes an object labeled “toy train track” in the attic crawl space.Ms. Farrow with her mother, Mia Farrow.Credit…HBODylan, decades laterThis episode captures Ms. Farrow’s adult life, 28 years after she says her father assaulted her. It shows her husband, Sean, whom she met on a dating site linked to The Onion, and Ms. Farrow, now 35, playing with their young daughter.At one point, Mia Farrow asks her daughter, “Do you ever feel angry at me?” referring to her choice to bring Mr. Allen into the family. In response, Dylan Farrow says that, first and foremost, she was glad that her mother believed her account of that day in 1992, saying, “You were there when it mattered.”Another scene in the episode shows Mr. Maco, the state’s attorney, meeting with Ms. Farrow — their first encounter since 1993.Mr. Maco said that he told Mia Farrow that when her daughter becomes an adult, he would be happy to answer any questions. That opportunity came last fall — and the documentary team recorded their conversation.“A part of me really, really wishes that I could have done it,” Dylan Farrow tells Mr. Maco, “that I could have had my day in court.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘Allen v. Farrow’ Episode 3 Recap: Investigations and a Custody Trial

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Allen v. Farrow’ Episode 3 Recap: Investigations and a Custody TrialFilmmakers delve into dozens of boxes of records that documented the investigations into Dylan Farrow’s accusation of sexual abuse.Mia Farrow with her daughter Dylan in “Allen v. Farrow.” Episode 3 focuses on police and court documents, much of which had never been made public.Credit…HBOMarch 7, 2021In the previous episode of “Allen v. Farrow,” the HBO documentary series that examines Dylan Farrow’s accusation of sexual abuse against her father, Woody Allen, the filmmakers introduced viewers to key video footage of a 7-year-old Dylan explaining events to her mother.Although the footage, shot by Mia Farrow, had not been released publicly before this series, its existence has been the subject of controversy. Allies of Mr. Allen saw it as proof that Mia, Dylan’s mother, had coached Dylan. Others saw it as clear evidence that the accusations were true.Episode 3 revisits this footage and delves into the investigations, court proceedings and familial turmoil that followed.Mr. Allen has long denied the accusations of sexual abuse, and, after the first episode aired, a spokesperson for him said that the docuseries was “riddled with falsehoods.”This episode is built largely off police and court documents, much of which had never been made public, including a trove of more than 60 boxes of documentation that was in a lawyer’s storage room.Frank S. Maco, a state’s attorney in Connecticut, who worked on the case. He asked the child abuse clinic at Yale-New Haven Hospital to evaluate Dylan Farrow.Credit…HBOA high-profile police inquiryIt was Dylan Farrow’s pediatrician who first reported her allegations to the authorities, leading to investigations by the Connecticut State Police and the New York City Child Welfare Administration. (Dylan Farrow said the sexual assault occurred in the attic of the family’s Connecticut summer home.)In an extensive interview, Frank S. Maco, then a state’s attorney in Connecticut, says that he intended to investigate the accusation “quietly,” but that Mr. Allen held a news conference at the Plaza Hotel, where he shared the news of the investigation. Mr. Allen called the allegations a “gruesomely damaging manipulation of innocent children for vindictive and self-serving purposes.” He also declared his love for Soon-Yi Previn, Mia Farrow’s daughter, suggesting that the allegations were a result of Mia lashing out over that relationship.“They were doing a great job painting Mia Farrow as a scorned woman who would say anything,” said Rosanna Scotto, a broadcast reporter who covered the news at the time.Armed with that narrative, Mr. Allen went on a media campaign, while Ms. Farrow stayed relatively quiet. She told filmmakers that she was trying to establish some semblance of normalcy for her children.The Yale-New Haven reportMr. Maco, the prosecutor, said that he asked the child abuse clinic at Yale-New Haven Hospital to evaluate Dylan Farrow, to determine whether she would be traumatized by taking the stand at a trial and whether there were any “impediments” to her ability to testify — including any ability to “perceive, recall and relate.”During a seven-month inquiry, experts interviewed Dylan Farrow nine times, a number that child abuse and legal experts tell the documentary filmmakers was excessive for a child subject.“I would repeat the story over and over and over again,” Dylan Farrow says in the episode. “It was grueling and it was intense.”The final report stated that there were “inconsistencies” in Dylan Farrow’s statements and that she had “difficulties distinguishing fantasy from reality.” It found that her accusations were “likely reinforced and encouraged” by her mother. The clinic shared the results with Mr. Allen and Mia Farrow without telling Mr. Maco they were doing so, he said, and Mr. Allen announced the determinations at a news conference.Later on, during the custody battle between Mr. Allen and Ms. Farrow, the director of the clinic said in a deposition that its practice was to destroy notes; experts interviewed in Episode 3 say that this is antithetical to common practice in their field.The New York investigationThe inquiry by New York City’s Child Welfare Administration was being spearheaded by Paul Williams, a caseworker who interviewed Dylan Farrow and found her to be credible.Within two weeks of the investigation, Mr. Williams determined that there was sufficient information to open a New York-based criminal investigation, but he was told by superiors that in high-profile cases like this one, it was customary for the “big wigs” to take responsibility and for the welfare administration to relinquish control, according to case records reviewed by the filmmakers.A lawyer for Mr. Williams, Bruce Baron, says in the documentary that at the time, his client “wouldn’t shut up” about the case at work, and he was fired for insubordination. Mr. Williams sued the city over the firing, arguing in part that the city had suppressed information about the case; he won in court and got his job back..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1pd7fgo{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1pd7fgo{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1pd7fgo:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1pd7fgo{border:none;padding:20px 0 0;border-top:1px solid #121212;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-k9atqk{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-k9atqk strong{font-weight:700;}.css-k9atqk em{font-style:italic;}.css-k9atqk a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-k9atqk a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;}.css-k9atqk a:hover{border-bottom:none;}Understand the Allegations Against Woody AllenNearly 30 years ago, Woody Allen was accused of sexually abusing Dylan Farrow, his adopted daughter. A new docuseries re-examines the case.This timeline reviews the major events in the complicated history of the director, his children and the Farrow family.The documentary filmmakers Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering spoke about delving into this thorny family tale. Read our recaps of episode 1 and episode 2.Dylan Farrow wrote an open letter in 2014, posted by the New York Times opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof, recounting her story in detail.Our book critic reviewed Mr. Allen’s recent memoir, “Apropos of Nothing.”A.O. Scott, co-chief film critic, grappled with the accusations and his complicated feelings on the filmmaker in 2018. In looking through Mr. Williams’s case files, the filmmakers found notes about a conversation he had with Jennifer Sawyer, a social worker who had interviewed Dylan Farrow for the Yale-New Haven report. According to the notes, Ms. Sawyer told Mr. Williams that “she believes Dylan” and believed that the child had “more to disclose.”In a seven-month period, Dylan Farrow was questioned nine times by clinic workers.Credit…HBOThe custody battleOn Aug. 13, 1992, nine days after the alleged sexual assault, Mr. Allen sued Mia Farrow for custody of their three children: Dylan Farrow, Moses Farrow and Ronan Farrow.In a taped phone call between Mia Farrow and Woody Allen, Ms. Farrow brings up his lawsuit against her and accusations that she was an unfit mother, to which he responds, “And I’m going to make them stick.” Ms. Farrow begged him to drop the case.During the trial, which started in the spring of 1993, Mr. Allen testified that he believed Ms. Farrow had “brainwashed” her daughter and that he was not alone with Dylan on the day that she said he assaulted her.The judge ultimately sided with Ms. Farrow, saying that Mr. Allen exhibited grossly inappropriate behavior toward Dylan and that “measures must be taken to protect her.” The judge called the Yale-New Haven report “sanitized,” considering the destruction of the notes and the team’s unwillingness to testify at trial.Expert analysisAt the end of the episode, the filmmakers return to the footage of Dylan Farrow taken by her mother, and show child abuse experts analyzing the video for the documentary. At the custody trial, where the footage was entered as evidence, Mr. Allen said that Ms. Farrow had asked her daughter “in a leading way about molestation.”But after seeing the footage, one of the documentary’s interviewees, Anna Salter, a child abuse expert and psychologist, said that Ms. Farrow did not make any “overt suggestions” in her questioning. One “implicit” suggestion Ms. Farrow makes, Dr. Salter said, is asking her daughter if Mr. Allen took her underpants off. (Dylan responds that he hadn’t done so.)“From my point of view, what’s important is Dylan’s response: Does she go along with the suggestion?” Dr. Salter said. “But she doesn’t.”As Ms. Farrow says in a taped phone call between her and Mr. Allen played at the top of the episode: “Dylan’s a baby; how could you do that to her?”Mr. Allen’s response is inaudible.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Woody Allen, Mia Farrow and What Popular Culture Wants to Believe

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s NotebookWoody Allen, Mia Farrow and What Popular Culture Wants to BelieveThe new HBO documentary revisits a 1990s scandal. What viewers take away from it may depend on the stories they trust about women and why.The family in happier days, with Woody Allen, third from left, and Mia Farrow, far right.Credit…HBOMarch 2, 2021Updated 4:45 p.m. ETThere are two stories. In one, a father molests his 7-year-old daughter. In the other, a mother coaches that daughter to falsely accuse the father. These stories, one proposed by Mia Farrow and her advocates, one by Woody Allen and his, clearly contradict each other. No sane person can accept both. Crucially, only one lets you feel mostly OK about watching “Annie Hall” again.I was a teenager in 1992 when this particular scandal broke, so I experienced them through the cracked prism of gender narratives absorbed from the movies and shows and stealthily read supermarket tabloids of the day: That a woman should be pretty but not too pretty, sexy but not too sexy, smart but not too smart, empowered but mostly in a way that means wearing boob-forward dresses and high heels — but for you! because you want to! — and doesn’t trespass on any actual power. A fun fact about high heels: They make it harder to run away. There were limitless ways, the culture informed me, that a woman could get it wrong — “it” being her body, her career, her accusations of abuse.I can still remember an article, probably from The National Enquirer, that pitted celebrity women against one another according to their knees. The only star with acceptable ones? The “Entertainment Tonight” host Mary Hart. Her knees are truly lovely, the article read.I thought about these narratives while watching — twice, in a “Clockwork Orange,” eyes-clamped-open kind of way — “Allen v. Farrow.” A four-part documentary by Amy Ziering, Kirby Dick and Amy Herdy, now on HBO, it centers on one of the more involuted scandals of the early ’90s, the breakdown of the relationship between Woody Allen and Mia Farrow and the accusations and counteraccusations and custody trial and appeals that followed. The couple met in 1979. They had a child together in 1987, Ronan Farrow (who changed his name from Satchel). In 1991, Allen formally adopted Mia Farrow’s two youngest children, Dylan, the daughter who has accused him of abuse, and Moses.Moses Farrow, Soon-Yi Previn, Dylan Farrow and Woody Allen in a scene from the documentary.Credit…HBOIn January 1992, Farrow discovered explicit Polaroids that Allen had taken of another of her daughters, her eldest, Soon-Yi Previn, then 21. That August, Dylan Farrow has said, she was abused when Allen was alone with her for perhaps 20 minutes during his visit to Mia Farrow’s home in Connecticut. Concerned by reports from babysitters and by statements that Dylan allegedly made, Farrow took the child to a pediatrician. The pediatrician reported the suspected abuse to law enforcement. Allen sued for custody. A criminal investigation began. The news media chronicled it all with the kind of fervid enthusiasm you mostly see in circus parades. (Allen has consistently denied the accusations.)Dick and Ziering’s previous work includes “The Invisible War,” an exposé of sexual assault in the military, and “The Hunting Ground,” which addressed assault on college campuses. Their last film, “On the Record,” explored allegations against the music producer Russell Simmons. (He has denied all accusations of nonconsensual sex.) So no, “Allen v. Farrow” isn’t exactly evenhanded. Then again, in cases of abuse allegations, is even-handedness exactly what we want?Allen and Soon-Yi Previn declined to participate in the series, recently arguing, via a spokesperson, that the filmmakers hadn’t given them enough notice. Not that Allen has made his own case particularly well. In a 1992 news conference he appears whiny, aggrieved. Later, in a “60 Minutes” interview, he says that he couldn’t possibly have abused his child in that moment, because it would have been “illogical.” Is this how most men approach predation? With careful pro-and-con lists? (Also, here’s the title of Allen’s 2015 movie about a murderous professor who sleeps with his young student? “Irrational Man.”)The documentary shows evidence supporting Allen, chiefly a report from the Child Sexual Abuse Clinic of the Yale-New Haven Hospital, which concluded that Dylan was either fantasizing or had been coached by her mother. On the other side is the testimony, in court and for the camera, of babysitters, family friends and Dylan herself. The judge in the custody trial ultimately labeled Allen’s behavior “grossly inappropriate.”Dylan, left, and Ronan Farrow with Woody Allen, who has called the documentary “shoddy.”Credit…HBOBut at the arrhythmic heart of the matter were these two stories. Until very recently, the public preferred the one that allowed Allen to keep making movies, movies in which comparatively powerless young women willingly enter into relationships with older, more powerful men.This past summer and fall, as my marriage was very quietly imploding, I spent what little free time I had jogging around the park near my Brooklyn apartment, trying, I guess, to figure out my own story, 3.3 miles at a time. While I ran, I listened to “You’re Wrong About,” an irreverent, stiletto-sharp podcast that often discusses maligned women of the ’80s, ’90s and ’00s — Anna Nicole Smith, Tonya Harding, Janet Jackson, Monica Lewinsky, half a dozen more.These stories run a big-haired gamut in terms of individual culpability, but in every case, popular culture found a way to blame the woman, often to excuse a more blameworthy man. Take, for example, Janet Jackson’s Nipplegate, a scandal that never touched Justin Timberlake. Or Monica Lewinsky, portrayed as a slut, as though that somehow negated the outrageous power imbalance in Bill Clinton’s relationship with her. This recalls another lesson I learned from ’80s and ’90s media: The only good victim is a perfect victim. That otherwise it was probably her fault.This particular narrative re-emerges in the recent documentary “Framing Britney Spears.” That film shows news media at the turn of the century panting to tell a story about a star acting inappropriately, a party girl wilding out when she should have been at home. “Britney: Out of Control,” read an Us Weekly cover. Whose control? Conveniently, the tabloid framing lays Spears’s spiral at her own bare feet. It avoids impugning the people with actual power, the magazine editors and the record company executives who shaped and policed and profited from her image..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1pd7fgo{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1pd7fgo{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1pd7fgo:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1pd7fgo{border:none;padding:20px 0 0;border-top:1px solid #121212;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-k9atqk{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-k9atqk strong{font-weight:700;}.css-k9atqk em{font-style:italic;}.css-k9atqk a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-k9atqk a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;}.css-k9atqk a:hover{border-bottom:none;}Understand the Allegations Against Woody AllenNearly 30 years ago, Woody Allen was accused of sexually abusing Dylan Farrow, his adoptive daughter. A new docuseries re-examines the case.This timeline reviews the major events in the complicated history of the director, his children and the Farrow family.The documentary filmmakers Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering spoke about delving into this thorny family tale. Dylan Farrow wrote an open letter in 2014, posted by the New York Times opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof, recounting her story in detail.Our book critic reviewed Mr. Allen’s recent memoir, “Apropos of Nothing.”A.O. Scott, co-chief film critic, grappled with the accusations and his complicated feelings on the filmmaker in 2018. I asked Sarah Marshall, a journalist and a host of “You’re Wrong About,” why popular culture likes to portray women as complicit and deserving of contempt. “It justifies subjugating them,” she said. “If women are randomly taken down for possessing what we see as an alarming degree of power, even if it isn’t, then maybe they’ll be more fearful about how they wield it.”Mia Farrow — with her children Daisy, Fletcher, Soon-Yi and Lark Previn — cooperated extensively with the documentary makers.Credit…HBOHas popular culture finally moved on? In a recent telephone interview, Anne Helen Petersen, a celebrity gossip expert and the author of “Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman,” discussed sympathetic attitudes toward Allen, Michael Jackson and R. Kelly in the ’90s and 2000s. “I don’t think we were equipped to deal with stories of abuse at that moment,” she said. Now she sees “a larger shift in our apparatus of language to understand and condemn when it comes to abuse,” she said.We can perhaps trace that shift if we survey the celebrity scandals of the past year — involving Marilyn Manson, Shia LaBeouf and others. Then again, when it comes to gossip and censure, the scales for men and women remain differently weighted. Armie Hammer had to allegedly ask to literally eat women in order to provoke outrage. (He’s denied the accusations.) All Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion had to do was rap about female arousal. A few weeks after they released “WAP,” Megan Thee Stallion accused the rapper Tory Lanez of shooting her in July, a charge Lanez has denied. Some social media users then suggested that the shooting was somehow her fault.The “Allen v. Farrow” series, in part because it sides so unequivocally and uncritically with Mia Farrow, will convince some but not all. Still, no matter what did or didn’t happen in that Connecticut crawl space in 1992, and even though we know, or we should know, that child sexual abuse is frighteningly common and that false reports of abuse are rare, there was one story that our culture believed. Here’s how a now adult Dylan Farrow put it in a CBS interview from 2018: “What I don’t understand is how is this crazy story of me being brainwashed and coached more believable than what I’m saying about being sexually assaulted by my father?”How? Because that story reinforces norms of power and control. Because it supports an idea of women as conniving and untrustworthy. Because making women wrong — for their knees, for their autonomy — is what our culture loves to do. And if a woman like Mia Farrow — pretty, successful, comparatively wealthy — could be exposed as a villain, it becomes that much easier to delegitimize the rest of us, particularly women of color, who are more likely to experience sexual violence and less likely to report it.If you believe Allen, his story is a happy one, at least until #MeToo came along and complicated it. He marries Previn. He makes movie after movie. He even wins another Oscar. If you believe Dylan Farrow, you recognize she grew up knowing that her abuser went unpunished, that his career flourished. That’s a terrible ending. What attitudes would our culture have to sacrifice to imagine a better one?AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘Allen v. Farrow’ Episode 2 Recap: A Family Torn Apart

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Allen v. Farrow’ Episode 2 Recap: A Family Torn ApartSeven months after the shocking discovery of Woody Allen’s relationship with Soon-Yi Previn, he was accused of sexually abusing Dylan Farrow.From left, Moses Farrow, Soon-Yi Previn, Dylan Farrow and Woody Allen.Credit…HBOFeb. 28, 2021At the end of Episode 1 of “Allen v. Farrow,” the HBO documentary series that investigates the decades-old sexual abuse accusations by Woody Allen’s adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, the family has just started to cope with the revelation that Mr. Allen and Soon-Yi Previn were involved in a secret relationship.In January 1992, Mia Farrow, Ms. Previn’s mother and Mr. Allen’s girlfriend, discovered nude photos of Ms. Previn, who was then in college, at Mr. Allen’s apartment.The second episode examines the fallout from that discovery and Dylan Farrow’s allegations that her father sexually assaulted her in August 1992, when she was 7 years old.After the first episode premiered, a spokesperson for Mr. Allen and Ms. Previn, who have been married for more than 20 years, released a statement saying the series was “riddled with falsehoods” and suggesting that the filmmakers did not give them ample notice to respond to it. The publisher of Mr. Allen’s recent memoir, “Apropos of Nothing,” also objected to the inclusion of snippets from the audiobook, which it says were used without permission.The filmmakers said in a statement on Wednesday that Mr. Allen and Ms. Previn were approached in December and were given two weeks to confirm their interest in an on- or off-camera interview. A representative confirmed that they had received the request but did not respond to it, the statement said. Mr. Allen has denied ever having been sexually inappropriate or abusive toward Dylan Farrow.Here is what we saw on Sunday night, in Episode 2.A fixation on a certain kind of romanceThis episode, using interviews with journalists and clips from Mr. Allen’s films, explores Mr. Allen’s focus on romantic relationships between older men and younger women.In addition to the films with that theme that have been produced (“Husbands and Wives,” “September”), the episode considers those that did not make it to the screen and that reside in the Woody Allen archive at Princeton University. The archive contains multiple versions of film scripts and pages of ideas with notes in the margins. Richard Morgan, a freelance journalist who examined the archive for The Washington Post, said in the documentary that it reveals a “focus” on “very young women.”The episode includes an interview with Christina Engelhardt, a woman who says she started a relationship with Mr. Allen when she was 17 years old and he was in his early 40s. Ms. Engelhardt, who was a model as a teenager, said she believes their relationship was the basis for “Manhattan,” Mr. Allen’s acclaimed 1979 film that centers on a romance between a high school girl and a man — played by Mr. Allen — who is older than her father.She says in an interview with the filmmakers that her relationship with Mr. Allen, which she said lasted until she was 23, has “taken a toll” on her, affecting her later relationships. She says the experience also made her a “supervigilant mother.”Dylan FarrowCredit…HBOThe aftermath of the photosAfter Ms. Farrow discovers the nude Polaroids of Ms. Previn, the family is in shock. Daisy Previn, one of Ms. Farrow’s daughters, recounts how she told her sister, Soon-Yi, that she should come back to the family — that their mother would forgive her — and how Soon-Yi went in another direction, to Mr. Allen.Ms. Farrow recalls a moment that she was “not proud” of from around this time: She found Soon-Yi talking to someone on the phone and, assuming it was Mr. Allen, Ms. Farrow said she “pounced on her,” slapping Soon-Yi on the side of the face and the shoulder. (In 2014, Moses Farrow, Mia and Woody’s son, told People magazine that his mother bullied the children and hit him. Moses, who has sided with his father in saying that he does not believe that Dylan was molested, has not participated in the docuseries.)Part of a taped phone conversation between Ms. Farrow and Mr. Allen from the summer of 1992 is included in the episode. Ms. Farrow says she decided to record it because she thought Mr. Allen had already taped one of their phone calls. In the conversation, Ms. Farrow and Mr. Allen argue about what they should say to the media if his relationship with Ms. Previn becomes public.Fletcher Previn, one of Ms. Farrow’s older children, tells the filmmakers that during this time, his opinion of Mr. Allen shifted dramatically.“He went from a father figure to a person who is a predator that we have to keep out of the house and protect ourselves from,” Mr. Previn said.Aug. 4, 1992Amid this chaos, the family went to their Connecticut country house, and despite the rift between Ms. Farrow and Mr. Allen, he had a legal right to see Dylan and Moses Farrow because he had adopted them in 1991..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1pd7fgo{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1pd7fgo{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1pd7fgo:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1pd7fgo{border:none;padding:20px 0 0;border-top:1px solid #121212;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-k9atqk{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-k9atqk strong{font-weight:700;}.css-k9atqk em{font-style:italic;}.css-k9atqk a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-k9atqk a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;}.css-k9atqk a:hover{border-bottom:none;}Understand the Allegations Against Woody AllenNearly 30 years ago, Woody Allen was accused of sexually abusing Dylan Farrow, his adoptive daughter. A new docuseries re-examines the case.This timeline reviews the major events in the complicated history of the director, his children and the Farrow family.The documentary filmmakers Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering spoke about delving into this thorny family tale. Dylan Farrow wrote an open letter in 2014, posted by the New York Times opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof, recounting her story in detail.Our book critic reviewed Mr. Allen’s recent memoir, “Apropos of Nothing.”A.O. Scott, co-chief film critic, grappled with the accusations and his complicated feelings on the filmmaker in 2018. The episodes include a mixture of interviews and court testimony from those who were present on Aug. 4, 1992, the day that Dylan Farrow says her father assaulted her. Mia Farrow had gone to the store with Casey Pascal, a family friend whose children and babysitter were at the house that day. Sophie Bergé, a French tutor staying with the family that summer, said that Mr. Allen arrived while they were running errands.On that day, there were about 20 minutes during which Dylan Farrow could not be found, according to 1993 testimony in the custody case from Kristi Groteke, the babysitter for the Farrow children. Ms. Groteke said in court that she looked for Dylan throughout the house but could not find her.When Ms. Farrow and Ms. Pascal returned home, Ms. Farrow said, she noticed that Dylan was not wearing underpants and asked her babysitter to get a new pair.The day afterOn Aug. 5, Ms. Pascal said that she called Ms. Farrow to tell her that the Pascals’ babysitter, Alison Stickland, had witnessed something that disturbed her: Dylan Farrow sitting on the couch, with Mr. Allen, on his knees, his head buried in his daughter’s lap.Ms. Farrow tells the filmmakers that when she asked her daughter what had happened, Dylan confirmed that Mr. Allen had put his head in her lap and that he had also taken her up to the attic and touched her “privates.” Ms. Farrow says she decided to film her daughter’s account because she wanted to tell Dylan’s therapist, who was away for the summer.That footage, which is being shown publicly for the first time in this series, later became the subject of controversy: Some thought it was clear evidence that Dylan Farrow was telling the truth, while others saw it as evidence that Ms. Farrow had coached her daughter on what to say.In the video, Dylan Farrow says that in the attic, her father told her, “Do not move, I have to do this,” and that if she stayed still, they could go on a trip to Paris.Dylan Farrow, now 35 years old, says in the documentary she remembers that during the assault, she focused her attention on her brother’s train set.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘Allen v. Farrow’ Episode 1 Recap: ‘Inappropriately Intense’ Behavior

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Allen v. Farrow’ Episode 1 Recap: ‘Inappropriately Intense’ BehaviorThe new HBO documentary series takes another look at Dylan Farrow’s sexual abuse allegations against her adoptive father, Woody Allen.Woody Allen, center, with Dylan Farrow, left, and Ronan Farrow, in a scene from the docuseries.Credit…HBOFeb. 21, 2021The first episode of the four-part HBO docuseries “Allen v. Farrow” debuted on Sunday night, providing a fresh examination of Dylan Farrow’s decades-old sexual abuse allegations against the filmmaker Woody Allen, her adoptive father.When Ms. Farrow was 7 years old, she accused Mr. Allen of sexually assaulting her at the family’s Connecticut country house on Aug. 4, 1992. Mr. Allen has long denied the allegations, which were front and center in a bitter custody battle between Mr. Allen and Mia Farrow, the Hollywood power couple who made 13 films together.Mr. Allen’s relationship with Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, is also central to the series. About seven months before the day that Dylan Farrow says her father assaulted her, Mia Farrow discovered nude photographs of Ms. Previn, then a first-year college student, in Mr. Allen’s apartment.Starting in 1992, there were several years of concentrated media attention on the family amid the custody battle and investigations by the authorities in response to Dylan Farrow’s account. Mr. Allen has long argued that Mia Farrow had coached Dylan to make the allegations after learning about his relationship with Ms. Previn, whom he married in 1997. Although a state’s attorney in Connecticut declined to prosecute Mr. Allen, saying that he wanted to spare Dylan the trauma of a trial, he said he believed she had been molested.Nearly three decades have passed since the accusations surfaced, but the complicated saga has returned repeatedly and become the subject of debate — most recently during the #MeToo movement.This series, created by the documentary filmmakers Kirby Dick, Amy Ziering and Amy Herdy, includes extensive interviews with Dylan and Mia Farrow, as well as Dylan’s siblings and family friends. It includes footage of Dylan Farrow at age 7 recounting to her mother, who is behind the camera, what she says her father did to her in August 1992 — videotape that has never before been released publicly. Letty Aronson, Mr. Allen’s sister, who is currently handling publicity requests for him, declined to comment on the documentary.That footage does not appear in the first episode, which explores the beginnings of Ms. Farrow’s relationship with Mr. Allen and observations about how Dylan became the subject of her father’s “intense affection.” Here is a recap of what we saw on Sunday night.Mia Farrow, center, with, from left, her children Daisy, Fletcher, Soon-Yi and Lark.Credit…HBO‘Idyllic, most of the time’The series opens at a 1992 news conference at the Plaza Hotel in New York, during which Mr. Allen defends himself against the abuse allegations and accuses Mia Farrow of instigating them.But the episode quickly veers away from the account of Mr. Allen, who did not participate in the series but whose perspective is often captured through audio snippets of his recent memoir “Apropos of Nothing.” It turns to an adult Dylan Farrow, now 35, who is seen flipping through a family photo album.Dylan Farrow, who was born in Texas and adopted as a baby, recounts a childhood that was “idyllic, most of the time,” describing what it was like to be the child of a famous Hollywood actress and director: memories of stumbling around film sets as a child, being on private planes for family vacations, swimming at “posh” hotel pools — all of it illustrated by home-video footage shot by Ms. Farrow as her children were growing up.But below the surface of this bustling, unconventional family — nine children, taken care of by unmarried movie-star parents — things were complicated.The Hollywood power coupleThe episode rewinds to the early romance between Mia Farrow and Woody Allen, starting when they first met at Elaine’s, the Manhattan restaurant, in 1979. Ms. Farrow recalls how the couple would flash their lights at each other from their apartment windows, which were visible to each other from across Central Park. The signal was a way of saying “I love you,” she said. Hanging a red towel out the window meant, “Love you huge.”Despite the fact that Ms. Farrow already had seven children — three biologically with her husband at the time, André Previn, and four of them adopted — she said she accepted that Mr. Allen told her that he had “zero interest in kids.”But gradually, Mr. Allen began to spend more time with the children at the home in Connecticut and at his apartment in the city, establishing a particularly strong bond with Moses Farrow, whom Ms. Farrow adopted after her divorce from Mr. Previn.Mr. Allen (holding Dylan) and Ms. Farrow and the rest of the family. In the documentary, Dylan Farrow says her childhood was “idyllic, most of the time.” Credit…HBOGrowing the familyWhen Ms. Farrow wanted to expand the family even further, she said, Mr. Allen told her that he still didn’t want any responsibility for a child of his own but that he “might be more kindly disposed if it was a little blond girl.” Ms. Farrow ended up adopting Dylan, who quickly became the subject of Mr. Allen’s affections. Two years later, Ms. Farrow had a son, Ronan Farrow, who was initially called Satchel. (Ms. Farrow later suggested in a 2013 interview with Vanity Fair that Ronan may have been the child of Frank Sinatra, not Mr. Allen.)In 1991, Ms. Farrow agreed to a family dynamic that would shape the legal conflict in the years to come: Mr. Allen adopted Dylan Farrow and Moses Farrow.An ‘inappropriately intense’ relationshipThe heart of the first episode is a series of interviews with members of the Farrow family and friends, some of whom have never spoken publicly, who say that they witnessed behavior by Mr. Allen toward Dylan Farrow that seemed inappropriate or made them uncomfortable.Dylan Farrow said that she has memories of getting into bed with her father — both of them in their underwear — and he would wrap his body around her “very intimately.” A friend of the family, Priscilla Gilman, who became close with the family while dating Matthew Previn, one of Mia Farrow’s eldest sons, recalled that she witnessed Mr. Allen in that situation, getting out of the bed in his underwear. Ms. Gilman, who often spent time with the children, said that she also saw Dylan Farrow sucking Mr. Allen’s thumb. (Ms. Gilman said Mr. Allen told her that sucking his thumb calmed his daughter, but an adult Dylan Farrow now sees it as a violation, recalling that her father had directed her specifically on how to do so.)Mia Farrow’s sister Tisa Farrow said in an interview that she once saw Mr. Allen’s hand linger “suggestively” between Dylan Farrow’s buttocks when applying sunscreen.Mia Farrow, who recalled seeing Mr. Allen kneeling in front of their daughter or sitting next to her with his face in her lap, said that she had at one point confronted him about what she had been witnessing, saying that she was not “comfortable with the way that you’re handling her and looking at her.” She said that Mr. Allen became angry and that she ended up apologizing profusely. But then a respected psychiatrist in Ms. Farrow’s apartment building, Ethel Person, called to tell her that there was something “off” about the way Mr. Allen greeted Dylan Farrow. Mr. Allen then agreed to see a psychologist.The psychologist said she saw Mr. Allen being “inappropriately intense” with Dylan Farrow. But, Ms. Farrow tells the filmmakers, the therapist did not believe the behavior was sexual — even if onlookers or the child herself might perceive it as sexual.A young Dylan Farrow. Mr. Allen wrote in his memoir released last year, “I adored Dylan and spent as much time with her as possible from her infancy on.”Credit…HBODylan’s changing behaviorIn an interview with the filmmakers, Dylan Farrow says that she had loved her father but that she received “intense affection all the time”; the people around her, including Ms. Gilman and her brother Ronan, noticed that she would often scramble away or try to hide when Mr. Allen called her over or entered the room.“Over time, Dylan went from being outgoing and effervescent and talkative to her having this sadness and this withdrawn quality,” Mr. Farrow said in an interview with the filmmakers.Mr. Allen has denied having ever been sexually inappropriate or abusive toward Dylan Farrow, instead portraying himself in his own writing as an initially reluctant father who surprisingly became enamored with his daughter and enjoyed showering her with affection. In part of his memoir that was included in the episode, Mr. Allen wrote: “I adored Dylan and spent as much time with her as possible from her infancy on. I played with her, bought her endless toys, dolls, stuffed animals, My Little Ponies.”The turning pointThen, in January 1992, came the discovery that changed everything. Ms. Farrow said that she visited Mr. Allen’s apartment to retrieve a coat and discovered, next to the phone, racy Polaroid photos of her college-age daughter, Ms. Previn.Ms. Farrow said she remembered putting the photos in her pocket and leaving, in shock. When she returned home, she said that she confronted Ms. Previn. (Ms. Previn did not participate in this documentary.)Dylan Farrow’s therapist advised her mother to tell the children about the photos, Mia Farrow said. She was reluctant, but she did, and Dylan Farrow said it was the first time she realized that she was perhaps not the only one at the receiving end of her father’s behavior, saying that she thought to herself, “Oh, it’s not just me.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Soon-Yi Previn, Dylan Farrow: A Timeline

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWoody Allen, Mia Farrow, Soon-Yi Previn, Dylan Farrow: A TimelineA look at major events in the complicated history of the director, his children and the Farrow family as a new documentary revisits the case.Woody Allen and Mia Farrow in the 1980s with, from left, Fletcher, Dylan (in Farrow’s arms), Moses, and Soon-Yi.Credit…The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesSopan Deb, Deborah Leiderman and Feb. 21, 2021, 11:16 a.m. ETFor years, the account given by Woody Allen’s then-7-year-old adopted daughter Dylan Farrow in the days following Aug. 4, 1992, when she says he sexually assaulted her, has been central to her case against him.The specialists who heard the child’s account then and in later years have been divided on whether it was credible or whether it was coerced by her adoptive mother, Mia Farrow. But the public has only heard Dylan, as an adult, recount what she told her mother nearly 30 years ago.Now Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick’s four-part documentary, “Allen v. Farrow,” which premieres on HBO on Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern (and streams on HBO Max), will for the first time include video footage of Dylan, recorded by her mother, describing what happened to her just days after she said Mr. Allen molested her.The film is the latest development in a case that has been debated for nearly 30 years. It made headlines again in 2014 when Mr. Allen received a lifetime achievement award at the Golden Globes — and Dylan Farrow wrote an open letter, posted by the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, recounting her story in detail in response.Then, in September 2018, New York magazine published a lengthy interview with Soon-Yi Previn, her first extended remarks on her relationship with Mr. Allen, who began to date her mother, Mia, when Ms. Previn was a young girl. Mr. Allen and Ms. Previn began a romantic relationship in 1991, when Ms. Previn was 21.Mr. Allen has long denied assaulting his daughter and argued that Mia Farrow coached Dylan to say she had been assaulted after discovering that Ms. Previn and Mr. Allen were having an affair.This timeline highlights important dates and developments in the narrative that has its roots in the 1970s. Based on New York Times articles and other news reports, it is a guide, not a comprehensive accounting, and will be updated periodically.1977Mia Farrow and her husband, André Previn, adopt Soon-Yi Previn, from Korea; she is believed to be about 7 years old.1979Woody Allen and Ms. Farrow are introduced at Elaine’s, the Manhattan restaurant, and later begin a relationship.Woody Allen and Mia Farrow in “A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy.”Credit…MGM1982The couple’s first movie together, “A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy,” is released. They would collaborate on 12 more films, including “The Purple Rose of Cairo” and “Hannah and Her Sisters.”1985Ms. Farrow adopts a baby girl, Dylan, who was born in Texas.1987Ms. Farrow and Mr. Allen have a son, Ronan. Ms. Farrow would later suggest in a 2013 Vanity Fair interview that Frank Sinatra may have been his father.December 1991Mr. Allen adopts Dylan and Moses Farrow, one of Ms. Farrow’s sons, whom she adopted in 1980. Mr. Allen, who is 56, begins an affair with Ms. Farrow’s 21-year-old daughter, Ms. Previn, around this time.Jan. 13, 1992Ms. Farrow discovers nude photographs of Ms. Previn in Mr. Allen’s apartment. He later testifies in court that he thought the affair would remain secret.Aug. 1, 1992With the affair between Mr. Allen and Ms. Previn continuing, Ms. Farrow calls Susan Coates, a psychologist who had been helping the family, and describes Mr. Allen as “satanic and evil” and begs her to “find a way to stop him.”Mr. Allen and Ms. Previn around 1992.Credit…The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesAug. 4, 1992According to Dylan Farrow, Mr. Allen abused her that day, touching her genitalia. She was 7 at the time. She detailed her accusation in January 2018 on “CBS This Morning”:DYLAN FARROW: I was taken to a small attic crawl space in my mother’s country house in Connecticut by my father. He instructed me to lay down on my stomach and play with my brother’s toy train that was set up. And he sat behind me in the doorway, and as I played with the toy train, I was sexually assaulted … As a 7-year-old I would say, I would have said he touched my private parts.GAYLE KING: Mmhmm. OK.FARROW: Which I did say.KING: All right. All right.FARROW: As a 32-year-old, he touched my labia and my vulva with his finger.Aug. 5, 1992Casey Pascal, a friend of Ms. Farrow’s, tells her that Dylan’s babysitter described observing Mr. Allen in a position with Dylan that seemed inappropriate. According to Vanity Fair, Ms. Farrow immediately asked Dylan about it, and she gave her account to her mother.Ms. Farrow calls Dr. Coates, the psychologist, and says Dylan has complained that Mr. Allen has abused her. A major question later considered in court was whether Ms. Farrow had coached her daughter during this period. According to later court testimony by Dr. Coates, she is struck by Ms. Farrow’s calm during the call, as opposed to her agitated state in the Aug. 1 call.Aug. 13, 1992Mr. Allen sues Ms. Farrow in New York State Court for custody of Ronan, Dylan and Moses Farrow.Aug. 17, 1992Mr. Allen releases a statement confirming his relationship with Ms. Previn, saying it is “real and happily all true.” The same day, the Connecticut State Police announce they are investigating Mr. Allen. The focus: the allegations that he molested Dylan.Aug. 18, 1992Mr. Allen makes a public appearance to say he is “saddened” by the child abuse allegations and calls them “false” and “outrageous.”Nov. 1992Vanity Fair publishes “Mia’s Story,” a lengthy reported piece about Ms. Farrow, her family, the abuse allegations and her history with Mr. Allen.Nov. 22, 1992Mr. Allen speaks on “60 Minutes” and defends himself against the molestation allegations.Mr. Allen, at a press conference outside of the Manhattan Supreme Court in January 1993.Credit… Steve Allen/Liaison, Getty ImagesMarch 18, 1993After a seven-month inquiry by a team of child-abuse investigators at Yale-New Haven Hospital, Mr. Allen’s lawyers say he has been cleared of molesting Dylan Farrow. Ms. Farrow’s legal team calls the confidential report “incomplete and inaccurate.” The report, which was commissioned by Connecticut law enforcement, was never officially released, but media outlets reported some of its contents.March 19, 1993The custody trial begins. Mr. Allen takes the stand and describes the disintegration of his relationship with Ms. Farrow. He testifies that Ms. Farrow threatened him in phone calls and flew into rages in front of the children after the two started falling out.March 25, 1993Ms. Farrow takes the stand. She goes into detail about what Dylan told her the previous summer. She says she worried that Mr. Allen had a sexual attraction to Dylan from when she was 2 years old.March 29, 1993Dr. Coates testifies that she told Mr. Allen she feared for his safety because of threats made by Ms. Farrow. She says that she considered Mr. Allen’s relationship with Dylan to be “inappropriately intense,” but not sexual. The next day, Ms. Farrow’s lawyer portrayed Dr. Coates as “mesmerized” by Mr. Allen.April 27, 1993A child psychiatrist testifies that the report from Yale-New Haven Hospital is “seriously flawed.”May 3, 1993A sworn statement from John M. Leventhal, the doctor who led the Yale-New Haven team, is released to the public. It theorizes that Dylan was emotionally unstable and coached by Ms. Farrow to accuse Mr. Allen. The Yale-New Haven team interviewed Dylan nine times and said she changed details throughout the interviews; Dr. Leventhal said in his statement that he had interviewed her, but Vanity Fair reported years later that he had not.Ms. Farrow with her lawyer Eleanor Alter on June 7, 1993, after the court sided with her in the custody case.Credit…Jeff Christensen/Liaison, via Getty Images June 7, 1993Mr. Allen loses the custody battle. Acting Justice Elliott Wilk of the State Supreme Court said Mr. Allen is “self-absorbed, untrustworthy and insensitive.” He denies Mr. Allen visitation rights with Dylan.Sept. 24, 1993Frank Maco, a state’s attorney in Connecticut, announces that while he has “probable cause” to prosecute Mr. Allen, he would decline to press charges to spare Dylan the trauma of a trial. Mr. Maco says he believed that Dylan had been molested.January 1994Mr. Allen files an appeal to the custody case.May 12, 1994The New York State appeals court denies Mr. Allen’s appeal.Mr. Allen and Ms. Previn in Paris on Dec. 25, 1997. They were married two days before in Venice, Italy.Credit…Michael Euler/Associated PressDec. 23, 1997Mr. Allen marries Ms. Previn.June 24, 2001Mr. Allen gives a long interview to Time magazine’s Walter Isaacson recounting his relationship with Soon-Yi — “The heart wants what it wants,” he says — and again denies the allegations by Dylan and Mia Farrow.June 17, 2012After years of relatively little news coverage of Mr. Allen and Mia and Dylan Farrow, Ronan Farrow posts on Twitter: “Happy father’s day — or as they call it in my family, happy brother-in-law’s day.”November 2013Dylan Farrow goes on the record for the first time in an interview with Vanity Fair. She is 28 now and describes receiving entreaties from Mr. Allen from when she was 18. She says of the alleged abuse by Mr. Allen: “There’s a lot I don’t remember, but what happened in the attic I remember. I remember what I was wearing and what I wasn’t wearing.”Jan. 12, 2014In response to Mr. Allen receiving a lifetime achievement award at the Golden Globes, which Diane Keaton accepted on his behalf, Ronan Farrow posts on Twitter: “Missed the Woody Allen tribute — did they put the part where a woman publicly confirmed he molested her at age 7 before or after Annie Hall?”Ms. Keaton at the Golden Globes in 2014.Credit…Paul Drinkwater/NBCUniversal, via Getty ImagesFeb. 1, 2014Dylan Farrow writes an open letter recounting her story in detail, posted by the Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.Feb. 4, 2014After the letter, Mia Farrow posts on Twitter: “I love my daughter. I will always protect her. A lot of ugliness is going to be aimed at me. But this is not about me, it’s about her truth.”Feb. 5, 2014In response to Dylan’s open letter, Moses Farrow defends Mr. Allen in an interview with People Magazine, saying Mia Farrow coached the children to hate Mr. Allen. He says that Dylan was never molested and that Ms. Farrow was a bully.Feb. 7, 2014Mr. Allen, writing in the Opinion section of The Times, denies the allegations again.2014Ms. Keaton and Alec Baldwin, two friends and stars in Allen films, defend him in the face of Dylan Farrow’s accusations. Cate Blanchett, the star of Mr. Allen’s “Blue Jasmine,” is more circumspect, saying she hopes Mr. Allen and the family “find some sort of resolution and peace.” Lena Dunham calls Dylan “courageous” and urges people to read her open letter.May 11, 2016In a guest column for The Hollywood Reporter, Ronan Farrow writes about the struggles that Dylan faced in getting her story out and says he believes Dylan’s account.October 2017The New York Times, and then Ronan Farrow in The New Yorker, publish articles about sexual harassment, abuse and rape allegations against Harvey Weinstein.Mr. Allen says he feels “sad for Harvey” and warns against “a witch hunt atmosphere.” He later calls Mr. Weinstein “a sad, sick man.”Kate Winslet, the star of Mr. Allen’s film “Wonder Wheel,” demurs when asked about the accusations against Mr. Allen: “It’s just a difficult discussion. I’d rather respectfully not enter it today.” Griffin Newman, an actor in Mr. Allen’s next film, “A Rainy Day in New York,” expresses regret for working with him and pledges to donate his salary to an organization that fights sexual violence.November 2017The actor Elliot Page says that working with Mr. Allen on the film “To Rome With Love” was “the biggest regret of my career” and expresses sympathy for women and minors who have suffered sexual abuse.Dec. 7, 2017Dylan Farrow writes an op-ed for The Los Angeles Times: “Why has the #MeToo revolution spared Woody Allen?”January 2018Colin Firth and Greta Gerwig say they would not work with Mr. Allen again. Mira Sorvino, who won an Oscar for Mr. Allen’s “Mighty Aphrodite,” rebukes him and expresses support for Dylan. Rebecca Hall and Timothée Chalamet, two stars of “A Rainy Day in New York,” also criticize him and donate their salaries from the film to charity. Ms. Winslet, alluding to Mr. Allen, expresses “bitter regrets that I have about poor decisions to work with individuals with whom I wish I had not.”Dylan Farrow with Gayle King on “CBS This Morning.”Credit…CBS, via Associated PressJan. 18, 2018“CBS This Morning” airs the first television interview with Dylan Farrow, where she recounts the allegations. Mr. Allen again denies them.Feb. 26, 2018The actor Peter Sarsgaard, in an interview with Chuck Todd on “MTP Daily,” says he would not do another Allen movie. As for Jeff Daniels, who was also asked in the interview whether he would work with Mr. Allen again, he says, “He will always be a great American filmmaker and I got to work with him at the age of 30 and it changed my life.” Mr. Daniels adds: “I believe Dylan Farrow. So now, would I do another one with Woody? The difficult decision would be to — turn him down. Because of ‘Purple Rose.’”Sept. 16, 2018New York magazine publishes a long interview with Ms. Previn in which she accuses Ms. Farrow of harsh parenting and defends Mr. Allen, who sits in on parts of the conversation.Nov. 16, 2018The Times publishes an interview with the actor Jude Law, who worked with Mr. Allen on “A Rainy Day in New York,” in which he says the shelving of the film by the distributor, Amazon Studios, was a “terrible shame.”When asked about the accusations against Mr. Allen, Mr. Law said he did not want to get involved in the conversation: “I just don’t feel like it was my place to comment, and it’s too delicate a situation. I feel like enough has been said about it. It’s a private affair.”The director Woody Allen, in 2017. A new HBO documentary, “Allen v. Farrow,” explores Dylan Farrow’s accusation that Mr. Allen sexually assaulted her as a child, which he has repeatedly denied.Credit…Brendan Mcdermid/ReutersFebruary 2019Mr. Allen sues Amazon for canceling a $68 million movie deal. (Amazon had backed out amid renewed focus on Dylan’s allegations.) Weeks later, The Times reports that Mr. Allen is shooting a new movie in Spain, backed by the Barcelona-based conglomerate Mediapro.When asked why it was working with Mr. Allen after Amazon had stopped doing so, Mediapro said in a statement, “We have a 10-year relationship with Mr. Allen and, like all projects we produce, we judge the creator by its work.”November 9, 2019Mr. Allen and Amazon settle; terms are not disclosed.March 2, 2020Grand Central Publishing, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, announces that it will publish Mr. Allen’s memoir, “Apropos of Nothing,” on April 7. The book is described as a comprehensive account of his life, “both personal and professional,” including details about his relationships with “family, friends and the loves of his life.”In a statement on Twitter, Dylan Farrow harshly criticizes Hachette, which had previously published Ronan Farrow’s book “Catch and Kill,” which recounts how he reported sexual assault allegations against the producer Harvey Weinstein. She calls the decision to publish Mr. Allen’s memoir “an utter betrayal.”March 5, 2020Dozens of Hachette employees stage a walkout in protest. The next day, Hachette announces it will no longer publish “Apropos of Nothing.”March 23, 2020Mr. Allen’s book is published by Arcade Publishing. In the book, he again denies that he sexually abused Dylan and calls the allegations “a total fabrication from start to finish.”February 21, 2021The HBO documentary “Allen v. Farrow” makes public for the first time the video footage from 1992 when Mia Farrow recorded Dylan, at age 7, reporting that Mr. Allen had sexually assaulted her.Sara Aridi contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Filmmakers Look at Woody Allen Abuse Allegations in Four-Part Series

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyFilmmakers Look at Woody Allen Abuse Allegations in Four-Part SeriesKirby Dick and Amy Ziering are known for films exposing sexual abuse in institutions. Why did they delve into a thorny family tale? “We realized the full story had never gotten out.”Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering spent three years making a documentary that re-examines the allegation that Woody Allen sexually abused his adopted daughter.Credit…Photographs by Rozette Rago for The New York TimesPublished More