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      A Kevin Spacey Accuser Tried to Sue Anonymously. A Judge Said No.

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      As sexual assault cases proliferate, judges must weigh accusers’ requests for anonymity against the tradition of open courts and fairness toward defendants.The man said he was 14 years old when he was sexually assaulted by the actor Kevin Spacey in the early 1980s. Last year he filed a lawsuit against Mr. Spacey in which he sought to maintain anonymity, identifying himself in court papers only as “C.D.”Earlier this year the judge in the case, which is being heard in the Southern District in New York, ordered the man’s lawyers to identify him privately to Mr. Spacey’s lawyers. And this month the judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, went further: he ruled that C.D. would have to identify himself publicly if he wanted to continue on to trial.The man’s lawyers responded Thursday that he would not, writing that the “sudden unwanted attention that revelation of his identity will cause is simply too much for him to bear.” They said in a letter to the court that they expect him to be removed from the case — which involves another plaintiff, who is using his real name — but suggested that they plan to pursue an appeal.In the #MeToo era, as more people have been turning to civil courts with accounts of sexual assault, judges are increasingly being asked to weigh the strong desire of many accusers to maintain their anonymity against the presumption of openness in the court system and the ability of the accused to defend themselves.“It’s the idea of balancing an open court system with the idea of protecting someone’s right to seek relief,” said Jayne S. Ressler, an associate professor of law at Brooklyn Law School.While anonymity has long been allowed under certain limited circumstances if it protects an accuser from harassment or other harm, courts tend to weigh it against the general principle that complaints must name both the defendant and accuser.The issue tends to come down to whether the benefits of anonymity, and of allowing a victim to come forward freely, outweigh the public’s interest in being able to scrutinize what is happening in the courts and the defendant’s ability to mount an effective defense.People who work to combat sexual violence warn that requiring people to use their own names could discourage some victims from seeking justice.“The risk of being publicly identified is a huge deterrent to coming forward for many survivors of sexual violence,” said Erinn Robinson, a spokeswoman for RAINN, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. “Decisions in these cases should always be made with a trauma-informed and victim-centered understanding of the impact this can have on survivors’ healing.”Harvey Weinstein arrives at State Supreme Court in Manhattan in February 2020.Desiree Rios for The New York TimesBut lawyers for the accused said that it is difficult to mount a defense against people who file cases anonymously, or using pseudonyms. “An increasing amount of lawsuits will attempt to be filed under a pseudonym, and that’s concerning because the justice system in our country has as its fabric an open court system and a level playing field,” said Imran H. Ansari, a lawyer who represents Harvey Weinstein.It is not uncommon these days for accusers to bring sexual assault cases anonymously and then, if they fail to negotiate settlements out of court, to be ordered by judges to come forward in their own name before taking their claims to trial, legal experts said.Last month, state court judges in Texas said that most of the 22 women who had sued Deshaun Watson, the Houston Texans star quarterback, had to identify themselves, even after they said they feared intimidation efforts.A judge in New York federal court last September denied a woman’s request to sue Mr. Weinstein anonymously. (The case has since been voluntarily withdrawn.)Professor Ressler said that though the principle of the open court still dominated many decisions, she had detected an uptick in sympathy from courts toward sexual assault plaintiffs suing anonymously.“It appears that some courts are less reluctant to allow anonymity, let’s put it like that,” she said. “Most judges do tend to rule against anonymity, but not all.”She pointed to a 2018 case in New York Supreme Court where a trial judge allowed a number of plaintiffs to proceed anonymously against a doctor, and a Massachusetts Superior Court case in 2019 when a court imposed anonymity on a plaintiff, who was a student.One of Mr. Spacey’s other accusers, a massage therapist who had accused Mr. Spacey of groping and trying to kiss him before offering him oral sex during a massage, was permitted by a federal judge in California to file a lawsuit under a pseudonym, although that case was dismissed after the plaintiff died unexpectedly ahead of the trial.Experts say that in the #MeToo era, some courts are becoming more understanding of the high costs sexual assault victims pay personally when they come forward publicly.There is also more acknowledgment that in the modern hyper-connected society, when information spreads widely and quickly online and remains easily searchable for years, there is less chance of privacy once a name becomes public.“There is a sense that your name can live on in perpetuity connected with something terrible, so you have to have a chance without your name being associated with it,” said Andrew Miltenberg, a lawyer who has represented men accused of sexual assault.Even so, Mr. Miltenberg said, eventually, “A judge tends to say, ‘Yes, you can proceed like that but know that if we end up in front of a jury, think very hard, because I am going to open the court.’”Mr. Spacey, 61, has faced a series of sexual misconduct allegations in recent years.In 2018, he was charged with sexual assault in Nantucket, Mass., after an 18-year-old man accused him of fondling him in a restaurant two years earlier. But prosecutors there dropped the case after the accuser invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to continue testifying after Mr. Spacey’s lawyer warned that he could be charged with a felony if he had deleted evidence from his cellphone.In the most recent case, the plaintiff, identified as “C.D.,” claimed that he met Mr. Spacey as a teenager in an acting class in Westchester County in the early 1980s.According to the lawsuit, Mr. Spacey invited the student to his apartment when they met again a few years later and he was still a minor, and “engaged in sexual acts” with him on multiple different occasions. In their final encounter, Mr. Spacey assaulted the teenager despite his resisting and saying “no,” the lawsuit said.In an interview with BuzzFeed News in 2017, the actor Anthony Rapp accused Mr. Spacey of making an inappropriate sexual advance toward Mr. Rapp when he was 14.Evan Agostini/Invision, via Associated PressC.D. filed the lawsuit with another accuser, Anthony Rapp, who first made accusations against Mr. Spacey in 2017. Mr. Spacey has denied C.D.’s and Mr. Rapp’s sexual misconduct accusations.In court papers, lawyers for C.D. argued that he would suffer psychological trauma if his name became public.“The thought of my name being circulated in the media and on the internet and of people contacting me as a victim of Kevin Spacey terrifies me,” C.D. wrote in court papers.But the case raised questions about the difficulty of defending a sexual assault case when the accuser insists on remaining anonymous.Even after the court had ruled that Mr. Spacey’s lawyers should privately be told C.D.’s real name, they argued that their ability to conduct discovery and investigate C.D.’s claims would be hampered if he could maintain his anonymity toward the public. They would be unable to disclose his name to witnesses, they noted, while potential witnesses who could have relevant information might not come forward if his real name was not publicized.Mr. Spacey’s “ability to investigate and conduct discovery of CD’s claims and prepare for trial would be severely inhibited,” his lawyers wrote in legal documents.Judge Kaplan agreed.He conceded that privacy was diminished by the internet and that the case involved sensitive and personal issues, both points arguing for anonymity.However, in ruling for shedding anonymity, the judge emphasized that C.D. himself had spoken to people about Mr. Spacey as far back at the 1990s, and had given an anonymous interview about Mr. Spacey to Vulture in 2017. He also noted that C.D. is no longer a child.“Though CD brings allegations relating to alleged sexual abuse as a minor, he now is an adult in his 50s who has chosen to level serious charges against a defendant in the public eye,” Judge Kaplan wrote. “Fairness requires that he be prepared to stand behind his charges publicly.”Both a lawyer for C.D., Peter J. Saghir, and for Spacey, Chase A. Scolnick, declined to comment.Experts said criminal cases offer greater anonymity protection to sexual assault victims than civil cases. In civil claims, the two parties often try to negotiate a settlement, and in practice few cases in fact proceed to trial. A judge’s ruling to lift anonymity sometimes acts as a catalyst to force a settlement, legal experts said.Lawyers for plaintiffs say they urge their clients to be realistic when it comes to seeking anonymity.“When you represent these survivors you have to tell them, there is no guarantee you are going to be able to proceed anonymously,” said John C. Clune, a lawyer who represented a plaintiff who had to refile a case against Kobe Bryant under her real name in a 2004 civil case. “They know they have a fighting chance, but they are also prepared mentally in case they lose.” More

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      Her Film on Sex Assault Depicts Her Own and Fuels a #MeToo Moment

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      Danijela Stajnfeld included her account of being assaulted in a film that has led to contentious debate in Serbia and prompted other women to come forward to say they were sexually abused.Her face graced billboards in Belgrade. She appeared regularly in Serbian movies, magazines and television shows. Trained at the prestigious Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, Danijela Stajnfeld had, by the age of 26 in 2011, won two major theater prizes and was a permanent member with the esteemed Belgrade Drama Theater.The following year, she abruptly and mysteriously dropped from public view. It wasn’t until last summer that she publicly revealed why.In her documentary, “Hold Me Right,” about victims and perpetrators of sexual assault, Stajnfeld said that she too had been sexually assaulted eight years earlier by a powerful Serbian man, which had prompted her move to the United States.When the film premiered last year at the Sarajevo Film Festival, Stajnfeld said she was nervous but could not imagine its causing waves. “I thought no one remembered me, I didn’t keep in touch with anyone in Serbia,” she said in an interview.The media firestorm that erupted within days of the premiere proved her wrong.The film “Hold Me Right” presents possible reactions, some constructive, some not, to sexual assault.   Hold Me RightStajnfeld’s face was suddenly all over the Serbian press again. Television and online commentators praised her for speaking out or savaged her for not disclosing the man’s name.She said she did not identify the man because she wanted the film to focus on survivors and healing, rather than singling out a perpetrator. But the country’s tabloids speculated wildly about his identity. Reporters approached Stajnfeld’s unsuspecting parents in their small village. Critics questioned her motives. “Sick!” read one headline. “Actress made up the rape to advertise her film.”Even for someone who had grown up in Serbia, where sexism and male chauvinism are deeply entrenched, the blowback was stunning, Stajnfeld said. While the country has taken steps to advance the cause of women’s rights in recent years — in 2013 it ratified a human rights convention addressing gender-based violence — in Serbia, as in the surrounding region, sexual harassment and assaults are still only rarely reported, and victim shaming abounds.“After opening up, it was so liberating; I thought the narrative was in my hands,” Stajnfeld said. “But it caused even more unsafety and ridiculous dehumanization.”But in recent months, spurred partly by the film, the mood in some quarters has changed. In January, several other Serbian actresses came out publicly with allegations that they had been raped, and a MeToo-like movement roared to life in this region where the culture of calling out abusers had yet to gain a foothold.Using the hashtag #NisiSama, which means “You are not alone,” and on the Facebook page Nisam Trazila, or “I didn’t ask for it,” which has 40,000 followers, supporters urged that victims of sexual harassment be believed and perpetrators be held to account.“We have followed what was happening around the globe with the #MeToo movement, but I think we needed authentic voices of women from this region in order to have this kind of reaction,” Sanja Pavlovic, of the Autonomous Women’s Center in Belgrade, said in an email.Last week Stajnfeld, who lives in New York, flew to Serbia, met with the police and prosecutors and identified the man who she said assaulted her as Branislav Lecic.Branislav Lecic, a celebrated Serbian actor, has denied that he ever had a sexual encounter with Stajnfeld. Darko Vojinovic/Associated PressHer disclosure refueled the media blitz, in part because Lecic, 65, is a famed figure in Serbia, not only a prominent actor but also a professor and former minister of culture. Only weeks ago, he had spoken out against sexual assault.“When a woman says no, that’s the end of it. I don’t understand that someone can’t control their urges,” he told one Serbian newspaper.Stajnfeld says that statement, in part, was what compelled her to publicly name him.Lecic has denied any sexual contact with Stajnfeld, with whom he acted in a play, “Daily Command,” at the time in 2012 when she says the assault occurred.“I have never had sexual contact with her. Everything else would be a lie!” Lecic wrote in a WhatsApp message.But Stajnfeld provided prosecutors and members of the media with an audio recording of her confronting him in a Belgrade restaurant in December 2016, in which he acknowledges that she said no to his advances. Excerpts of the audio, distilled from a longer tape, with the man’s voice disguised, are included in the film.In the recording, she says several times that she wishes he had respected the fact that she had objected to his actions, but she does not go into detail about what then transpired.“Back then I felt jeopardized. Can you understand that?” Stajnfeld says on the tape.“I can understand that, but it’s a big mistake, because my expression of tenderness indeed means my respect,” Lecic replied, saying it was an achievement “that you triggered my attention and feeling.”Stajnfeld and Lecic in a scene from the play “Daily Command.”Belgrade Drama TheaterLecic said what happened ought to “feel like an honor, not to put you in jeopardy.” “Who do you think I am?” he continued. “As if I don’t respect who I am.”In the recording, Lecic also pushed back on Stajnfeld’s assertion that if she says no, she means no. “It doesn’t work like that,” he said, later adding, “Life is unpredictable, like a game.”In recent days, Lecic, communicating over WhatsApp, said that he and Stajnfeld met at the restaurant to discuss a potential collaboration, and that the audio provided by Stajnfeld was incomplete: A longer version, he said, would reveal the broader context, that they were merely improvising dialogue, and that she was possibly claiming he assaulted her to gain publicity for her film.“Maybe she was expecting something more, maybe it’s because nothing happened that she wants revenge, and maybe she wants to build her story through me,” he wrote. “Bad marketing is also marketing.”But Stajnfeld provided a 77-minute audio file that she says represents nearly all of their roughly 90-minute conversation: The tape cut off, she said, when her phone battery died. Parts of their conversation are inaudible, and drowned out by background noise. Still, there is no indication they were rehearsing dialogue. Though the voices are muffled at times and the banter often seems friendly, Stajnfeld’s voice gets sterner as she describes how hurt she was by his actions. Lecic responds in a way that suggests he believed that what happened was consensual.When they began rehearsing the play, Stajnfeld said she viewed Lecic as a mentor and a friend, until he began propositioning her to have sex. Then, one day, in his dressing room, she said he abruptly shoved his hand up her dress. Stajnfeld said she pulled away and fled, stunned, but opted not to tell the director because she was worried she wouldn’t be believed, and that it could hurt her career. Lecic denied any sexual encounter took place.At the time, she said in an interview, she had already approached Lecic, who she viewed as an influential political figure, for a reference letter to apply for an American work visa. She said she was looking for opportunities in the United States, but never intended to abandon her Serbian career.She said Lecic first insisted they walk in a park nearby. Then, she said, on what she assumed was a lift home, he drove in the wrong direction, frightening her, and telling her he was taking her to see a beautiful view of Belgrade.An image from the film “Hold Me Right” that depicts how sharing stories of sexual assault and receiving support are vital to healing. Hold Me RightWhen they arrived at a house on a hill in the city’s outskirts, she said Lecic undressed her and sexually assaulted her, despite the fact that she was crying and repeatedly said no.“In that moment, I was so tortured,” she continued. “He was asking me to do stuff for him. I wanted to do anything for this torture to stop. I couldn’t move my arms, my mouth, I couldn’t stop crying,” she said.Franz Stefan Gady, who used to date Stajnfeld and was living in Stockholm at the time, said within days she had provided him with an account of having been sexually assaulted by the “older guy” in the play.Stajnfeld said she told police and prosecutors last week the same details of her encounters with Lecic in the dressing room and at the house. But she had not gone to the authorities at the time, she said, because she feared her story would be leaked to the press and her career ruined. Instead, she booked a ticket to the United States where, in New York, she began to unravel. She had panic attacks and later considered suicide, but with the help of therapy and victim support groups, she became determined to overcome the trauma. She began interviewing and filming survivors, and what started as a 10-minute short ended up growing, over the course of three-and-a-half years, into her first feature-length film as a director.Stajnfeld said she never intended to insert her own story into her film, but after seeing the rough cut, she knew she had to include her experience too.“For the sake of justice, for the sake of my healing, for the sake of other victims in the region, I’m speaking out now,” she said in the interview with The Times.The film is scheduled to screen at the Martovski film festival in Belgrade later this spring, she said, followed by a U.S. release.After the premiere of Stajnfeld’s film last summer, media commentators said she should be ashamed, that she had slept with a man to get a role, that she should name him or else be prosecuted, that she dishonored women who had really been raped, and that she looked too happy in a recent televised interview to have been a victim.“The public opinion took a tabloid approach, hungry for blood, public humiliation, shame and guilt,” said Snezana Dakic, a Serbian television presenter. “And that is exactly opposite from how this problem should be treated.”Whatever personal catharsis the film represents, more people are seeing Stajnfeld’s film as a spark for the groundswell of support for sexual assault victims underway in Serbia and the surrounding Balkan region.“Danijela’s case gave wings to other women, actresses, to talk about what happened to them,” said Dragana Grncarski, a former model and public figure. “Coming out in the open, they prevent things like that from happening to other women.”Indira K. Skoric provided translations. 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 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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      Settlement Reached in Suit Accusing James Franco of Sexual Misconduct

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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 storySettlement Reached in Suit Accusing James Franco of Sexual MisconductTwo former students of Mr. Franco’s have agreed to drop their claims that he had intimidated them into performing explicit sex scenes. Mr. Franco has denied the allegations.James Franco. Two former students withdrew their allegations about him.Credit…Valerie Macon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFeb. 21, 2021Updated 4:57 p.m. ETTwo former students who filed a lawsuit in 2019 accusing the actor and filmmaker James Franco of subjecting them to sexually exploitative auditions and film shoots at an acting and film school that he founded have agreed to drop their claims against him as part of a settlement reached earlier this month.A joint status report that was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Feb. 11 said that the two women who brought the suit, Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal, had agreed to drop their individual claims against Mr. Franco Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.Details of the Feb. 11 filing were reported Saturday by The Associated Press. On Sunday, lawyers for the plaintiffs confirmed the settlement, which they said would be formalized in a court filing at a later date. They did not provide further details.Ms. Tither-Kaplan and Ms. Gaal said in a 2019 filing that Mr. Franco had intimidated them into performing gratuitous sex scenes while denying them the protections of nudity riders when they were students in a master class on sex scenes at his school, Studio 4, which operated from 2014 to 2017 and had branches in Los Angeles and New York.According to the suit, Mr. Franco “sought to create a pipeline of young women who were subjected to his personal and professional sexual exploitation in the name of education.” The two women said those who cooperated were led to believe that doing so would land them roles in Mr. Franco’s films.Lawyers for Mr. Franco did not respond to an email seeking comment on Sunday. Mr. Franco has previously denied the allegations.Mr. Franco’s production company, Rabbit Bandini, and his partners, who include Vince Jolivette and Jay Davis, are also named as defendants. The two parties had been discussing a settlement for several months, according to the filing, and the lawsuit’s progress had been paused while they did so. Lawyers for Mr. Jolivette did not respond to an email seeking comment.The claims of other plaintiffs in the class-action filing will be dismissed without prejudice under the terms of the settlement, according to the report, which means they could be refiled at a later date.Before she filed the 2019 lawsuit, Ms. Tither-Kaplan and several other women had accused Mr. Franco of sexual misconduct in a Los Angeles Times story after he won a Golden Globe for his performance in “The Disaster Artist” in January 2018. Other women discussed their experiences with Mr. Franco in social media posts they shared during and after the broadcast, which came amid the #MeToo movement.Mr. Franco continued to appear in public in the days following the allegations, in which he explained that he supported the rights of women to call out acts of sexual misconduct but said the specific claims about him were inaccurate.Mr. Franco denied the allegations in an appearance on “The Late Show,” but told the host, Stephen Colbert: “If there’s restitution to be made, I will make it. I’m here to listen and learn and change my perspective where it’s off.”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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      Ex-Artistic Director of Greece’s National Theater Held After Rape Arrest Warrant

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyEx-Artistic Director of Greece’s National Theater Held After Rape Arrest WarrantThe case of Dimitris Lignadis is the most high-profile among the numerous directors and actors to have been named in a torrent of accusations that have rocked the Greek arts world.Director Dimitris Lignadis reciting a poem on the balcony of National Theater in Athens on World Poetry Day in 2016. Mr. Lignadis has been accused of sexual abuse and harassment and charged with rape.Credit…Giorgos Georgiou/NurPhoto, via Getty ImagesFeb. 20, 2021, 2:59 p.m. ETATHENS — The Greek police on Saturday evening arrested the former artistic director of the country’s prestigious National Theater, who has been the target of accusations of sexual abuse and harassment that have buffeted the Greek arts world over the past weeks.Dimitris Lignadis turned himself in at the Athens police headquarters shortly after being informed that a warrant had been issued for his arrest on rape charges, his lawyer, Nikos Georgouleas, said in a text message. Speaking later outside police headquarters, where his client was being held, Mr. Georgouleas said his client denied the charges.“Everything that is being heard, he denies,” the lawyer said.Mr. Lignadis is the most high-profile among the numerous directors and actors to have been named in a torrent of accusations that have rocked the Greek arts world. And the charges against him are among the most serious. He resigned from his post at the National Theater earlier this month after reports emerged suggesting that he had sexually harassed young actors, which he furiously denied. After his resignation, more reports emerged, alleging more serious abuse.Mr. Lignadis in 2019.Credit…Efi Skaza/Eurokinissi, via Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe upheaval in Greece’s arts world has come after an Olympic sailor, Sofia Bekatorou, accused a top sailing official last month of sexually abusing her in 1998. Her charges represented the first high-profile accusation of sexual assault and abuse of power in Greece since the #MeToo movement swept the world, bringing down powerful figures in sports, the media and beyond.On Friday, Greece’s culture minister, Lina Mendoni, said she had asked the country’s Supreme Court to investigate a barrage of accusations of sexual assault, primarily those involving the abuse of minors.In her remarks, Ms. Mendoni underlined the need for “catharsis” in Greece’s cultural sector and said that sexual abuse, particularly against minors, must not go unpunished.The unfolding scandal has fueled a vehement political fight in Greece. Ms. Mendoni’s detractors blame her for appointing Mr. Lignadis to the National Theater in 2019. Defending her ministry’s actions, Ms Mendoni said that neither she nor the country’s prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, had known Mr Lignadis “personally,” and knew him only as an actor.“Mr Lignadis is a dangerous man, but that has emerged now,” the minister said. She said she felt “deceived” by him.“With deep acting talent he tried to convince us that he had nothing to do with all this,” Ms Mendoni said, referring to the accusations of abuse.Mr. Mitsotakis, the prime minister, also referred to the mounting number of accusations of sexual abuse and harassment in the Greek performing arts during a televised meeting with President Katerina Sakellaropoulou on Friday.“The sexual abuse of minors is the most abhorrent version of this phenomenon,” Mr. Mitsotakis said at the meeting. “In the public dialogue that has fortunately begun we must achieve the greatest possible political and social consensus if we are to tackle the problem,” he said.Greek prosecutors are expected to start summoning witnesses next week for their broader inquiry into allegations of abuse and harassment in the Greek arts world, starting with the head of the country’s actors’ union, Spyros Bibilas, who said the union has been deluged with complaints by actors reporting alleged abuse.In a statement issued after Mr Lignadis’ arrest on Saturday, Greece’s Justice Ministry said that judicial authorities “will do whatever is necessary in order to ensure everything comes to light on this very shady case and for justice to be done.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Can an Abuser Make Amends? ‘The Color Purple’ Points the Way

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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 storycritic’s notebookCan an Abuser Make Amends? ‘The Color Purple’ Points the WayAfter #MeToo, as movies and TV grapple with issues of rape, revenge and restorative justice, a survivor reconsiders a male character at a crossroads.In the movie adaptation of “The Color Purple,” Celie, center, played by Whoopi Goldberg, escapes an abusive relationship and finds a better life with Shug (Margaret Avery) and Squeak (Rae Dawn Chong.)Credit…Warner Bros.Feb. 5, 2021Updated 6:28 p.m. ETRevenge is at the heart of “Promising Young Woman.” Not only does the film open with its main character Cassie (Carey Mulligan) targeting men who take advantage of inebriated women, but we soon realize that she does so in service of a larger goal: avenging the rape, and eventual suicide, of her best friend, Nina. Even though she ultimately appears to get justice, this result is far from gratifying. Rather, it is a sobering reminder that because most rape victims will never see their assailants held accountable in their lifetime, revenge, or at least the fantasy of it, is all that is left.To me, the movie is an example of how the #MeToo movement has influenced representations of sexual assault onscreen. Works like Hannah Gadsby’s Netflix special “Nanette” and Michaela Coel’s breakout HBO show “I May Destroy You” center the voices of rape survivors, while movies like “The Assistant” and “Promising Young Woman” show the perspective of friends or female bystanders who also suffer as secondary victims of sexual assault. Unfortunately, even as the embrace of these points-of-view represents progress, these narratives also reflect a real-world legal system that repeatedly denies or delays justice to rape victims.Arabella (Michaela Coel) and Zain (Karan Gill) in a scene from HBO’s “I May Destroy You.”Credit…HBOAs both a critic and as a feminist activist, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this dilemma. And over the past two years I have been working on the book “In Search of The Color Purple: The Story of an American Masterpiece,” about Alice Walker’s groundbreaking novel that prioritized the vantage point of a rape and domestic abuse survivor named Celie. Through the redemptive arc of its antagonist, Albert, “The Color Purple,” from 1982, paved the way for today’s debates about atonement, rehabilitation and forgiveness. It anticipates the extralegal practice of restorative justice, a remedy that is intended to heal victims as well as prevent the accused from reoffending by having them accept full responsibility for their actions, while also engaging in a consensual, reparative process with their victims.When I began my research on “The Color Purple,” a story that I first read at 15, I knew that I would focus on Celie’s relationships with her sister, Nettie, her bawdy blues woman lover Shug and the defiant Sofia. Those are the Black female characters that I have turned to as I struggled with my own sexual assault as a teenager in the 1990s, the ones I highlighted to my students as a young college professor in the early 2000s, the ones I find renewed inspiration in today.But what I did not expect to find was how much my middle-aged self would be drawn to Albert, the figure Celie fearfully refers to as M______ (Mister) for most of her life. Celie is forced by Pa — who has raped and impregnated her and given away her two children — to marry Albert, a much older widower. When Celie joins Albert’s family, he continually beats her as she raises his children and tends to his house. It is only over time that we realize how broken he is, defeated both by Jim Crow and his domineering father, who prevented him from marrying his life’s love, Shug. In other words, while his rage is never justified, the novel seeks to understand its origins, giving it a powerful story line that was often initially overlooked by the novel’s biggest detractors.Though “The Color Purple” earned Walker a National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the novel also generated much criticism, mostly from well-known Black male writers and community activists who were offended by the depiction of abuse by Pa and Albert and by Celie healing from that violence in a romantic relationship with Shug. By the time the movie debuted in 1985, Walker and the filmmakers were ill-prepared to defend themselves against accusations that the movie reproduced vicious stereotypes about African-American men. Such condemnations overlooked the healing made possible by Albert’s own desire to make amends.After Celie discovers that Albert has been hiding Nettie’s letters from her for decades, she leaves with Shug, and curses Albert.Soon Albert’s life — his farm, his home, his family — fall apart, forcing him to make a critical decision: either crumble or find a way to reconcile with Celie. And so he rises to the occasion, and begins the long journey of repairing his relationships with his son and grandchildren, and in time, Celie and her children.Celie (Goldberg) rebels against the abusive Albert (Danny Glover) on a day she prepares to leave him. Credit…Warner Bros.Albert’s arc, however, was far more abbreviated in the Oscar-nominated movie, in which he was indelibly played by Danny Glover. But even with his limited transformation onscreen, I see Albert anew when I watch the movie now.Glover imbued his character with such charisma, dignity and depth that Albert is neither pure villain nor a blameless victim. Instead, he is a Black man at a crossroads and thus has the opportunity to reimagine what paths of masculinity lie ahead.But Walker’s vision of Albert was realized in the musical adaptation that premiered on Broadway in 2005 and even more fully in a revival in 2015 with Isaiah Johnson in the role. In that version, Albert’s breakdown is even more totalizing, making his turnaround all the more meaningful, and memorable.“Albert gets his redemption and he does something,” said John Doyle, the director of the Tony-winning revival. “He does things for the children of the community and maybe that’s all a little through a pink gauze. But there’s something wonderful about that.”These days as we, on college campuses, in the halls of Congress, or in our homes, argue about how best to forgive or punish those who have harmed others, we often miss a crucial aspect of the debate that might help us move forward.A scene from the Broadway musical adaptation of “The Color Purple” in 2015; from left: Jennifer Hudson as Shug, Cynthia Erivo as Celie, Isaiah Johnson as Mister/Albert and Kyle Scatliffe as Harpo.Credit…Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesHow does one actually atone for violence they inflict on others?Given pervasive racial bias in the criminal justice system, it makes sense that Black women, like Walker, have imagined accountability outside of the courtroom. Among recent #MeToo narratives, “I May Destroy You,” created by the Black British artist Coel, gestures to restorative justice through the relationship between Arabella (Coel) and fellow writer Zain (Karan Gill). After he removes his condom without her consent during sex, Zain is later able to earn her begrudging trust by helping her complete her book, which in turn leads to her journey of self-acceptance and rebirth.But then Zain revives his own writing career under a pseudonym. Albert embarks on the much more arduous path of acknowledging his violence and all the harm that he caused.And in the final moments of “The Color Purple” onstage, his hard work leads to him standing together with his family. He is not a hero — that status belongs to Celie, Shug and Sofia — but he still gives us a reason to hope.Because most survivors of violence will never hear an apology or benefit from such restitution, Albert remains one of the more elusive and exceptional characters in American culture, a figure that can teach us all to take accountability for our actions, and to find redemption along the way.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More