WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.100 You know, we really do love neat narratives. 00:00:03.560 --> 00:00:05.459 We do. Oh, absolutely. Everyone does. Right. 00:00:05.559 --> 00:00:08.519 Like as an audience, we want the hero to be undeniably 00:00:08.519 --> 00:00:10.500 good and the villain is, you know, obviously 00:00:10.500 --> 00:00:13.500 bad. Very black and white. Exactly. And we love 00:00:13.500 --> 00:00:15.599 the idea that a beautiful piece of art is just 00:00:15.599 --> 00:00:18.289 this pure reflection of a beautiful soul. The 00:00:18.289 --> 00:00:21.170 inciting incident happens exactly on page 10. 00:00:21.230 --> 00:00:23.410 And by the end, everything is just neatly tied 00:00:23.410 --> 00:00:25.710 up in a bow. But that's just movies. That's not 00:00:25.710 --> 00:00:28.750 reality. No, it's not. Because what happens when 00:00:28.750 --> 00:00:31.649 the architect of our favorite, most defining 00:00:31.649 --> 00:00:35.490 romantic comedies is suddenly embroiled in one 00:00:35.490 --> 00:00:38.750 of the most toxic, polarizing family scandals 00:00:38.750 --> 00:00:40.890 of the modern era? Well, you realize that a real 00:00:40.890 --> 00:00:43.950 life, a sprawling, endlessly complicated life, 00:00:44.509 --> 00:00:47.229 completely collapses that pristine three act. 00:00:47.310 --> 00:00:49.570 Yeah, it really does. You're just left staring 00:00:49.570 --> 00:00:52.450 at this massive pile of contradictions that completely 00:00:52.450 --> 00:00:55.250 defies any kind of neat categorization. Which 00:00:55.250 --> 00:00:57.829 brings us to today's deep dive. If you're joining 00:00:57.829 --> 00:01:00.109 us today, you're likely trying to untangle one 00:01:00.109 --> 00:01:02.890 of the most sprawling, frankly contradictory 00:01:02.890 --> 00:01:05.209 legacies in Hollywood history. It's a big one. 00:01:05.359 --> 00:01:08.359 It is. Today's mission is to unpack the eight 00:01:08.359 --> 00:01:11.540 decade life and career of Woody Allen. And we 00:01:11.540 --> 00:01:15.239 were using his exhaustive, meticulously documented 00:01:15.239 --> 00:01:18.939 Wikipedia page as our singular grounding source 00:01:18.939 --> 00:01:21.799 today. We really want to understand how this 00:01:21.799 --> 00:01:24.420 kid from Brooklyn became a definitive comedic 00:01:24.420 --> 00:01:29.459 auteur and how that legacy became just inextricably 00:01:29.459 --> 00:01:33.579 tied to massive personal controversy. Before 00:01:33.579 --> 00:01:35.760 we get into the timeline, we do need to establish 00:01:35.760 --> 00:01:37.819 the parameters of our discussion here. Absolutely. 00:01:38.019 --> 00:01:40.799 I need to explicitly state right at the top that 00:01:40.799 --> 00:01:42.879 the historical record we're unpacking today contains 00:01:42.879 --> 00:01:46.120 highly sensitive, highly polarizing, and politically 00:01:46.120 --> 00:01:48.930 and socially charged content. Yes, it does. This 00:01:48.930 --> 00:01:51.349 is particularly true regarding the sexual abuse 00:01:51.349 --> 00:01:52.890 allegations that we will be discussing a bit 00:01:52.890 --> 00:01:54.909 later on, but I want to assure you, the listener, 00:01:55.030 --> 00:01:57.750 that this deep dive will remain strictly impartial. 00:01:57.950 --> 00:02:00.510 Completely neutral. Right. We are not endorsing 00:02:00.510 --> 00:02:03.069 or validating or taking the side of any viewpoint 00:02:03.069 --> 00:02:05.849 here. We are simply reporting the factual history, 00:02:06.329 --> 00:02:08.849 the legal conclusions, and the timeline exactly 00:02:08.849 --> 00:02:10.629 as they're presented in the source material. 00:02:11.090 --> 00:02:13.949 Yeah, our role here is just synthesis and context. 00:02:14.189 --> 00:02:16.729 We are looking at the mechanics of a life and 00:02:16.729 --> 00:02:19.310 a career. We're not passing judgment Okay, let's 00:02:19.310 --> 00:02:22.310 unpack this to really understand the mechanics 00:02:22.310 --> 00:02:25.590 of his career. We have to start by kind of Dismantling 00:02:25.590 --> 00:02:29.469 a preconceived notion. I guarantee almost everyone 00:02:29.469 --> 00:02:32.449 listening holds about Woody Allen's persona Oh 00:02:32.449 --> 00:02:35.030 the classic persona right like when you picture 00:02:35.030 --> 00:02:38.909 him you picture the neurotic anxious, purely 00:02:38.909 --> 00:02:41.789 intellectual weakling. You know, the classic 00:02:41.789 --> 00:02:44.189 nebbish who's terrified of his own shadow. It 00:02:44.189 --> 00:02:47.110 is an incredibly iconic image. But I mean, what 00:02:47.110 --> 00:02:49.689 the historical record shows us is that this image 00:02:49.689 --> 00:02:52.530 is a highly calibrated, deliberate construction. 00:02:52.759 --> 00:02:54.819 It really is. Like, he was born Alan Stewart 00:02:54.819 --> 00:02:58.159 Cornixburg on November 30th, 1935 in the Bronx 00:02:58.159 --> 00:03:00.500 to Jewish immigrants. And when you look at his 00:03:00.500 --> 00:03:02.939 time at Midwood High School in Brooklyn, he wasn't, 00:03:02.939 --> 00:03:05.219 you know, cowering in the library or hyperventilating 00:03:05.219 --> 00:03:07.379 in the corner. Not at all. He was surprisingly 00:03:07.379 --> 00:03:10.039 athletic. He was actually picked first for baseball 00:03:10.039 --> 00:03:13.699 teams. Wait, really? First? First. And when he 00:03:13.699 --> 00:03:16.180 wasn't playing sports, he was the center of attention, 00:03:16.479 --> 00:03:18.860 wowing his peers with magic tricks and cards. 00:03:19.219 --> 00:03:21.789 See, the magic tricks are a crucial detail. How 00:03:21.789 --> 00:03:24.870 so? Because it shows how early he began to develop 00:03:24.870 --> 00:03:28.530 this intense manual dexterity. He was obsessively 00:03:28.530 --> 00:03:30.849 practicing sleight of hand. And what happens 00:03:30.849 --> 00:03:35.129 is he eventually channels that exact same obsessive 00:03:35.129 --> 00:03:38.250 mechanical discipline into verbal dexterity. 00:03:38.449 --> 00:03:40.490 Oh, that makes sense. Yeah. He started selling 00:03:40.490 --> 00:03:43.009 jokes at the age of 15. Just a teenager already 00:03:43.009 --> 00:03:45.770 commodifying his sense of humor. The record actually 00:03:45.770 --> 00:03:48.069 gives us his first published joke. And I have 00:03:48.069 --> 00:03:49.530 to read it because it's fascinating. Let's hear 00:03:49.530 --> 00:03:52.960 it. It goes, Woody Allen says he ate at a restaurant 00:03:52.960 --> 00:03:56.180 that had OPS prices over people's salaries. Right. 00:03:56.259 --> 00:03:59.060 And for a modern listener, that punchline probably 00:03:59.060 --> 00:04:01.659 falls a little flat because OPS is an incredibly 00:04:01.659 --> 00:04:03.900 dated reference. I suddenly had to look it up. 00:04:04.039 --> 00:04:06.319 Yeah. It stood for the Office of Price Stabilization. 00:04:06.379 --> 00:04:09.500 Right. Which was this very rigid government agency 00:04:09.500 --> 00:04:12.000 during the Korean War era that controlled the 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:15.460 prices of goods. So for a 15 -year -old kid to 00:04:15.460 --> 00:04:19.790 take a dry bureaucratic government acronym and 00:04:19.790 --> 00:04:22.769 flip it into a punchy, rhythmic one -liner about 00:04:22.769 --> 00:04:25.290 an overpriced diner. He's clever. It shows a 00:04:25.290 --> 00:04:27.670 highly sophisticated grasp of joke structure. 00:04:28.170 --> 00:04:31.250 It's almost mathematical. And that rhythm became 00:04:31.250 --> 00:04:33.829 an incredibly lucrative commodity for him. You 00:04:33.829 --> 00:04:36.029 aren't kidding. He rides that rhythm all the 00:04:36.029 --> 00:04:38.610 way to television. By the time he was 19 years 00:04:38.610 --> 00:04:40.990 old, he was in the NBC writer's development program. 00:04:41.089 --> 00:04:46.000 19. And he was making... $1 ,500 a week. Wow. 00:04:46.319 --> 00:04:49.220 I mean, in the mid -1950s, that is an absolute 00:04:49.220 --> 00:04:51.800 fortune. He really is. He's working for television 00:04:51.800 --> 00:04:54.160 legend Sid Caesar, sitting in a writer's room 00:04:54.160 --> 00:04:57.220 alongside comedy giants like Mel Brooks. And 00:04:57.220 --> 00:05:00.319 the sheer volume of his output is just staggering. 00:05:00.480 --> 00:05:03.000 Yeah, the numbers are wild. In the year 1962 00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:06.920 alone, he estimated he wrote 20 ,000 jokes for 00:05:06.920 --> 00:05:09.019 various comics. Just think about the mechanics 00:05:09.019 --> 00:05:11.790 of that. To write 20 ,000 jokes in a single year 00:05:11.790 --> 00:05:14.209 requires an almost industrial level of output. 00:05:14.290 --> 00:05:17.040 It's a factory. Exactly. You aren't waiting for 00:05:17.040 --> 00:05:19.279 a muse to strike, you know. You are operating 00:05:19.279 --> 00:05:22.180 a factory. You're breaking down language, identifying 00:05:22.180 --> 00:05:24.980 the setup, finding the misdirection and engineering 00:05:24.980 --> 00:05:27.620 the punchline over and over again, dozens of 00:05:27.620 --> 00:05:30.680 times a day. It honestly blows my mind because 00:05:30.680 --> 00:05:33.379 the persona he eventually adopts on screen is 00:05:33.379 --> 00:05:37.379 so hesitant, so full of stuttering doubt. Right. 00:05:37.379 --> 00:05:40.100 It's like discovering a world famous method actor 00:05:40.100 --> 00:05:43.540 who plays clumsy, bumbling fools is actually 00:05:43.540 --> 00:05:46.060 an Olympic gymnast. in real life. That's a great 00:05:46.060 --> 00:05:48.040 way to put it. Like it takes an immense amount 00:05:48.040 --> 00:05:51.000 of discipline, stamina, and core strength to 00:05:51.000 --> 00:05:53.740 successfully manufacture that level of awkwardness 00:05:53.740 --> 00:05:56.100 without actually falling on your face. That is 00:05:56.100 --> 00:05:58.600 a brilliant analogy. The awkwardness was a highly 00:05:58.600 --> 00:06:01.759 athletic performance. What he did was deliberately 00:06:01.759 --> 00:06:05.480 modernize the witty, sophisticated New Yorker 00:06:05.480 --> 00:06:08.050 style of humor. Yeah. and when he eventually 00:06:08.050 --> 00:06:09.910 transitioned to performing his own stand -up 00:06:09.910 --> 00:06:12.689 in Greenwich Village, he methodically stripped 00:06:12.689 --> 00:06:15.310 away the traditional showbiz veneer. Because 00:06:15.310 --> 00:06:17.490 comedians back then had a very specific polish, 00:06:17.689 --> 00:06:19.769 right? Like they wore sharp suits. They had a 00:06:19.769 --> 00:06:22.069 confident swagger. They commanded the room. Exactly. 00:06:22.110 --> 00:06:23.790 They were performers shouting to the back row. 00:06:24.209 --> 00:06:26.509 But Alan went the complete opposite direction. 00:06:26.550 --> 00:06:29.129 Right. He walked on stage looking like a guy 00:06:29.129 --> 00:06:31.529 who had just wandered into the spotlight by mistake. 00:06:31.910 --> 00:06:34.209 He wore corduroys. He mumbled. He looked at his 00:06:34.209 --> 00:06:37.050 shoes. The utter lack of traditional stage polish 00:06:37.050 --> 00:06:40.509 was the polish. Exactly. His uneasy, deadpan, 00:06:40.730 --> 00:06:44.259 hyper -intellectual delivery. revolutionized 00:06:44.259 --> 00:06:46.259 the comedy monologue genre because it felt like 00:06:46.259 --> 00:06:48.699 you were eavesdropping on a private therapy session. 00:06:48.959 --> 00:06:51.379 But here's my question. He's making a fortune 00:06:51.379 --> 00:06:54.279 in TV writing for legends. He's revolutionizing 00:06:54.279 --> 00:06:57.579 stand -up. Why on earth would someone who admits 00:06:57.579 --> 00:07:01.500 to having extreme anxiety abandon a safe, highly 00:07:01.500 --> 00:07:04.660 lucrative writer's room to step into the incredibly 00:07:04.660 --> 00:07:07.420 stressful, high -stakes role of a film director? 00:07:07.540 --> 00:07:09.500 It really comes down to one word, and that's 00:07:09.500 --> 00:07:12.300 control. Control. Yeah. Writing 20 ,000 jokes 00:07:12.300 --> 00:07:14.220 for other people to perform eventually becomes 00:07:14.220 --> 00:07:16.959 deeply frustrating for a creative genius. He's 00:07:16.959 --> 00:07:19.899 tired of handing his meticulously crafted material 00:07:19.899 --> 00:07:21.920 over to actors or directors who might pause a 00:07:21.920 --> 00:07:24.139 second too long and run the timing. Ah, right. 00:07:24.519 --> 00:07:27.259 Timing is everything. It's everything. This overwhelming 00:07:27.259 --> 00:07:30.339 desire for absolute control is the primary engine 00:07:30.339 --> 00:07:32.720 that propelled him out of the writer's room and 00:07:32.720 --> 00:07:34.939 into the director's chair. And his entry into 00:07:34.939 --> 00:07:37.300 cinema perfectly illustrates that frustration. 00:07:37.560 --> 00:07:39.959 He wrote his first film, What's New Pussycat? 00:07:39.980 --> 00:07:43.639 Right. In 1965. Right. And he absolutely hated 00:07:43.639 --> 00:07:45.660 how it turned out. The director took liberties, 00:07:45.939 --> 00:07:48.120 the actors went off script, and the final product 00:07:48.120 --> 00:07:50.519 just didn't match the rhythm in his head. Not 00:07:50.519 --> 00:07:53.509 at all. So from that moment on, he decides he 00:07:53.509 --> 00:07:56.250 has to direct almost everything he writes. If 00:07:56.250 --> 00:07:58.230 you want it done right, you have to hold the 00:07:58.230 --> 00:08:01.129 camera yourself. He starts his directing career 00:08:01.129 --> 00:08:04.829 with very broad slapstick successes. Like take 00:08:04.829 --> 00:08:08.149 the money and run. Exactly. In 1969, where he 00:08:08.149 --> 00:08:12.430 plays a bumbling bank robber. Or Bananas in 1971, 00:08:12.649 --> 00:08:14.189 where his character gets swept up in a Latin 00:08:14.189 --> 00:08:18.269 American revolution. It's highly physical, goofy. 00:08:18.600 --> 00:08:21.660 gag -driven comedy. It's almost vaudevillian. 00:08:21.819 --> 00:08:24.920 So how does a guy making goofy physical comedies 00:08:24.920 --> 00:08:27.620 about Latin American dictators suddenly create 00:08:27.620 --> 00:08:30.959 the absolute blueprint for the modern intellectual 00:08:30.959 --> 00:08:33.200 romantic comedy? There's a huge leap. Because 00:08:33.200 --> 00:08:36.120 the pivot he makes in the late 1970s is massive. 00:08:36.200 --> 00:08:38.580 It is arguably one of the most significant artistic 00:08:38.580 --> 00:08:40.980 pivots in American film history, and it happens 00:08:40.980 --> 00:08:43.759 in 1977 with Annie Hall. Starring his muse and 00:08:43.759 --> 00:08:46.120 briefly, his real -life romantic partner, Diane 00:08:46.120 --> 00:08:47.879 Keaton, whose real last name, by the way, was 00:08:47.879 --> 00:08:50.799 actually Hall. So the lines between his reality 00:08:50.799 --> 00:08:53.059 and his fiction are already starting to blur 00:08:53.059 --> 00:08:55.960 here. Precisely. And Annie Hall changed everything. 00:08:56.639 --> 00:08:59.299 It won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture 00:08:59.299 --> 00:09:01.919 and Best Director. The Writers Guild of America 00:09:01.919 --> 00:09:04.320 later named it the funniest screenplay ever written. 00:09:04.419 --> 00:09:06.620 Wow. But to answer your question of how he made 00:09:06.620 --> 00:09:09.620 that leap from slapstick to a masterpiece, he 00:09:09.620 --> 00:09:13.019 synthesized his disparate influences. Oh, so? 00:09:13.220 --> 00:09:16.379 He essentially took the deep depressing existential 00:09:16.379 --> 00:09:19.960 dread of European arthouse films, specifically 00:09:19.960 --> 00:09:22.600 the work of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, 00:09:22.940 --> 00:09:25.820 who focused on death, silence and God's absence. 00:09:26.039 --> 00:09:28.940 And he masked it with the rapid fire self -deprecating 00:09:28.940 --> 00:09:31.240 one liners of American vaudeville stars like 00:09:31.240 --> 00:09:34.019 Bob Hope. That's incredible. He crashed two completely 00:09:34.019 --> 00:09:36.679 opposite genres together. He literally made intellectual 00:09:36.679 --> 00:09:39.299 depression funny. Exactly. He bridged the gap 00:09:39.299 --> 00:09:41.960 between rapid fire American comedy and the visual 00:09:41.960 --> 00:09:45.039 ambition of European cinema. In doing so, he 00:09:45.039 --> 00:09:47.220 became the ultimate auteur of the new Hollywood 00:09:47.220 --> 00:09:49.879 era, writing, directing, and starring in his 00:09:49.879 --> 00:09:52.320 own deeply personal visions, where New York City 00:09:52.320 --> 00:09:54.259 was as much a character as the actors. Yeah, 00:09:54.320 --> 00:09:57.340 New York is always front and center. And he followed 00:09:57.340 --> 00:10:00.539 Annie Hall with visual masterpieces like Manhattan, 00:10:00.659 --> 00:10:04.720 1979, and Stardust Memories in 1980. I actually 00:10:04.720 --> 00:10:07.179 love the detail our source has about Stardust 00:10:07.179 --> 00:10:10.419 Memories. He plays a famous filmmaker who is 00:10:10.419 --> 00:10:13.279 experiencing an existential crisis. Yes. And 00:10:13.279 --> 00:10:15.220 there's a running gag throughout the movie where 00:10:15.220 --> 00:10:18.539 various people, including literal space aliens, 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:20.980 come up to his character and tell him that they 00:10:20.980 --> 00:10:24.100 prefer his movies, quote, especially the early 00:10:24.100 --> 00:10:26.759 funny ones. Right. Yeah. It shows he was hyper 00:10:26.759 --> 00:10:28.840 aware that his audience was struggling with his 00:10:28.840 --> 00:10:31.559 transition into more serious art. He was entirely 00:10:31.559 --> 00:10:33.500 self aware. He knew exactly what he was doing. 00:10:33.620 --> 00:10:35.639 But, you know, this raises a pivotal issue. What's 00:10:35.639 --> 00:10:38.360 that? Well, we established that his artistic 00:10:38.360 --> 00:10:40.519 peaks were always deeply intertwined with his 00:10:40.519 --> 00:10:42.879 real life relationships, like with Diane Keaton 00:10:42.879 --> 00:10:45.299 and Annie Hall. Yes. So what happens when an 00:10:45.299 --> 00:10:48.220 artist's deeply personal autobiographical vision 00:10:48.220 --> 00:10:51.100 begins to draw from a personal life that is becoming 00:10:51.100 --> 00:10:54.080 incredibly messy? And that is the collision course 00:10:54.080 --> 00:10:57.440 we have to navigate next. Alan had spent a decade 00:10:57.440 --> 00:11:00.360 turning his real life neuroses into beloved art. 00:11:00.820 --> 00:11:03.779 But as he transitioned into the 1980s, his personal 00:11:03.779 --> 00:11:06.559 and professional life merged entirely with the 00:11:06.559 --> 00:11:10.299 actress Mia Farrow. Right. And in 1992, his real 00:11:10.299 --> 00:11:13.440 life produced a narrative so dark, so fractured 00:11:13.440 --> 00:11:16.299 that no studio would ever film it. The timeline 00:11:16.299 --> 00:11:19.759 of this era is strictly documented. Allen and 00:11:19.759 --> 00:11:22.200 Farrow had a 12 -year relationship spanning from 00:11:22.200 --> 00:11:26.179 1980 to 1992. It was a deeply enmeshed creative 00:11:26.179 --> 00:11:28.919 partnership. I mean, they made 13 films together 00:11:28.919 --> 00:11:31.769 during that time. Interestingly, though, they 00:11:31.769 --> 00:11:33.990 never actually lived together. Really? Yeah. 00:11:34.070 --> 00:11:35.850 They maintained separate apartments on opposite 00:11:35.850 --> 00:11:38.309 sides of Central Park in Manhattan. And Farrow 00:11:38.309 --> 00:11:40.350 had children from previous relationships and 00:11:40.350 --> 00:11:42.370 previous adoptions, including a 21 -year -old 00:11:42.370 --> 00:11:45.230 adopted daughter named Suni Previn. Right. The 00:11:45.230 --> 00:11:47.190 historical record states that the relationship 00:11:47.190 --> 00:11:49.789 between Allen and Farrow abruptly ended in early 00:11:49.789 --> 00:11:52.710 1992 when Farrow discovered nude photographs 00:11:52.710 --> 00:11:55.870 of Suni in Allen's home. Yeah. Allen and Previn's 00:11:55.870 --> 00:11:58.269 relationship became public, and they later married 00:11:58.269 --> 00:12:02.480 in 1997. And that discovery alone completely 00:12:02.480 --> 00:12:04.820 fractured the family in it. But the situation 00:12:04.820 --> 00:12:07.019 escalated into something much more severe and 00:12:07.019 --> 00:12:10.220 much darker shortly after. Yeah. In August of 00:12:10.220 --> 00:12:14.320 1992, Dylan Farrow, who was Mia's adopted daughter 00:12:14.320 --> 00:12:16.980 and whom Alan had also co -parented, alleged 00:12:16.980 --> 00:12:19.799 that Alan sexually abused her in the attic of 00:12:19.799 --> 00:12:21.960 Farrow's home. And to understand the weight of 00:12:21.960 --> 00:12:23.580 this for the listener, you have to realize this 00:12:23.580 --> 00:12:27.220 wasn't just a quiet legal battle. It was an absolute 00:12:27.220 --> 00:12:30.200 daily tabloid explosion. It was everywhere. It 00:12:30.200 --> 00:12:33.139 dominated the cultural conversation. Now, Alan 00:12:33.139 --> 00:12:35.700 vehemently denied the allegations. He issued 00:12:35.700 --> 00:12:38.860 public statements calling them, unquote, unconscionable 00:12:38.860 --> 00:12:46.379 and gruesome. He claimed it was orchestrated 00:12:46.379 --> 00:12:48.980 entirely by Mia Farrow in retaliation for his 00:12:48.980 --> 00:12:51.759 relationship with Sunni. Right. Now, amidst that 00:12:51.759 --> 00:12:54.220 massive media circus, there were formal, highly 00:12:54.220 --> 00:12:57.200 scrutinized legal investigations. A six month 00:12:57.200 --> 00:12:59.360 investigation was conducted by the Child Sexual 00:12:59.360 --> 00:13:01.779 Abuse Clinic of Yale New Haven Hospital. OK. 00:13:02.039 --> 00:13:04.259 They ultimately concluded that no abuse had occurred. 00:13:04.580 --> 00:13:07.139 There was also a highly publicized custody battle. 00:13:07.470 --> 00:13:10.570 Judge Elliott Wilk rejected Allen's bid for custody 00:13:10.570 --> 00:13:13.269 of the children. Yes, he did. In his final ruling, 00:13:13.409 --> 00:13:16.049 the judge was highly critical, calling Allen's 00:13:16.049 --> 00:13:18.809 behavior with Dylan, quote, grossly inappropriate. 00:13:19.309 --> 00:13:21.269 But he explicitly stated that the behavior was 00:13:21.269 --> 00:13:24.049 not sexual. Right. Finally, the New York Child 00:13:24.049 --> 00:13:27.350 Welfare Agency closed its own 14 -month investigation, 00:13:27.750 --> 00:13:30.350 finding that the allegations of abuse were unfounded. 00:13:30.549 --> 00:13:33.230 So those are the official legal conclusions drawn 00:13:33.230 --> 00:13:36.289 by the authorities in the early 1990s. The courts 00:13:36.289 --> 00:13:38.679 and the investigators agencies closed their files. 00:13:39.159 --> 00:13:41.019 But the cultural narrative definitely did not 00:13:41.019 --> 00:13:44.620 end there. No, it didn't. In 2014, as the internet 00:13:44.620 --> 00:13:47.159 and social media gave individuals direct access 00:13:47.159 --> 00:13:50.659 to the public, Dylan Farrow restated her allegations 00:13:50.659 --> 00:13:53.419 in a powerful open letter published via The New 00:13:53.419 --> 00:13:56.389 York Times. And the family remained deeply publicly 00:13:56.389 --> 00:13:59.889 divided because in 2018, Moses Farrow, another 00:13:59.889 --> 00:14:02.450 of Mia Farrow's adopted children, published a 00:14:02.450 --> 00:14:04.769 lengthy blog post vehemently defending Woody 00:14:04.769 --> 00:14:07.309 Allen. Right. And in turn, Moses alleged a history 00:14:07.309 --> 00:14:09.649 of severe physical and emotional abuse at the 00:14:09.649 --> 00:14:12.090 hands of Mia Farrow. It's just so fractured. 00:14:12.090 --> 00:14:14.509 And then the debate was reignited on a massive 00:14:14.509 --> 00:14:17.049 scale again in twenty twenty one with the HBO 00:14:17.049 --> 00:14:20.149 documentary series Allen v. Farrow, which explored 00:14:20.149 --> 00:14:22.830 the allegations against Allen in deep detail 00:14:22.830 --> 00:14:26.090 in Allen. and Sunni Previn publicly denounced 00:14:26.090 --> 00:14:29.070 that documentary calling it a hatchet job riddled 00:14:29.070 --> 00:14:31.389 with falsehoods. If we connect this to the bigger 00:14:31.389 --> 00:14:34.649 picture, you know, we see a legacy permanently 00:14:34.649 --> 00:14:37.049 altered. Yeah. When you look at the historical 00:14:37.049 --> 00:14:40.110 record, it reveals a very stark, very uncomfortable 00:14:40.110 --> 00:14:42.909 contrast. On one hand, you have the official 00:14:42.909 --> 00:14:45.490 conclusions of multiple prolonged investigations 00:14:45.490 --> 00:14:48.889 in the 90s that found no evidence of abuse. Right. 00:14:49.049 --> 00:14:51.269 On the other hand, you have a deeply divided 00:14:51.269 --> 00:14:53.509 court of public opinion that continues to debate 00:14:53.509 --> 00:14:56.309 this decades later. It forces the public into 00:14:56.309 --> 00:14:59.169 an ongoing, highly polarized conversation about 00:14:59.169 --> 00:15:01.850 whether it is possible or even moral to separate 00:15:01.850 --> 00:15:07.220 the art from the artist. The facts of the legal 00:15:07.220 --> 00:15:09.759 investigations remain unchanged, but the cultural 00:15:09.759 --> 00:15:12.299 framing around those facts has completely transformed, 00:15:12.639 --> 00:15:14.419 especially with the shifting wars of the late 00:15:14.419 --> 00:15:18.080 2010s. Yet, despite this immense public explosion, 00:15:18.279 --> 00:15:21.100 despite the legal warfare, the tabloid frenzy, 00:15:21.159 --> 00:15:25.139 the documentaries, Alan's cinematic output never 00:15:25.139 --> 00:15:28.259 stopped. Never. He just kept making movies year 00:15:28.259 --> 00:15:32.740 after year. So how does a career survive that 00:15:32.740 --> 00:15:36.519 level of sustained alienation? by entirely changing 00:15:36.519 --> 00:15:38.419 the geography of his career. What do you mean? 00:15:38.720 --> 00:15:42.000 Well, he felt increasingly alienated by the American 00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:44.879 studio system. He described American studios 00:15:44.879 --> 00:15:48.620 as avaricious, obsessed, only with hundred million 00:15:48.620 --> 00:15:51.179 dollar blockbusters, and increasingly wary of 00:15:51.179 --> 00:15:53.480 funding his smaller character -driven films, 00:15:53.799 --> 00:15:55.899 especially given his public baggage. Right. They 00:15:55.899 --> 00:15:59.220 saw him as a risk. Exactly. So he packed his 00:15:59.220 --> 00:16:02.100 bags, left his beloved New York City, and began 00:16:02.100 --> 00:16:04.820 a new creative chapter in Europe. He essentially 00:16:04.820 --> 00:16:07.940 finds new Mises and new funding overseas. He 00:16:07.940 --> 00:16:09.940 goes to London and makes Matchpoint, which was 00:16:09.940 --> 00:16:12.019 a massive critical comeback. Yeah. People loved 00:16:12.019 --> 00:16:14.480 it. He goes to Spain and makes Vicky Cristina 00:16:14.480 --> 00:16:17.080 Barcelona. He goes to France and makes Midnight 00:16:17.080 --> 00:16:19.519 in Paris. And what's wild is that Midnight in 00:16:19.519 --> 00:16:21.700 Paris actually became the highest grossing film 00:16:21.700 --> 00:16:26.419 of his entire career. It made $151 million. Decades 00:16:26.419 --> 00:16:29.279 into his career, long after the scandals of the 00:16:29.279 --> 00:16:32.019 90s, he hits his commercial peak in Europe. He 00:16:32.019 --> 00:16:34.679 also used whatever leverage he had left in the 00:16:34.679 --> 00:16:37.960 industry to engage in activism, specifically 00:16:37.960 --> 00:16:40.639 regarding the preservation of film as an art 00:16:40.639 --> 00:16:43.340 form. He actually testified before the United 00:16:43.340 --> 00:16:46.299 States Senate alongside figures like Ginger Rogers 00:16:46.299 --> 00:16:48.960 fighting against the artificial colorization 00:16:48.960 --> 00:16:51.960 of classic black and white films. Which perfectly 00:16:51.960 --> 00:16:54.080 tracks with what we discussed earlier about his 00:16:54.080 --> 00:16:57.639 need for control, right? Exactly. He argued passionately 00:16:57.639 --> 00:17:00.809 that colorizing a black and white film is a desecration 00:17:00.809 --> 00:17:02.990 of the director's original vision. It was the 00:17:02.990 --> 00:17:05.369 ultimate defense of the auteur. Yeah. He even 00:17:05.369 --> 00:17:07.130 helped found the film foundation with Martin 00:17:07.130 --> 00:17:09.890 Scorsese to ensure damaged prints of classic 00:17:09.890 --> 00:17:12.549 movies were restored and preserved exactly as 00:17:12.549 --> 00:17:14.710 they were originally shot. But the cultural shifts 00:17:14.710 --> 00:17:17.509 of the late 2010s, specifically the Me Too era, 00:17:17.950 --> 00:17:20.269 caught up with his career again, and this time 00:17:20.269 --> 00:17:23.029 the financial blowback was severe. Very severe. 00:17:23.210 --> 00:17:26.230 Amazon had signed him to a massive 68 million 00:17:26.230 --> 00:17:29.130 dollar contract to produce multiple films. But 00:17:29.130 --> 00:17:31.170 as the cultural climate shifted and the past 00:17:31.170 --> 00:17:34.509 allegations resurfaced in the press, Amazon canceled 00:17:34.509 --> 00:17:36.970 the contract and outright dropped his completed 00:17:36.970 --> 00:17:40.430 film, A Rainy Day in New York. Yeah. Amazon cited 00:17:40.430 --> 00:17:42.950 a breach of contract related to his public comments 00:17:42.950 --> 00:17:44.829 regarding the Me Too movement and the resurgence 00:17:44.829 --> 00:17:47.450 of the allegations. All right. But Alan. refusing 00:17:47.450 --> 00:17:50.990 to back down, sued Amazon for the full $68 million 00:17:50.990 --> 00:17:53.829 in federal court. And the two parties eventually 00:17:53.829 --> 00:17:56.430 reached a settlement out of court. The pushback 00:17:56.430 --> 00:17:59.289 extended into the publishing world, too. In 2020, 00:17:59.369 --> 00:18:01.509 he wrote a memoir titled Apropos of Nothing. 00:18:01.970 --> 00:18:04.190 It was slated to be published by the major publishing 00:18:04.190 --> 00:18:07.329 house, Hachette. But after employees staged massive 00:18:07.329 --> 00:18:09.569 walkouts in protest of giving him a platform, 00:18:09.990 --> 00:18:12.549 Hachette canceled the book. Yet almost immediately, 00:18:12.630 --> 00:18:14.349 it was picked up and published by a different 00:18:14.349 --> 00:18:18.309 imprint, Arcade. cancellations, lawsuits, employee 00:18:18.309 --> 00:18:21.690 walkouts, public outcry. And yet, through all 00:18:21.690 --> 00:18:24.009 of it, the machinery of his work ethic remains 00:18:24.009 --> 00:18:26.809 entirely intact. Which brings us to the present 00:18:26.809 --> 00:18:31.660 day, 2026. The man is 90 years old. He has made 00:18:31.660 --> 00:18:35.640 50 feature films. His most recent was a French 00:18:35.640 --> 00:18:37.839 -language domestic thriller called Coup de Chance. 00:18:38.519 --> 00:18:40.900 And this is where the timeline gives us a truly 00:18:40.900 --> 00:18:43.940 wild, almost comedic detail about how the film 00:18:43.940 --> 00:18:46.099 industry actually operates. Oh, this is fascinating. 00:18:46.220 --> 00:18:48.339 He recently failed to get a production off the 00:18:48.339 --> 00:18:51.720 ground in Italy. So he pivoted and secured 1 00:18:51.720 --> 00:18:55.140 .5 million euros from the regional government 00:18:55.140 --> 00:18:57.940 of Madrid, Spain, to shoot a movie there in the 00:18:57.940 --> 00:19:01.680 summer of 2026. The local government funding 00:19:01.680 --> 00:19:04.759 came with a very strict, highly specific condition. 00:19:04.960 --> 00:19:07.640 The word Madrid literally has to be in the title 00:19:07.640 --> 00:19:09.910 of the film. I mean, that is just incredible. 00:19:10.069 --> 00:19:12.269 How do we even contextualize this guy? On one 00:19:12.269 --> 00:19:14.390 hand, he is fighting a massive tech monopoly 00:19:14.390 --> 00:19:17.630 like Amazon and federal court over a 68 million 00:19:17.630 --> 00:19:19.869 dollar contract. Right. On the other hand, at 00:19:19.869 --> 00:19:22.369 90 years old, he is happily taking money from 00:19:22.369 --> 00:19:24.829 a Spanish city council and agreeing to slap their 00:19:24.829 --> 00:19:27.210 name on his movie poster just so he can afford 00:19:27.210 --> 00:19:29.529 to turn the cameras on. What does that tell us 00:19:29.529 --> 00:19:31.740 about his mindset? I think it tells us that we 00:19:31.740 --> 00:19:34.519 are looking at a portrait of sheer, relentless, 00:19:34.940 --> 00:19:37.559 almost compulsive drive. When you look at his 00:19:37.559 --> 00:19:40.700 own descriptions of his mindset at 90, he is 00:19:40.700 --> 00:19:43.740 an avowed atheist. He believes there is no grand 00:19:43.740 --> 00:19:46.420 meaning to the universe. He admits to being a 00:19:46.420 --> 00:19:50.000 naturally worrisome, highly anxious person. For 00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:52.859 him, the work is the only distraction from the 00:19:52.859 --> 00:19:55.859 void. He continues to write every single day. 00:19:56.279 --> 00:19:59.720 The work is his ultimate constant. In a life 00:19:59.720 --> 00:20:02.700 filled with unimaginable public chaos, a film 00:20:02.700 --> 00:20:05.559 set is the one place where he has total absolute 00:20:05.559 --> 00:20:08.029 control. We've covered a tremendous amount of 00:20:08.029 --> 00:20:10.329 ground today, from the athletic teenage joke 00:20:10.329 --> 00:20:12.490 factory in Brooklyn methodically stripping away 00:20:12.490 --> 00:20:15.390 the showbiz polish, to the creation of the modern 00:20:15.390 --> 00:20:17.470 romantic comedy. We really have. We've walked 00:20:17.470 --> 00:20:19.910 through the devastating highly public fracturing 00:20:19.910 --> 00:20:22.769 of his family, the lengthy legal investigations, 00:20:23.029 --> 00:20:25.750 and the polarized cultural fallout, all the way 00:20:25.750 --> 00:20:28.329 to a 90 -year -old auteur striking local government 00:20:28.329 --> 00:20:30.710 deals in Spain, just to keep the cameras rolling. 00:20:30.910 --> 00:20:33.980 It's quite the journey. We promised you a comprehensive, 00:20:34.500 --> 00:20:36.799 objective master class on the facts surrounding 00:20:36.799 --> 00:20:39.079 Woody Allen's complex history, and I hope we've 00:20:39.079 --> 00:20:41.160 helped you untangle it today. The historical 00:20:41.160 --> 00:20:44.200 facts alone present a life that is almost too 00:20:44.200 --> 00:20:47.200 dense, too contradictory to fully comprehend 00:20:47.200 --> 00:20:49.460 in one sitting. Which actually leads me to a 00:20:49.460 --> 00:20:51.539 final thought I want to leave you, the listener, 00:20:51.799 --> 00:20:54.180 with today. Our research notes that out of all 00:20:54.180 --> 00:20:57.160 the films in cinematic history, Woody Allen considers 00:20:57.160 --> 00:21:00.789 Aliyah Kazan's A streetcar named desire to be 00:21:00.789 --> 00:21:03.730 total artistic perfection. Oh, interesting. He 00:21:03.730 --> 00:21:06.170 loves it specifically because the script, the 00:21:06.170 --> 00:21:08.589 characters, and the humid, claustrophobic setting 00:21:08.589 --> 00:21:12.250 of New Orleans all converge flawlessly. Every 00:21:12.250 --> 00:21:14.710 motivation makes sense. Every action has a clear 00:21:14.710 --> 00:21:17.509 reaction. It's that neat, deeply satisfying narrative 00:21:17.509 --> 00:21:19.589 arc we talked about at the very beginning. Exactly. 00:21:19.789 --> 00:21:22.980 Everything makes sense. So, given his absolute 00:21:22.980 --> 00:21:25.420 obsession with perfect, flawless storytelling, 00:21:26.079 --> 00:21:27.880 imagine if someone were to take the raw facts 00:21:27.880 --> 00:21:30.319 of Woody Allen's own life. The prodigious joke 00:21:30.319 --> 00:21:32.619 machine who manufactures an anxious persona, 00:21:33.039 --> 00:21:35.519 the unparalleled Oscar -winning heights, the 00:21:35.519 --> 00:21:37.819 devastating family scandals, the bitter lawsuits, 00:21:38.319 --> 00:21:40.220 the absolute contradictions. If you submitted 00:21:40.220 --> 00:21:42.380 those facts as a screenplay to a studio today, 00:21:43.160 --> 00:21:45.309 would an audience even accept it? Or would they 00:21:45.309 --> 00:21:48.289 reject the script as being far too chaotic, too 00:21:48.289 --> 00:21:50.910 complex, and too deeply contradictory to ever 00:21:50.910 --> 00:21:52.809 be believable on screen? Something for you to 00:21:52.809 --> 00:21:54.430 chew on. Thank you so much for joining us on 00:21:54.430 --> 00:21:55.990 this deep dive. Until next time.