© ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP/Getty Images US director Woody Allen and his wife Soon-Yi Previn pose as they arrive on May 11, 2016 for the screening of the film 'Cafe Society' during the opening ceremony of the 69th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France. / AFP PHOTO / ALBERTO PIZZOLIALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP/Getty Images ORIG FILE ID: 551769689
As if coping with the ravages of a global pandemic hasn’t made life unpleasant enough, now we’ve all got to talk about Woody Allen. Again.
We were supposed to have been freed from this. When Hachette announced earlier this month that it would publish the 84-year-old filmmaker’s memoir “Apropos of Nothing” (Arcade, 400 pp., ★ out of four), the publisher’s employees staged a walkout in protest. Allen’s son, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ronan Farrow, who worked with Hachette on his most recent book, “Catch and Kill,” about his reporting on Harvey Weinstein’s serial sexual assaults, criticized the publisher.
The pressure worked; the book was dropped.
'Apropos of Nothing,' Woody Allen's memoir, reads like the long-winded tale of the world's most tiresome, self-pitying dinner party guest. Apropos Of Nothing’s opening meets this demand and gives glorious highlights of Allen’s world of the school, sports, parents and families that shaped his unique outlook on life. Glorious imagery of summer Brooklyn days on baseball mounds and movie theatres evoke warm, “Radio Days” nostalgia which, for fans of “early funny ones”, is just what we were looking for. Apropos of Nothing is a 2020 memoir by American filmmaker and humorist Woody Allen.The book was originally due to be published by Grand Central Publishing, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, in April 2020, but on March 6, 2020 Hachette said they would no longer publish it. I think it’s fair to say there isn’t anyone else like Woody Allen, though in his autobiography Apropos of Nothing there’s an anecdote about someone with the same name who almost compounds his troubles. Woody Allen is the perfect modern warrior against Cancel Culture. The Oscar winner has become a soldier in the most Woody Allen way possible: with a shrug of the shoulders and an almost inexplicable need to just keep on working.
And while the internet fretted over whether Allen’s right to freedom of speech had been infringed upon, Arcade, an imprint of independent publisher Skyhorse, picked up the book and published it with no advance warning Monday.
So here we are, back in the discourse. The least Allen could do was spin us a good yarn for all that trouble. But the last good story Allen wrote was, if we’re being charitable, “Midnight in Paris,” and that was nearly a decade ago. “Apropos of Nothing” is 400 pages of feeling stuck sitting next to the world’s most tiresome dinner party guest, a long-winded old man rhapsodizing over his many sexual conquests, recounting in exhaustive detail every fancy meal he has ever eaten and name-dropping all the celebrities he has ever rubbed elbows with. There are some insights into his creative process, but none of them are deep – it’s largely reminisced hobnobbing and dalliances.
Woody Allen Apropos
Until he gets to Mia Farrow and her daughters, Soon-Yi Previn and Dylan Farrow.
You know the story, but in brief: When Allen was 56, he was discovered to be having an affair with 21-year-old Previn (whom he'd known since she was a child) after long-term partner Mia found nude Polaroids of her in Allen’s home. Shortly thereafter, Allen was accused of molesting their 7-year-old adopted daughter, Dylan.
“I never laid a finger on Dylan, never did anything to her that could be even misconstrued as abusing her,” Allen writes. “It was a total fabrication from start to finish, every subatomic particle of it.” It was all, Allen argues, a fabrication meant to punish him for his affair with Previn. “Mia embarked on an Ahab-like quest for revenge.'
Allen’s account paints Mia Farrow as an abusive, baby-crazed harridan who beat and brainwashed her many children. She’s not a loving mother looking to protect her brood, but a scorned woman seeking vengeance at all costs.
Accusations and implications fly at breakneck pace: Allen suggests Mia Farrow was molested by her own family members growing up; that she helped drive two of her children to suicide; that she slept in the nude with Ronan until he was 11; that she purposefully left a daughter to die alone of AIDS in a hospital on Christmas morning; that she left Allen a Valentine’s Day card with a real kitchen knife stuck through its heart; that she might have inappropriately cozied up to the judge and prosecutor in the molestation case; and even, incredibly, that she coerced Ronan, after he graduated law school, into having his legs broken so he could surgically increase his height.
Allen accuses her of everything short of being the Zodiac Killer. But it all comes down to this: “As much as I nosed around trying to see if I could pick up on the darker side of Mia’s behavior, apart from her obsession with (Ronan) I never saw her beating anybody or throwing any fits.”
The only people who will know with 100% certainty what happened (or didn’t) in the Connecticut attic where Dylan says she was assaulted are Allen and Dylan. Allen was never found guilty of any crime, but that’s not the only metric by which you can judge a man.
The way he talks about women is frequently repellent. His assistant principal was a “fatso.” “I Love Lucy” actress Vivian Vance was a “huge pain in the neck” and a “pill.” Child custody supervisors are “stupid” and “insipid martinets.” He describes women he dated as “delectable bohemian little kumquats.” Of second wife Louise Lasser, Allen writes, “She’d make a real effort to be the perfect girlfriend, but she never met a mattress she didn’t like and had a cottontail’s libido.”
The one relationship that seems as if it may have been healthy, with actress Diane Keaton, is swiftly spoiled when Allen reveals he slept with both her sisters. “The three Keaton sisters were all beautiful, wonderful women. Good genes in that family. Award-winning protoplasm. Great-looking mother.” Ew.
The rest is whinging self-pity. He repeatedly decries what he calls the “Appropriate Police.” He notes there’s a monument honoring him in Oviedo, Spain, “unless a hate-driven mob has pulled it over.” Near the end of the book, as he reflects on all the Hollywood elite who’ve distanced themselves, he writes, “I must say it was very amusing to view all of these people running helter-skelter to help a nutsy woman (Farrow) carry out a vengeful plan.”
'Apropos of Nothing' is devoid of introspection, feeling and accountability. It’s hard to reconcile how a man with enough romance to make “Annie Hall,” enough heart to make “The Purple Rose of Cairo,” enough humor to make “Bananas” and enough psychological insight to make “Crimes and Misdemeanors” can show so little of those same qualities in the pages of this book.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Review: Woody Allen's memoir 'Apropos of Nothing' is a shallow exercise in self-pity
Another new Woody Allen interview has hit the net. He seems to be happy doing these zoom interviews in his house, following a Russian one. It’s a wonderful long conversation that runs 45 minutes and marks the occasion of the release of Allen’s autobiography Apropos Of Nothing in Brazil, which appears to have a different title there (An Autobiography). The interviewer is Pedro Bial.
Some revelations include that Allen wrote the book very quickly but kept tweaking it many times. He also talks about writing about the accusations against him.
He’s had his first COVID vaccination shot. But he still misses restaurants in New York.
There was a while when there were rumours of making a film in Rio. Allen confirms that discussions took place and he remains open to it. It doesn’t sound like he can travel there any time soon, but he remains open to the idea.
Allen also talks about a book he loves – Epitaph of a Small Winner by Machado de Assis.
Woody Allen Book
He talks about The Purple Rose Of Cairo, and again talks about how the one character in all his films he feels closest to is Cecilia.
And probably most noticeably, he is very forgiving of the people at Hachette and the actors who have denounced him. He simply says they made a mistake.
Woody Allen Apropos Of Nothing Reviews
The book in Brazil has a different cover (see below). You can get it from Amazon Brazil.