LONDON — A relatively awkward, unhandsome, nervous, young, New York Jew called Woody Allen began to make his mark as a stand-up comedian in American clubs and on television in the early 1960s. Quickly swept up in the “Jewish new wave” of movies emerging in mainstream Hollywood (think: “The Graduate”), Allen migrated to the world of cinema where he began to play the role of writer, actor and director in his own films — a role he continues to embody some five decades later.
In the recently published “Woody: The biography,” New York-based writer David Evanier argues that from the beginning of his career, Allen has always put his Jewishness at the forefront of his work: getting to the heart of Jewish insecurity in the process.
“Allen was the first mainstream Jewish comedian star,” says Evanier, who has also written biographies about Tony Bennett and Bobby Darrin.
Considered by many film critics to be one of the most prolific and successful auteurs in the history of western cinema, Allen has been nominated 23 times for Academy awards, winning four with “Annie Hall,” thought to be his magnum opus.
The cover of ‘Woody’ by David Evanier (courtesy)
Unlike most filmmakers in the United States, he’s also managed to maintain total control of his work as both a writer and director. Of the 56 movies he’s been involved in — 47 from the director’s chair — Allen has avoided the big budget mainstream studios.
Woody Allen, aka Allen Stewart Konigsberg, was born on December 1, 1935, to a lower middle class Jewish family in the Bronx, New York. The family eventually relocated to Flatbush, Brooklyn.
While Allen studied the Bible as a child, his household was only partially Jewish Orthodox. His mother was deeply observant, while his father preferred to spend his time hanging out with criminal gangs, rather than attending the synagogue.
“Allen was a secular Jew who always rebelled against any kind of orthodoxy,” Evanier tells The Times of Israel. “His ambivalence about his Jewish identity is self-evident in films like “Annie Hall,” where he makes fun of his family and his Jewish upbringing.
“But you can also see in a film like ‘Crimes and Misdemeanors’ — where [the main character] revisits his Jewish family — a certain degree of reverence, understanding and regret emerging that he cannot recover that religious belief,” says Evanier.
Despite having little interest in the religious aspect of Judaism (Allen is a self-proclaimed atheist, who has a dark, almost Nietzschean-like existential outlook of the world and the universe at large), the seeds of Jewish culture are deeply sown within the themes of numerous films he’s made.
In his latest book, Evanier claims that Allen has always been caught in a wrestling match of sorts with his own Jewishness. He writes that Allen’s “persona is the classic Jewish loser filled with lust.” He also claims that: “Jews are a metaphor for Allen’s own feelings of anxiety.”
What exactly does he mean by this?
“Well much of this stuff has to do with the Holocaust,” Evanier explains.
“Woody Allen is not only the first Jewish star, he’s also the first film actor/director who constantly refers to, and reminds people of, the Holocaust, which for him was a reflection that the human condition is pretty unsatisfiable. And this view very much shapes what his Judaism consists of,” he says.
“You can see this in a very underrated movie he made called ‘Anything Else,’ where he plays a Jewish teacher who is obsessed with the Holocaust, and who is afraid it will happen again,” says Evanier.
When he set out to write the book, Evanier attempted to get Woody Allen’s cooperation. Initially, he hoped the director might agree to a series of interviews. Although Allen politely declined, he did grant Evanier one 15-minute interview, which turned into an hour-long conversation.
Reading Evanier’s book, and speaking with him here today, however, I get the sense that he’s a little too in awe of Allen’s work to write a book with even a modicum of objectivity, which clearly comes across in the subjective nature in which the narrative is presented.
So how did Evanier find Allen in conversation?
“He’s a real mensch,” he says. “We also began talking about Jewish history together. Allen has read a lot about the history of anti-Semitism.” Some of the books they discussed during their conversation included: “The War Against the Jews” by Lucy S. Dawidowicz and “To The Bitter End: The Diaries of Victor Klemperer 1942-45.”
‘Despite his criticisms, Woody Allen does feel a great deal of connection with Israel’
Allen himself, however, has cast a much more critical eye on the Jewish State.
In February 1988, a year after the first Intifada, Allen published a letter in The New York Times objecting to Israeli treatment of rioting Palestinians. Then in 2012 Allen told Yediot Ahronot that while he was an enthusiastic supporter of Israel, he was deeply concerned about the rise of fundamentalism in the country, especially from its leadership on the right which he felt was damaging Israel’s reputation in the world.
A year later, however, Allen then spoke on Israeli TV, this time expressing concern about how certain criticisms of Israeli politics — and Zionism in general — can often get conflated with anti-Semitism.
“Despite his criticisms, Woody Allen does feel a great deal of connection with Israel,” says Evanier.
Woody Allen with wife Soon-Yi Previn in 2012 (YouTube screen capture)
If the first half of Evanier’s tome is primarily concerned with analyzing Allen’s connections to his Jewish roots — as well as providing the reader with a serious cultural commentary on his films — the second half focuses almost entirely on his controversial sex life.
In 1992 Allen began an affair with Soon-Yi Previn, whom he is now married to.
At the time, Allen had been dating Mia Farrow for 12 years, and Soon-Yi — who was then 22 — was Farrow’s adopted daughter.
Rather than confronting Farrow about the affair head on, Allen allegedly chose instead to purposely leave a stack of pornographic Polaroid photos at his apartment of Soon-Yi, knowing that Farrow would see them.
That same year, Farrow then accused Allen of sexually molesting their adopted daughter, Dylan, who was then just seven years old.
This section of the book is disturbing: it focuses heavily on police statements, psychiatry reports and various testaments from both journalists and friends of Allen, who continually proclaim his innocence.
Allen was cleared of the charges many years ago, but the controversy has left a nasty scar on his public persona. Evanier isn’t exactly shy in expressing his complete support for Allen.
In the recently published ‘Woody: The Biography,’ the writer David Evanier argues that from the beginning of his career, Allen has always put his Jewishness at the forefront of his work. (Hitomi Tanaka)
“The notion that Woody Allen, who is a claustrophobic, would go to an attic, in a house, where he is already being watched at every moment, and take [Dylan Farrow] who was then a child, for sexual reasons, was, to put it mildly, a very devious idea,” he says.
“It simply made no sense. [Allen] has no record of this kind of behavior. Also, becoming a child molester doesn’t just happen to appear over night,” says Evanier.
Evanier then begins to speak about a report that was compiled from the Yale-New Haven Hospital and its director, John Leventhal, who he says “interviewed Dylan Farrow nine times,” and had also met with Woody Allen and Mia Farrow several times.
Leventhal, Evanier explains in the report, referred to Mia Farrow’s “very disturbed” relationship with Dylan and Satchel Farrow, claiming that it was “absolutely critical for Mia Farrow to undertake intensive psychotherapy to address these relationships.” (However, an article published earlier this year in Slate says that Leventhal never once interviewed Dylan or Mia Farrow.)
Woody Allen and Mia Farrow in 1986’s ‘Hannah and Her Sisters’ (YouTube)
Making a personal assessment on whether or not the abuse took place between Woody Allen and Dylan Farrow is an incredibly difficult task, especially given the suspicious evidence on both sides. And in the end, it really comes down to making a subjective decision based on one’s gut instincts, which are bound up in moral value judgments.
“Look at the behavior afterwards. He’s been with Sun Yi for 22 years. They have two children, to whom he is completely devoted,” says Evanier.
Evanier is determined to defend Woody Allen, in his latest book, and here today.
“Allen is one of the most rigid workaholics in the world,” says Evanier. “The notion that he would have, at this stage of his life, carry out this kind of behavior is — I don’t want to use the word preposterous — but it seems highly inconceivable.”
