Dennis Prager Show - Is Hollywood Right About Woody Allen?
Aired: 2024-04-09
Duration: 06:39


=== Polarizing Filmmaker (05:09) ===

[00:00:00]  It is so interesting that I have come to the defense of Woody Allen, the filmmaker, writer, screenwriter, Woody Allen, for now, I guess, decades.
[00:00:15]  He was not found guilty of the one charge of one time molesting Mia Farrow's daughter when they were together, he and Mia Farrow.
[00:00:29]  He's accused of one-time molesting.
[00:00:32]  Did you ever hear of somebody who molested only once in his life?
[00:00:38]  I mean, it may exist, but I've never heard of it.
[00:00:43]  People who molest, molest.
[00:00:45]  They don't do it once.
[00:00:48]  And he was exonerated in a court.
[00:00:51]  He was tried on the issue, and he was exonerated.
[00:00:55]  And yet, Hollywood boycotted him.
[00:00:58]  Actors and actresses would not act in his films.
[00:01:03]  They could not even make a film in the United States.
[00:01:05]  He made most of his films abroad as a result.
[00:01:12]  The meanness that characterizes Hollywood is an important thing for you to know.
[00:01:19]  Most producers, most of the big producers, big actors are bad people.
[00:01:25]  They're not just fools.
[00:01:27]  They're mean.
[00:01:28]  They're bad.
[00:01:31]  That's it.
[00:01:36]  I said most.
[00:01:38]  So most could be 51%.
[00:01:40]  Could be 80%.
[00:01:43]  I don't know.
[00:01:44]  God knows.
[00:01:51]  Woody Allen, reputation bruised, finds muted reception to 50th film, New York Times.
[00:01:58]  Coup de chance, a milestone, is being released in the United States after opening in Europe months ago.
[00:02:06]  This weekend, 13 movie theaters around the country will be showing Coup de Chance, a brisk French-language thriller about a bored wife in Paris who cheats on her wealthy, aloof husband.
[00:02:19]  With an old high school schoolmate triggering fatal consequences.
[00:02:27]  A typical viewer could watch the movie without knowing it is the 50th film directed by Woody Allen.
[00:02:34]  The foreign language, one in which Alan is not fluent.
[00:02:38]  His original script was translated for filming.
[00:02:40]  The absence of the kinds of American stars that typically crowd Alan's cast.
[00:02:45]  The low-key reception with which this milestone has been greeted all suggest the awkwardness surrounding this new release by a filmmaker.
[00:02:55]  As distinctive as he is polarizing.
[00:02:58]  He's polarizing.
[00:03:02]  Polarizing.
[00:03:07]  The notion...
[00:03:09]  It's so amazing the inversion of good values.
[00:03:12]  The notion of innocent until proven guilty doesn't exist on the left.
[00:03:17]  It doesn't exist.
[00:03:22]  It's such a mean world, the left world.
[00:03:25]  And they walk around thinking they're wonderful.
[00:03:29]  That's why I have such little regard for the conscience.
[00:03:33]  It's so malleable.
[00:03:35]  Coup de chance was financed in Europe.
[00:03:45]  His sister declined to disclose its backers.
[00:03:48]  Isn't that amazing?
[00:03:50]  You're not going to mention who backed a Woody Allen film.
[00:03:55]  Woody Allen, by the way, is a diehard liberal.
[00:04:00]  So I don't defend him because I agree with him.
[00:04:03]  I defend him because there's a principle at stake.
[00:04:07]  Because people called conservatives like me, we defend principles.
[00:04:12]  And if you defend good principles, you're not on the left.
[00:04:20]  He's 88 years old?
[00:04:22]  Wow.
[00:04:23]  Wow.
[00:04:24]  88 years old.
[00:04:26]  Alan, 88, has a more than half-century career as a writer, and so on.
[00:04:32]  But for many filmgoers, affection for his movies has been overshadowed by allegations against him personally.
[00:04:40]  They shouldn't say allegations.
[00:04:43]  An allegation.
[00:04:45]  In 1992, his daughter, Dylan Farrow, then seven, said Alan had sexually assaulted her months after he had begun a relationship with Soon E. Previn.

=== Passover Service Tradition (01:44) ===

[00:04:58]  Oh, yes, that's the other reason they hate him.
[00:05:00]  That's right.
[00:05:00]  He had a relationship, and he ended up marrying, and they're married.
[00:05:04]  What are they married now?
[00:05:05]  25 years?
[00:05:08]  Yeah, 26 years.
[00:05:13]  Soon-Yi Previn, the teenage daughter of Mia Farrow, his former partner, and Dylan's mother.
[00:05:21]  She is now his wife of 26 years.
[00:05:26]  Following an inquiry by child abuse investigators at Yale New Haven Hospital, Allen was never prosecuted.
[00:05:34]  He denies having assaulted Dylan Farrow.
[00:05:37]  He and his defenders have suggested Mia Farrow coach their daughter.
[00:05:40]  That is what I believe.
[00:05:42]  A lot more to report to you.
[00:05:52]  Passover is coming up.
[00:05:54]  Many Christians increasingly over the years have decided to have a Seder with Jews or at their church.
[00:06:04]  And there is a service, a service of hundreds of years, a thousand years.
[00:06:12]  The Haggadah is the service, and I have done with the Haggadah.
[00:06:18]  For Passover, what I did with the Bible and the Rational Bible, the Rational Passover Haggadah.
[00:06:25]  Even if you never have a service, it's worth reading, because I raise so many important issues in it.
[00:06:31]  It's 50% off at PragerStore.com.
[00:06:36]  PragerStore.com, the Rational Passover Haggadah.