Woody Allen Responds to Cannes Rape Joke and Son’s Article Comparing Him to Bill Cosby
The Cannes Film Festival opened Wednesday night with excitement… glamour…a new Woody Allen movie… and a rape joke. Audiences at Cannes were surprised last night when the master of ceremonies for the opening night premiere of Woody Allen’s new movie, “Cafe Society” made a joke presumably directed at Roman Polanski, but also possibly a shot at Allen. “It’s very nice that you’ve been shooting so many movies in Europe, even if you are not being convicted for rape in the U.S,” mc Laurent Lafitte said.
Today, Allen responded to questions about the joke, and reportedly seemed unbothered. “I am completely in favor of comedians making any jokes they want,” he told Variety. “I am a non-judgmental or [non]-censorship person on jokes. I’m a comic myself and I feel they should be free to make whatever jokes they want.”
According to Variety he was more bothered by the length of the opening ceremonies, saying, “It would take a lot to offend me. What bothered me most last night was the length of the show before the movie. I’m sitting there. I know I have a movie that’s an hour and a half, I would like the introduction ceremony to be 20 minutes, half hour at the most.”
Woody also responded to questions about an op-ed piece his estranged son Ronan Farrow wrote for The Hollywood Reporter. The guest column was titled, “My Father, Woody Allen, and the Danger of Questions Unasked” and renewed Farrow’s assertions that he believes his father sexually assaulted his sister Dylan Farrow when she was seven years old. The op-ed drew comparisons between his famous father and Bill Cosby in the time period just before America turned on him.
Allen likened Farrow’s piece to any other written about him in the news– reviews, interviews, or anything else– saying he doesn’t plan to read it. He said that he had addressed Ronan’s accusations in The New York Times in 2014, and no longer thinks about it. “I said everything I have to say about it,” he told reporters. He says he made a decision 5 years ago to stop reading anything about himself. “You should do your work, not call up and find out how the grosses are, how is the film doing, how are the reviews. Forget about all that. Just work.”
“Cafe Society” has been receiving strong reviews, and opens in the US July 15.
