An Open Letter from Dylan Farrow- Page 14

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 2/8/14 at 12:11pm

I don't think the fact that Woody Allen refused a police lie detector test and instead had a specialist of his own hiring do one is at all damning.

Woody Allen was represented by lawyers during this period.

Any lawyer worth his or his salt, whether representing someone guilty or innocent in fact (and remember, lawyers frequently do not know for sure whether their clients are guilty or not), would advise a client to take a confidential lie detector test administered by someone hired by the client rather than one administered by the police.

Moreover, lie detector examining investigators, both private and state-employed, as a general rule are professionals who do not skew results.

This of course is a separate question as to whether lie detector results are so reliable that they completely clear someone who has passed the exam. Generally, they are not accepted as evidence in courts.
Updated On: 2/8/14 at 12:11 PM

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 2/8/14 at 12:15pm

Luscious, with all due respect, have you read the entire thread? The reason I ask is because that article was already linked and it's contents are already being discussed.

Updated On: 2/8/14 at 12:15 PM

[Luscious]

Posted: 2/8/14 at 1:00pm

My humblest apologies for the redundancy.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 2/8/14 at 1:28pm

It's okay. It happens. The article has sparked a lot more discussions on the topic.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 2/8/14 at 3:36pm

"Why would a director who thought his ex had vindictively orchestrated an evil smear campaign against him consider her for a part in a movie a couple of years later?"

Sometimes creative people look past their personal issues and want the best for their projects. When Phantom of the Opera was being made into a movie, Andrew Lloyd Webber had thought about casting Patti LuPone as Carlotta (or was it Madame Giry?).

Updated On: 2/8/14 at 03:36 PM

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 2/8/14 at 3:46pm

My point was that this statement from Allen: "The police began their investigation; a possible indictment hung in the balance. I very willingly took a lie-detector test and of course passed because I had nothing to hide. I asked Mia to take one and she wouldn’t."

is at best misleading. As I said, if I was advising Farrow, I would not have allowed her to submit to a lie-detector test conducted by Allen's people. The statement above implies that the police conducted the test, which was not the case, and that it was a police lie-detector test that Farrow refused to take - which as not the case.

It is not conclusive of anything, other undermining the lie-detector statement that Allen keeps throwing out there about himself and Farrow.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 2/8/14 at 4:25pm

This is turning into The Bonfire of the Narcissists.
Stop me oh-ho-ho stop meee...

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 2/9/14 at 12:35am

...technical difficulties...please stay tuned...

Updated On: 2/9/14 at 12:35 AM

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 2/9/14 at 12:43am

"Some domestic trouble of mine, of long- standing, on which I will make no further remark than that it claims to be respected, as being of a sacredly private nature, has lately been brought to an arrangement, which involves no anger or ill-will of any kind, and the whole origin, progress, and surrounding circumstances of which have been, throughout, within the knowledge of my children. It is amicably composed, and its details have now but to be forgotten by those concerned in it.

By some means, arising out of wickedness, or out of folly, or out of inconceivable wild chance, or out of all three, this trouble has been made the occasion of misrepresentations, most grossly false, most monstrous, and most cruel—involving, not only me, but innocent persons dear to my heart, and innocent persons of whom I have no knowledge, if, indeed, they have any existence—and so widely spread, that I doubt if one reader in a thousand will peruse these lines, by whom some touch of the breath of these slanders will not have passed, like an unwholesome air.

Those who know me and my nature, need no assurance under my hand that such calumnies are as irreconcileable with me, as they are, in their frantic incoherence, with one another. But, there is a great multitude who know me through my writings, and who do not know me otherwise; and I cannot bear that one of them should be left in doubt, or hazard of doubt, through my poorly shrinking from taking the unusual means to which I now resort, of circulating the Truth.

I most solemnly declare, then—and this I do, both in my own name and in my wife's name—that all the lately whispered rumours touching the trouble at which I have glanced, are abominably false. And that whosoever repeats one of them after this denial, will lie as wilfully and as foully as it is possible for any false witness to lie, before Heaven and earth."



Charles Dickens said it better in 1858.

[best12bars]

Posted: 2/9/14 at 5:57am

He sure did!

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 2/9/14 at 10:49am

He was so used to being paid by the word.

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 2/9/14 at 1:08pm

I find it very interesting that a lot of people are so adamant that Dylan's claims need to be respected, but not Soon-Yi and Moses' allegations of abuse by Mia.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 2/9/14 at 1:39pm

That was just getting hit really hard and verbally berated. She never put her head on their laps.

[Liza's Headband]

Posted: 2/9/14 at 5:21pm

" We are in the paradoxical situation of being subject to pure evil and knowing from experience that its representatives are rarely pure evil themselves. No one is. We have almost certainly seen at least a flicker of innocent joy or generosity in their face. We have puzzled over this person who hurt us, and considered the fact that they too were children once. And we know that many of them were also sexually abused as children. At some point in healing, we just know that there will never be, could never be enough jails to contain this – that it would never work anyway.

We are left with a problem: The greater the tenor of condemnation against these perps, the higher the stakes in telling our own stories, and the higher their own stakes in defending themselves.

If Woody Allen is now written into history as a monstrous child molester, child abuse is more likely to continue. Because if we are unable to stomach the fact that Woody is not a monster but a human being who did something monstrous, we will continue to stoke the fires of archetype, perpetuating the notion of the picture-perfect pedophile, the one whose evil shines through like a 100-watt black lightbulb. "


Woody Allen Is Not a Monster. He Is a Person. Like My Father. Updated On: 2/9/14 at 05:21 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 2/9/14 at 6:31pm

"If Woody Allen is now written into history as a monstrous child molester, child abuse is more likely to continue."

And if he is not, it is not? I tried. I tried to read his lengthy narrative. I don't understand the reasoning people who write these blogs use when they come up with if/then formulas like the one above or the one Aaron Bady conceited last week.

I agree that the archetypal language favored by Dylan Farrow is unfortunate. Her brother is "dead" to her and by pointing out that life is better for everybody in the Farrow household when mother is pleased is "the most evil betrayal" she has ever known.

I just don't understand. So many people really need help and are doing the most counter-productive things in public instead.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 2/20/14 at 4:43pm

"As I said, if I was advising Farrow, I would not have allowed her to submit to a lie-detector test conducted by Allen's people. The statement above implies that the police conducted the test, which was not the case, and that it was a police lie-detector test that Farrow refused to take - which as not the case."

I agree with you that if I were advising the Farrows, I would not have advised them to take a lie detector test administered by Allen's people; but they could have certainly taken one administered by someone else if they wanted to.

But just as Farrow's counsel would have been right to advise them not to submit to a test given by Allen's people, Allen's counsel was equally correct to advise him not to submit to a test given to him by the state.

Both cases are instances of effective lawyering. Neither is a reflection on the truthfulness of the lawyers' respective clients.

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 10/25/23 at 8:04pm

A lot has happened in the decade since this conversation.

Docuseries, #MeToo, autobiographies etc.

I wonder if anybody has changed their mind? An interesting discussion, for sure, but since most of the people in this thread are long gone I'll probably never know.