This month, 13 movie theaters in the United States screened “Coup de Chance,” a brisk French-language thriller about a bored wife who cheats on her rich, distant husband with an old classmate, leading to fatal consequences.
According to the criteria of
Without the opening credits and certain characteristic elements—jazz score, wealthy setting, dry, cosmopolitan chatter—a typical viewer might watch it without knowing that it is the 50th film directed by Woody Allen. The language, the absence of the kind of American stars that normally fill its casts, the low-key reception: everything suggests the discomfort surrounding this new release from a filmmaker as distinctive as he is polarizing.
“We’re still doing what we’ve been doing and we’re happy it’s coming out,” said Letty Aronson, Allen’s sister, who has produced his films since 1994. She said the film was financed in Europe.
Allen, 88, has more than half a century of experience as a writer and director of classics such as “Two Strange Lovers” (1977) and “Crimes and Sins” (1989). A late period that began with “The Provocation,” from 2005, has included collaborations with stars such as Scarlett Johansson, Timothée Chalamet and Cate Blanchett, who won an Oscar for “Blue Jasmine” (2013). Allen’s 2011 comedy “Midnight in Paris” earned him his fourth Oscar, for original screenplay, and grossed more than $150 million worldwide.
But for many, affection for his films has been overshadowed by the accusations against him. In 1992, her daughter Dylan Farrow, then 7 years old, said that Allen had sexually assaulted her, months after beginning a relationship with Soon-Yi Previn, the 21-year-old daughter of Mia Farrow, the former partner of Mia Farrow. she and Dylan’s mother. (Previn has now been married to Allen for 26 years). Following an investigation by child abuse investigators in Connecticut, Allen was never prosecuted. He denies assaulting Dylan Farrow. He has suggested that Mia Farrow suggested her daughter.
Her reputation remained largely intact until 2014, when an adult Dylan Farrow reiterated her accusation—published on a New York Times columnist’s blog. In the midst of the #MeToo moment three years later, and after another essay written by Dylan Farrow, many film critics pointed to Allen as the quintessential example of the question: how to consider the work and legacy of a major artist accused of acts unforgivable?
It is far from clear that the public has turned decisively against Allen. “Coup de Chance” premiered in September at the Venice Film Festival to a seven-minute standing ovation and protests outside.
Allen’s 50th film may not even be his last. A new film “is in the process of being negotiated,” Aronson said.
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