DALLAS (NYTimes) - Hollywood says it is done with Harvey Weinstein, James Toback, Kevin Spacey and other figures ousted for sexual misconduct. But what about Woody Allen?
His film distributor Amazon and colleagues are now grappling with renewed scrutiny of allegations that Allen molested his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow in 1992 when she was a child. He was not charged. But at a moment when women's voices have been amplified as never before, her account carries more force, as even defenders of Allen are acknowledging.
"I do feel that it's an escalation," Ms Letty Aronson, Allen's sister and longtime producer, said, calling #MeToo a tool that has been used for "ulterior motives".
In conversations with Hollywood executives and insiders, allegiances were split between Allen, the Oscar-winning icon of 20th-century cinema, and Farrow, who has recently made her case powerfully on social media and in her first appearance on television.
Her allegations are not new but the response from stars who once worked with Allen is now different. Mira Sorvino, who won an Oscar for her breakout role in his Mighty Aphrodite, publicly apologised to Farrow.
Others, like Colin Firth, have distanced themselves from the director.
The shift raises questions about whether Allen can maintain the clout to attract A-listers to his future films and how much any of his projects can outrun the controversy.
Ms Aronson and others believe that it helped sink Kate Winslet's Oscar chances for Allen's 2017 film Wonder Wheel. On screen, another casualty could be A Rainy Day In New York, his soon-to-be-completed movie, which was financed and due to be distributed by Amazon. It is having serious conversations about ending its relationship with Allen, which could leave the movie without distribution, according to sources.
After Farrow called out actors for supporting #MeToo while also working with Allen, several stars of Rainy Day, including Timothee Chalamet and Rebecca Hall, publicly donated their salaries from it to charities and Time's Up, the Hollywood campaign against harassment and assault.
But Cherry Jones, a Tony- and Emmy-winning actress who also appears in Rainy Day, had a different response. "There are those who are comfortable in their certainty. I am not. I don't know the truth," she said.
"When we condemn by instinct, our democracy is on a slippery slope."
Others pointed to the trajectory of artists like Roman Polanski as an example of the entertainment industry's long-standing moral leniency. In the decades since he fled the United States to avoid sentencing after pleading guilty to unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl, he has enjoyed a flourishing career in Europe. He continued casting top Hollywood stars and won an Oscar in 2003 for directing The Pianist.
Despite signs of wavering support in Hollywood, Ms Aronson is confident Allen could make any movie he wants. Financing is already in place for the script he is working on now, she said. And as for casting, actors are a renewable resource. "I have no doubt," she said, "that he'll be able to find new talent."
