WOODY THE BIOGRAPHY

WOODY: THE BIOGRAPHY. David Evanier. St. Martin's; 2015.

This "biography" of filmmaker, comic and actor Woody Allen is much more of a rumination on the man than a full bio, although Evanier does his best to hit all the important bases. The author doesn't really start to get into his subject's life story until a quarter of the way into the book, and focuses on certain key films while virtually ignoring many others. In more or less chronological order he also looks at Allen's relationships with wives, girlfriends, and children -- Louise Lasser, Diane Keaton, Mia Farrow, and others --  and ends up the book with a long dissection of the sordid Woody-Mia Farrow mess. clearly coming down on Allen's side. Evanier doesn't necessarily gloss over Allen's failings as both filmmaker and man (he deservedly hates Stardust Memories, for instance, as well as Interiors, and isn't blind to Allen's character flaws) but the book does function primarily as a defense of some of Allen's actions and especially of Mia Farrow's charges of child molestation. (We must remember that his lover Soon-Yi, was an adult at the time their affair began, but still one has to wonder at the inappropriateness, vulgar audacity, and staggering lack of sensitivity that led to Allen having a relationship with his girlfriend's daughter, who was also the sister of his own children. Soon-Yi's motivations for taking up with a comparatively homely middle-aged but famous and wealthy man I'll leave to others to ponder). Woody: The Biography has some interviews with people who know and worked with Allen, and an interview with Dick Cavett is reproduced in its entirety but functions more as padding than anything else. Although Allen did not cooperate with the book as such, he did agree to answer some of Evanier's questions via email, but these don't seem to have provided that much enlightenment.

Verdict: Interesting read, but only an average bio. ***.