Woody Allen: A Travesty of a Mockery of a Sham – A Comprehensive Portrait of the Influential Filmmaker's Life and Legacy

by Patrick McGilligan

The acclaimed film biographer and author of  Young Orson  and  Funny Man  returns with the definitive look at the life and legacy of Woody Allen. The writer, director, and frequent star of more than fifty popular, award-winning, and internationally successful pictures over seven decades of filmmaking, Woody Allen is one of the most consequential American cultural figures of our time. Yet this national icon has fallen from grace nowadays. In this even-handed biography, Patrick McGilligan explores the public rise and fall of this hilarious comedian with a serious bent in his work, whose singularity and non-conformity has proved an Achilles heel.

This is the most comprehensive portrait of the creative prodigy that is Woody Allen. Drawing on exhaustive research, McGilligan brilliantly reconstructs Allen’s misbegotten Brooklyn boyhood and salad days as a comedy writer for Sid Caesar and other television personalities, his struggles to connect with audiences as a bright stand-up comedian, his sidelines as a New Yorker writer and Broadway playwright, and his first side-splitting movies as writer, director, and star, leading to his Oscar-winning Annie Hall and golden years, in the 1970s and 80s, of making some of his best films still beloved by fans. But it is also a scrupulous account of the darker side of Allen, his three marriages, famous liaisons and furtive flings, and especially his tumultuous personal and professional relationship with actress Mia Farrow, his affair with her daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, and the alleged abuse of his adopted daughter Dylan. McGilligan presents the known facts, parsing questions of guilt and innocence, and examines the case, with its charges and countercharges that accrue to the present day.  McGilligan’s compelling biography astutely links the ideas and themes of Allen’s career to his singular personality and character. He makes it clear Allen is a writer’s writer, and that beyond the smoke and controversy, no American filmmaker has had a greater cultural impact; none has been as creative, productive, or influential in his lifetime.

Genres: Biography, Biography Memoir, Nonfiction, Film, Media Tie In

848 pages, Hardcover

First published February 4, 2025

About the author

Patrick McGilligan is the author of Clint one of America’s pre-eminent film biographers. He has written the life stories of directors George Cukor and Fritz Lang — both New York Times “Notable Books” — and the Edgar-nominated Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light. His books have been translated into ten languages. He lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Reviews

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of details that prove Woody Allen a clever, intelligent wordsmith.

[John Schorg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strictly on the basis of his career in film, there is value in a study of Woody Allen. But of course, you can not avoid looking at the whole picture, which means the events surrounding Mia Farrow, Soon-Yi Previn, and Dylan Farrow. If you have read any of this particular author's work, you know there will be voluminous research on all aspects of a subject's life. That's what you've got here, more than 700 pages worth. To me, the author is very sympathetic toward Allen. His reviews of Allen's movies are mostly positive. He also comes across as supportive of Allen's disputes with Farrow. In one sense, it is easy to see why, since Allen was never charged with abuse. However, the author also provides enough evidence to portray Allen as a very unlikable, arrogant person, especially in his treatment of others. The sections of the book that detail the disputes between Allen and Farrow are extremely unpleasant, and it is often hard to understand how they stayed together as long as they did. That unpleasantness lingers, even after you've finished the book. Am I glad I read this? Yes. Would I ever read it again? Nope.

[Julien · Rating 4 out of 5]

Patrick McGilligan’s Woody Allen biography is a meticulously researched and engaging deep dive into the filmmaker’s life and career. The book offers fascinating insights into Allen’s writing process, contracts, filming, and post-production, though the level of detail noticeably thins out after the 2000s.

The Farrow vs. Allen case is addressed early on and is extensively documented with direct sources. McGilligan presents both perspectives with care, though the book may seem to lean toward Allen, likely reflecting the conclusions of official reports rather than personal bias.

Well-written and thoroughly researched, this biography is both an informative read and a real page-turner. A must for cinephiles, Allen fans, and anyone interested in the complexities of an artist’s life.

[Leigh · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is no denying that Woody Allen was one of the great filmmakers of the 1970s and 1980s. He has many extremely loyal fans, and the author of this book is one of them. The book notes Woody's less endearing traits: selfishness, neurotic behavior, and fickle love life. However, you can see the bias in the book. If the book had been more evenhanded, I would have bumped it to 3 stars. However, biographies need to be factual AND objective, and this book is factual and uses plenty of primary sources, but it is NOT objective.

[Brandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

The attention given to each Allen work is the hard core of this biography, which I often found missing in Apropos of Nothing. To this core Patrick McGilligan attaches life events in a chronological form, and he does so with care to provide concise context, but even at that, 848 pages feels like too few to respond to a writer as prolific as Woody Allen.

McGilligan’s writing is sure to disappoint everyone: he includes every charge against Allen ever made by Mia Farrow, but as surely as the research gives, it takes away; likewise, for charges made by Dylan; likewise, for Ronan. The massive citations carry with them significant contradictions contained in the allegations against Allen. While the chronological structure of “Travesty” does not juxtapose the Farrows’s contradictory statements, many readers will make the connections.

If there is a criticism of the book, it is that its exhaustive chronology plays fair, while the Farrows’ (NOT referring to Moses Farrow whose relevant witness supports the findings of the two state investigations into Dylan’s sexual abuse allegations) use of social media has clearly outmaneuvered Allen, whose knowledge of editing could probably make a devastating documentary on the evolution of Dylan’s claims.

As Moses Farrow admits, the relationship between Soon Yi and Woody was unorthodox; however, because of the intersectionality of adoption, race, age and Mia & Woody’s unmarried status, time has reframed that relationship. As with The Kid, Sherlock Jr. or Citizen Kane time can obliterate contemporary contexts. Perhaps it is ironic that the success of Midnight in Paris with its time-travel magic seems to have set Dylan & Ronan into motion in 2012, whereas Mia has grown less aggressive, perhaps realizing that her legacy will depend in large part on Purple Rose of Cairo, Hannah & Her Sisters and Crimes & Misdemeanors (not to mention Rosemary’s Baby).

[Alex Helm]

pedophile biography

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm going to confess up front that independent of my feelings about Woody Allen the human being, I simply cannot help remaining a big fan of Woody Allen the film maker (despite not seeing any of his movies since Blue Jasmine). His movies were a big part of what turned me into something of a film buff and I think he still deserves credit for giving women excellent roles when such parts were a rarity.

Patrick McGilligan's solid and comprehensive biography is probably the most definitive account of Allen's life to date and will likely remain so for some time. But for this fan, it lacked that extra something that makes for a totally compelling read, especially when describing the post-Farrow era of his career. Some of that may be baked in due to the repetitive nature of his one-film-a-year life pattern (some would say that of the films themselves, but McGilligan's descriptions provide a pretty counter-argument that the films are more uneven than repetitive ).

Many readers will be most interested in the more sordid aspects of Allen's life, and any biography (or even good film criticism) would have to deal with these extensively. I thought the account of the child-abuse accusations and custody battles of the 90s was very balanced, but the author regrettably drops his objectivity when describing the #MeToo era backlash against Allen, clearly taking Allen's side against the "cancellers". In case you are interested in my position, I am simply happy that there is no need for me to take a side. I probably should read Claire Dederer's Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma as therapy for my conflicted feelings.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a pre-publication copy. I regret not being able to complete my review pre-publication, but this book was long!

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good Biography

This is a good biography of Woody Allen and is usually unbiased but not when it comes to Mia, Dylan and Ronan Farrow. He uses the word hostage to refer to Mia’s refusal to return the nude photos, which seems logical in a situation like this. I am a Woody Allen fan and love to read about him and his work. I don’t support “cancel culture” as it has been applied to him, but I think he might have done what he was accused of too.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this 34-hour bio so I felt like I was living with Woody, but I’m not sure I understand the man any more than when I started the book. He is a complicated guy, but I think that “what you see is what you get” can be said of him. He’s not out to impress, or even necessarily befriend. His compulsion is work and his output. The author’s coverage is exhaustive, from Allen’s stand-up and writing career, to each one of his films, all covered in detail chronologically. The author includes information on the business side of production, auditions, actors, shooting, and editing. One really gets a sense for what goes into making a film ala Woody Allen.

Much time is given to the Farrow sexual assault accusation, and all of the acrimony involving the shared custody of the children. It is really a tragic tale, and to be honest, I came away happy for him in the end. TogetheR for over 30 years, he and Soon-Yi have two daughters who it seems lead a stable life. Happy 90th birthday to him.

[Sammy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marvellous and exhaustively-researched biography. As Allen is 90 this year and unlikely to make more films (despite what he continues to claim), this feels like a neat capstone for the director's astonishing career. Patrick McGilligan has given me many hours of pleasure over the years and this book continues that trend. It's wonderfully dense on the formation of this comic, from school to his early career struggles and years in television. The last handful of films, especially the last three (released post-cancellation) have thinner material, which is an annoyance. This reflects a reality, I suppose; McGilligan wasn't an "authorised" biographer, and much of the material here is synthesised from existing texts. There haven't been many if any books on the films themselves since the early 2010s, so this is a lacuna in the text for a future writer.

Naturally every review wants to talk about the Allen/Farrow malarkey, both in terms of the Soon-Yi situation and the more unsavoury allegations. McGilligan is scrupulously fair in presenting all sides and allegations. I saw a couple of professional reviews that decried his "obvious bias", yet it felt to me that the reviewer hadn't read the entire book - and indeed I suspect what those reviewers saw as bias was in fact "not reaching the same conclusion as me"! At this point, the reasonable doubt for Allen seems pretty bloody strong. Certainly, McGilligan plays his cards in the introduction, that he thinks that what has happened since 2013, and especially since 2017, is a witch-hunt. That colours his conclusions, undeniably, but he presents the breadth of the situation without fear or favour. Indeed, if there is an area where McGilligan is biased, it's in terms of Allen's later films - to the point where he makes it very clear when he dismisses reviewers he feels are wrong or have an axe to grind! Indeed, it becomes a bit repetitive in the later chapters to have him quote from negative or mixed reviews with a backhanded comment following. I'm sympathetic, and I certainly agree with Roger Ebert that - in the case of many albeit not all of the later films - had a young filmmaker brought one of them to, say, Sundance, the reaction would be very different. Both Allen's public reputation and the weight of his earlier masterpieces bears heavily on his later work. But since McGilligan doesn't actually present as a film scholar, i.e. he doesn't spend much time talking about cinematography and screenwriting as arts, per se, his dismissals of reviewers often tend to be ad hominem attacks or simply that: dismissals. It's underwhelming. Far better would have been to put the praise of the films in the voice of others.

Inevitably a few errors creep in here and there. David Mamet is mentioned as writing a play alongside Allen's when he would have been barely out of short trousers (it is correctly mentioned again decades later). Allen is wrongly credited as acting in James Ivory's A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries when it is in fact archive footage used on a television screen. And I'm still trying to figure out what McGilligan means by suggesting that Allen had a cameo on Mad About You. (There are a few other quirks, but that's a necessary evil with first editions of fat tomes spanning 90 years.)

As an 800-page gorilla with this much source-based material, I cheer the publishers for a dense index. Indexing is such a wonderful art that has been neglected by so many in recent years: an expense that publishers often don't value, but which I feel is cutting off the nose to spite the face. I quibble with McGilligan's chapter titles, which use the starting year for that section rather than an overview, even though the book is chronological (why have a chapter subtitled "2012", for instance, when the chapter covers 2012 through 2017?). I also grumble - just a tad - about the endnotes. Perhaps it was because of the book's length, but rather than detailed endnotes, we have paragraphs in the format of "first lines of quote or statement" come from "source". It means the reader has to spend time in this section to locate the right note, and if it's from a source previously used (and thus cited in abbreviated form) scrawl through everything that came before to find the source. I get it, but as this book will become a touchstone for future researchers, a little annoying.

For a director who gave us 50 incredible, and incredibly varied, films, this is a hugely useful - and more than once, surprising - tome that will remain of value to Allen lovers for decades to come.

[Edmund Roughpuppy · Rating 3 out of 5]

What do I want from the guy?
Woody Allen is one of those characters I am obsessed with. I can’t resist reading about him, even when the literature does not thrill me. Younger people need to understand, before Woody, there were no desirable role models for nerds. In the 1970s the nerds who rule our present world were either children or still unknown. In popular culture, nerds were figures of fun, foils for the leading man. The nerd NEVER got the girl. Until Woody. His onscreen persona modeled an idealized Nerd Heaven, where beautiful women cared about a man’s intellect and took walks in the rain. Fiction or not—and I’ll get to that—this hopeful vision was worth its weight in diamonds to young, hopeless nerds like myself. For this, if no other reason, his art and his life will always interest me.



Then there’s the author
In interviews, Patrick McGilligan admits he wasn’t especially interested in Woody Allen, and mainly wrote about him to make money. He delivers this origin story in an open, good-natured fashion, so I forgive him. It goes a long way to explaining how Patrick wrote a plodding, 700+ page doorstop of a book. He never decided what he wanted to say about Woody, thus his mountain of research felt like a tsunami of trivia. If anything useful was to be taken away from this book, it was up to me to fish it out.



Do life and art intersect?
Woody Allen fought a long battle against his public image. He often complained that people watched his movies and thought they knew him, from the characters he portrayed. He emphasized that his plots were all fictional. About his character, he claimed that in real life, he was the opposite of the nervous nerd he acted out on screen. During one interview, he said something like, “That is a testament to my acting ability. In general I am not a good actor, but I have this one character I can play convincingly. So convincingly, people think that is the real me.” He said repeatedly that in real life, he was a normal, athletic – read “borderline macho” – guy. He wasn’t anxious about anything, not an intellectual, he liked to watch sports more than reading. He also said his characters’ romances with much younger women had nothing to do with his real life.

From the testimony of people who know him well, those statements appear to be false. Woody may wish to control how much he reveals in his films, but ultimately the real Woody leaks out. Just like his character, the real life Woody is disabled by hypochondria. He’s a drama queen who changes hotels if he doesn’t like the shower drain. For most of his life he did not get the girl, and when he struck out – as he did with Mariel Hemingway – he sometimes ran away and claimed he never made a play for her. In summary, that nebbish character reappeared, movie after movie, for good reason. To a greater extent than he would like to admit, that is the real Woody.

All Allen's friends knew he rushed to see physicians at the slightest twinge. The director “had a doctor for every single part of his body" and carried around a list of his doctors’ home phone numbers and “a silver box full of pills for any conceivable ailment," Farrow attested. "If he felt the least bit unwell, he would take his temperature at ten-minute intervals. He kept his own thermometer at my apartment." Every time a new Woody Allen picture was set to be unveiled, he held a special “doctors' screening," and the room was "always full.”

Woody’s denial of these similarities between his art and life need not surprise us. All artists attempt to dictate others’ reaction to their work. The more intelligent artist knows this is impossible, but can’t give up trying.

Louise Lasser had an intensely personal reaction to Interiors. She thought Eve (Geraldine Page) was obviously derived from her mother, and the father’s sudden taking-of-leave was also eerily reminiscent. Upset, she phoned Allen. “That movie is about my family!” He listened patiently to his ex-wife’s griping, while insisting other people told him the same thing: they recognized their family in the film. “In any case, I don’t think you got my mother right,” Lasser finished. “Really?” Allen pivoted. “I thought I was pretty spot-on.”



But I’m not that character I play in my movies! Actually, you are that character.

While stuck in traffic on the way to Lincoln Center, sitting with Allen in the back seat of his cream-colored Rolls-Royce, [Jean] vanden Heuvel had an uncomfortable close-up of just how jumpy Allen got when venturing out in public. Were his clothes OK? he asked. She reassured him, although as far as she could tell he was wearing his usual checkered shirt and khakis with nondescript jacket—and sneakers—for what was a black-tie event. He was tense about arriving late. The photographers would spot him immediately, he worried; certainly they would, in the Alvy Singer-like outfit he was wearing, vanden Heuvel thought. . .

[Woody and Mia’s] clothing made similar anti-fashion statements, Allen with his persona wardrobe, Farrow, typically dressed in what she called "dead people's clothes," used or well-worn garments. The couple appeared, in fact, "as vastly underdressed rag pickers," in the words of columnist Liz Smith, "no matter the occasion. They seemed afraid of being touched, talked to, or stared at by the great unwashed. Yet they went around town in a white Rolls, so as not to be noticeable.”

[Jason M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

At 736 pages of small print and narrow spacing, to finish this book takes only slightly less time than it would to watch all of Woody Allen's 50 films (as director, excluding his acting or writing-for-hire work). This is a daunting volume and, full disclosure, I only read it because I'm friends with one of its editors. My parents tried to raise me on Woody Allen films in the '80s, the run between ZELIG and RADIO DAYS, before I decided I was happier following my own film muses and not theirs.

In one sense McGilligan's book is magisterial, following Woody from his Flatbush upbringing all the way up to his 2023 movie (he's reportedly planning a 51st film in Barcelona, about which I can find virtually nothing). Every TV appearance he made, stand-up gig he booked, movies he wrote or guest-starred in, every dwelling he lived in, every airline flight he took, and every woman or teenager he dated... it's all here. It takes a while to get to the Mia and Soon-Yi and Dylan material. McGilligan does not stint on the details. While the work is largely objective -- a lot of block quotes are presented from both sides without comment -- I get the sense McGalligan believes Allen over Farrow when it comes to the abuse charges against Dylan. And we can all pass what judgments we like about his marrying Soon-Yi, but they've now been together 35 years and their two children are now grown, so the time for tongue-clucking is arguably past. The author takes what are possibly some cheap shots at Farrow's parenting style or at son Ronan's journalism career, and also deadnames Elliot Page twice (which may be more a function of how long it took to write this book), but those are only fleeting moments of, as I said, a 736-page volume with very little blank space between.

There's a fair bit of get-off-my-lawn-ing and complaints about quote-unquote wokeness and "cancel culture", and two or three references to Trump (though at least, as far as I could interpret, not positive references).

I can't imagine I'd ever read this again, but I also have to believe there's never going to be a better book on the subject.

[Ray Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Patrick McGilligan provides a detailed look at Woody Allen. He begins with his early life and tells the stories of his joke adventures in writing for others, stand-up, and television. As a hot young comedian, Woody finds himself drawn to film and begins as an actor, writer, and finally a director. Each of the subsequent chapters deals with the writing, casting, and filming of each of his more than fifty films. I loved this aspect of the book.

The book also sketches Woody's personal life. As his movies are made and his fame grows, he has affairs and relationships with many women. I recall reading in Diane Keaton's memoir that the frumpy little sad sack Woody plays in his films is not the real man. The real man wears handmade clothes and is chauffeured in a Rolls Royce. He is also as far from the loser in love that he portrays as it is possible to be.

The part of the book I found disappointing was McGilligan's coverage Woody's break-up with Mia Farrow. I have no problem with the chapters that cover the break-up and court case. My problem is that from that part of the book to the end, almost half the book, he weaves Mia and the abuse allegations into everything. He can no longer tell the story of the next film without telling us what Mia thought and what was happening with her kids. From 1992 on, every breath he took requires a response from McGilligan regarding how Farrow and her family responded. More than half of his life’s work happened after breaking up with Mia Farrow and had nothing to do with her. Nevertheless, Mcgilligan has to work in how the film relates to Woody Allen's ongoing sex abuse allegations.

It was a well-researched and well-presented biography with a bit too much Mia Farrow. McGilligan could have told us what Woody's first wife thought of Crimes & Misdemeanors, or what his second wife thought of New York Stories... Why does he have to tell us what his estranged daughter thinks about the 31 films he made after breaking up with her mother? There is plenty of great material that makes this book a must read for Woody fans, but the second half is Mia Farrow heavy.

[Kristi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Holy Crap!! I am interested in a book about Woody Allen, but had no idea that I would be listening to a book for 39 hours. I loved many of the films he directed - Annie Hall's lobster scene is one of the funniest interactions in film history plus I loved Hannah and her Sisters. It is much harder to make sophisticated comedies than it is to direct good dramas. I actually liked some of his serious films more - Interiors and Manhattan. After learning about his abuse of a "daughter" and the marriage of another, I lost all respect for the man to put it mildly. It will be interesting to see what I think after reading this tome................. OK, I finished. I am a masochist. The subtitle of the book is a good description of the book itself = A Travesty of A Mockery of A Sham. I often say that book would be twice as good if it were half as long. I do not know where the responsible editors of publishing have gone. THIS BOOK WOULD BE TWICE AS GOOD IF IT WERE A TENTH AS LONG. Some of the plot descriptions of the movies were longer than the films. Can we spell BORED TO TEAR???? The author seems to have an agenda to defend Woodie from all being responsible for inappropriate / sexual behavior with a child. Mia Farrow, however, had a vendetta to destroy Woodie and was not exactly an exemplar for mental health herself. I am an incest survivor so my bias would be to always believe the child. Kristi & Abby Tabby *************** DEAR NARRATOR, You are being paid, ostensibly because you are sufficiently intelligent and educated to know how to pronounce the words in the book you are reading. Silly assumption!! Pathos ( vs. tragedy ) American and British correct pronunciation - PAY THOS not path os - long A. Cambridge dictionary. Proust - correctly has the oo as in who sound. Prooost. Comely -as in an attractive individual - sound literally as written: come ly not Comb ly sounding like homely. Incongruously, as in not in harmony. In con' grew ous ly accent on the con syllable, not on grew - Cambridge dictionary English and American correct pronunciation. Gustav Flaubert = flow bear' accent on the last syllable - I cannot even remember how you murdered this name.... lamented - la meant' ed. Accent on second syllable - not lay' meant ed. Paradigm - I would accept either a British or American pronunciation B= pair' a dime accent on the first syllable American = pair a dime' accent on the last - neither of them have the sound of pair a dem...... Affluence - correct short a as in bat with the accent on the a" flu ence - not a (as in about ) flu' ence - wrong a, wrong accented syllable. monosyllabic - mon o ( long o ) syll like sill a' (as in mad ) bick The accent is on the a not on syll. Oeuvre - body of work - one of the author's favorites words. I cannot even duplicate exactly how it was spoken, but in American English it is correctly pronounced to rhyme with Louvre - ooohv' re The most amazing to me was the word SWORD - I ever went back and played the sentence more than once because I could not believe that anyone with a brain would pronounce this word without a silent "W", but you did. It was not pronouced like soared but like swore + d. Can we say dumber than a box of rocks??????? I could go on, but I hope everyone gets the idea. PROOFREAD AND LEARN PRONUNCIATIONS BEFORE ACCEPTING MONEY FOR HORRIBLE ERRORS.

[A Cesspool]

The author is a total Woody-apologist; unfortunate since his Eastwood and Altman bios are essential film appreciation/b-t-s fandom, imho. But there's suggesting doubt, e.g. the likelihood someone srsly afflicted with touching kids should only ever have one, lone, victim [speak up] throughout their lifetime; And then there's shameless stoogery, specifically, castigating anyone for ever supporting Mia/Dylan Farrow, regretting prior collaborations or for just not blindly accepting Woody Allen is as great a father-figure as he is filmmaker (or musician). he triflin

[Michael Ritchie · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.5 stars) Pretty much everything you ever wanted to know about Woody Allen is in this doorstop of a book. I very much like Allen's movies and am much less interested in his private life except as it might be reflected in his work. McGilligan has done a massive amount of research, which is good in the sense that lots and lots of information is conveyed. But it also comes off as simply almost unedited notes taken toward a truly interesting biography. He seems to have never actually talked to Allen (the author doesn't say why or why not) but has read every work published in print and online so this reads like a clearinghouse of facts and anecdotes. The writing style is clear and plain, though I wish it was more interestingly written, as by the halfway point, it feels rote and repetitious--I would have wished for a more literary style. Still, in sheer terms of info, this is probably the best we'll get.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I was a big fan of his movies up through the seventies and eighties, but stopped following him around the time of "Alice". I hadn't realized that he's made fifty (fifty!) films, and am amazed at the sheer number of actors that worked with him (even after the Previn/Soon-Ye debacles).

As far as the writing, it held my interest for 740 pages, although the tawdry details of the Previn debacle tarnished the book, as they do Allen's legacy. I found the author's handling of the mess even-handed, as he gave equal voice to Mia, Ronan and Dylan. (Some may find the author pro-Allen, but I thought he was more anti-cancel culture.)

Most enjoyable were the chapters on his early life, including the early TV and standup work before Allen's movie career.

[Jeffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

What to make of Woody Allen? More precisely, what to make of Woody Allen as Patrick McGilligan writes of him in this long but detailed biography. There's his youth, his teen years writing gags for the New York Post, stand-up, writer for Sid Caesar, playwright, and of course filmmaker. Indefatigable. Workaholic. Obsessive. Want to know how he auditioned actors? He gave them a glance, maybe a chance to say a sentence or two. How he directed? Almost without direction to his actors - who often never saw the entire script. (But he did encourage them to ad lib.).

That's all there. But then there's his affair with Soon-Yi and the did he or didn't he with his adopted daughter Dylan. And if he did, does that make his films worse? And if he didn't?

736 pages of text. Thorough, detailed, often fascinating, sometimes yawn inducing.

[Melissa Scheffey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This riveting book covers every aspect of Woody Allen's life and only falls down on the psychological analysis of his work given what we know about his life, obviously because McGilligan is a fierce partisan who claims Allen has been victimized by the entire Farrow family for no crime whatever. I reach a different conclusion, considering that the trajectory of his involvement with his 7 year old daughter was clearly headed for molestation (he admitted getting her to repeatedly suck his thumb) and the trajectory of his personal exploration of male power and privilege and obsession with young girls was headed exactly the same direction. That said, he was a brilliant artist with the intellectual gifts to consider and test his place in the universe. His crime movies are my favorites.

[Davis Grant · Rating 3 out of 5]

Feel pretty mixed on this one. On one hand this is incredibly well researched and the best account of Allen’s allegations and trials I’ve read which paints a picture that while he may be talented, he’s a narcissistic misogynist that even if you believe his full version of events is still a terrible person. But then the last chapter takes on this attitude of “but does that matter if the movies are good?” Really disappointed by the ending. If you want an informative read just cherry pick the information you want out of here.

[F.R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Obviously a controversial topic, but I think McGilligan handles it particularly well. Walking the fine line between sympathetic and critical. The Allen of these pages isn't the monster he is sometimes portrayed, but he is a highly problematic, selfish, unthinking and hard to like human being.

How you deal with the art made by difficult people is something which has long been debated. There is never going to be a consensus answer. But the author has made a valiant effort here to give us the story of the great filmmaker, while making sure we see the warts of the man.

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two reasons I wanted to read another Woody bio. One, it was just written so it covers all his movies (to date). Two, Milligan’s bio of Hitchcock was great and I’m happy to report this is even better. This has got to be the most thoroughly researched work ever on Allen. There isn’t much else to say I haven’t said in my other reviews but this should be the essential text.

[Ilya Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Will try to rewatch some Allen films (and watch a couple of last ones I missed) to see if they still hold up (I'm sure most of them will do fine). On the allegations — Woody is not beating them for sure in this book (at least half of it is on this topic and pretty thorough). But Mia comes off as a really vengeful and messed-up person in her way too. Still on the fence on this one.

[John Bleasdale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deeply fascinating book which does not shy away from controversy while suspending judgment at what cannot be known.
Allen emerges as a deeply strange and often self-defeating artist whose life has bled into his work.

[Prisoner 071053 · Rating 4 out of 5]

hoping Mia dies this year 🤞🏻

[Timothy Rooney · Rating 3 out of 5]

meh

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must read for a true Woody fan, although way too many mentions of daughter Dylan and that whole sordid mess, which will probably never be resolved.

[Mike Cruz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book if you are a fan of the philisophical and psychological themes of his films. If you are not a huge Woody Allen fan, you my find the book boring.