My Favorite movies are as follows: The Dreamers by Bernardo Bertolucci, Midnight in Paris by Woody Allen, and The Pianist by Roman Polanski. Titles I used to declare at the top of my lungs, but in recent months I have felt ashamed to say out loud, even finding myself not wanting to watch them on my own time.

This all began when I took a friend of mine, who we will call Eliza, to a one night only screening of Woody Allen’s film, Manhattan, at our local movie house. I had a lovely time and was super excited to share one of my favorite directors with one of my favorite people. When the movie ended I looked over at her with a huge smile on my face and asked her what she thought. She looked back at me with despair and said,

“I like all the movies Woody isn’t in”

It wasn’t like this was the first Woody Allen movie Eliza had seen, infact the previous week we had seen his newest film Magic in the Moonlight. A film that I thought was a stale copy of midnight in Paris; I think I even recognized the same Cole Porter song being used. Instead she thought that Magic in the Moonlight was, well, magical. She even said she like Emma stone. But I understand where Eliza is coming from, she knew more about the sexual assault charges against Mr. Allen than I did. Eliza’s mother was raped when she was young and that propelled her into a life dedicated to victim advocacy, how could I have expected her to sit through a two hour movie starring at the face of the very type of person she dreams of putting in prison someday?
This episode lead me to further examine Allen’s alleged abuse. I had a base knowledge that he had sexually abused his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow and that he fell in love with his other adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn when she was 17. In my head I tried to tell myself that the latter part was fine because now they are happily married and have been together more than twenty years. The former I have tried to push out of my mind whenever I watch any of his films, but still it creeps back in and ruins the movie goer experience. I always appreciate honesty and realism in movies and that was what drew me to him in the first place, he seemed like the average New Yorker, cynical and authentic. This has lead me to be honest in all of my art as well.

Next on to Roman Polanksi, a man about whom I found myself saying,

“The American Government should just stop trying, it has been almost 30 years, move on!”

I was immediately taken aback by what I said. I am a die hard Adrian Brody fan. But I feel as though every film I like is by an awful person. At the end when I see Polanski’s name roll on the screen I feel like it is a mistake. While one side my heart aches for Polanski his loving pregnant wife was famously killed by the manson family and grew up in Nazi occupied Poland, his mother dying in Aushwitz. But my brain continues to remind me that almost ten years later he drugged and raped a 13 year old girl. As someone who prides herself in standing with survivors of sexual abuse, I hate myself for excusing the behavior of these directors; maybe I do it because they are famous, maybe I even respect him for continuing in the film industry inspite of being ejected from America, maybe I push it aside because I can’t reconcile the fact that such brilliant artists can simultaneously be complete assholes.

The roots of my problems go deeper than this. When I was 14 I read Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov and watched the 1997 film. Enticed by the beautiful costumes, red lipstick, and Jeremy Irons puppy dog face I found myself a daisy fresh girl no more. After this I devoted my personal blog to the film; twistedly idolizing this old man’s kidnap of what was supposed to be his 9 year old daughter, whom he calls a nymphette. So I began to dress like a nymphette and beg my 15th birthday to stay away. Proceeding to call all my male friends fawnettes.
I realize how fucked up that is now, even though I am only 16, I feel a million years wiser than I was back then. When we bring up Lolita in my english class I keep my eyes low as to avoid eye contact 60 year old male english teacher. Old men make me sick, in fact it makes my stomach churn when they look at me on the street. At the same time I am a hypocrite since my best friend is my former history teacher who is a 62 year old man.

I digress, finally my favorite film ever to have its reel put into a projector is The Dreamers by Bernardo Bertolucci. It is the story of three youths during the 1968 student uprising in Paris. Truly the film has little plot, but I have memorized every line in the film and can lipsync it perfectly. It begins with an American named Matthew (Michael Pitt) studying french in Paris, he feels like an outsider so he goes to me movies for solace. There he meets cinephile twins Theo (Louis Garrel) and Isabel (Eva Green). Matthew begins to live with them; my favorite scene being the one where on a dare Matthew takes Isabel’s virginity on the kitchen floor while Theo makes eggs and smokes Isabel’s pink cigarettes. Which brings me to my favorite theme, Isabel’s pink cigarettes. Throughout the film Isabel only smokes pink cigarettes with gold filters. All of the other characters smoke plain ones. In the scene previously mentioned Theo smokes Isabel’s pink cigarettes and I think this represents Theo’s power over his sister. Finally, my favorite quote from the film is, “I don’t believe in God but if I did he would be a black left handed guitarist.”

But Bertolucci’s sins are not as grave as his peers and the faults I find in him only lie in the 1972 film Last Tango in Paris, although I have seen this film and likely won’t as to not stain my view of this movie The Dreamers which I hold in such high esteem. In this film there is an anal rape scene by the aging Marlon Brando to the youthful Maria Schneider. Bertolucci only told the two moments before the scene was shot. Brando wouldn’t talk to Bertolucci for many years after the film and Schneider never forgave him up until her death in 2011.

Even after writing this I still appease my love of art in film with the fact that not every artist is an angel. I find it hard to believe that I can still call myself an advocate for survivors of sexual abuse, while also idolizing their abusers. Art and genius do not discriminate, it does not choose between good and evil, it blesses whom it blesses.