Woody Allen Sidesteps a Rape Joke in Cannes

“I never read anything about me, these interviews I do, anything,” Woody Allen said at a press luncheon for his new film Café Society Thursday during the 69th edition of the Cannes Film Festival. And in the last few days, there has been a lot to read.

As a tony audience assembled for Allen’s premiere and the festival’s opening-night ceremony on Wednesday, French comedian Laurent Lafitte stuck le foot in le mouth when he made a wisecrack alluding that Allen and Roman Polanski have something in common: “It’s very nice that you’ve been shooting so many movies in Europe, even if you are not being convicted for rape in the U.S.”

According to reports from people who were there—I wasn’t, as critics don’t generally attend red-carpet events—many in the audience gasped. And Thursday, several reporters asked Allen what he thought not just of the joke, but of the fact that on Wednesday, the day of the premiere, the Hollywood Reporter published an essay by Ronan Farrow, Allen’s son, criticizing the media for its lax attitude regarding the sexual-abuse allegations his sister, Dylan Farrow, made against Allen in 2014. According to Variety, Allen said in response, “I am completely in favor of comedians making any jokes they want. I am a nonjudgmental or [non]-censorship person on jokes. I’m a comic myself and I feel they should be free to make whatever jokes they want.” Allen also said that he hadn’t read Ronan Farrow’s essay. He added, “I said everything I had to say about that whole issue in the New York Times,” referring to the op-ed piece he wrote in February 2014, in response to Dylan Farrow’s accusations.

A subtle and captivating performance from Kristen Stewart aside, Allen’s picture—a comedy set in 1930s Hollywood and New York, featuring Jesse Eisenberg slumping around in a series of ill-fitting jackets as he mimics Allen’s carriage and diction—isn’t much. But the Cannes red carpet and all its attendant festivities rarely disappoint when it comes to glamor, entertainment value, controversy, or all three.

So what should we make of a comedian’s joke that’s neither funny enough to make an audience laugh or specific enough to hit its mark? I’m not sure what to feel for Woody Allen the person: How should a filmmaker respond to a surprise roasting by a comedian he’s probably never heard of—especially as he’s being honored at what’s inarguably the world’s biggest and most illustrious festival? (Café Society is being presented here out of competition. It’s here, mostly, because the French love Woody Allen.) There isn’t a response Allen could have made that would make all of us happy. Long ago the world, give or take a few people, decided that it was “gross” that Allen ditched longtime partner Mia Farrow and married her adopted daughter, Soon-Yi, who was essentially his stepdaughter. Pretty universally, we decided he’s a creepy, weird dude—who knows the extent of his creepy weirdness?

But even though we all have an opinion about Woody Allen’s personal life, the mystery of it isn’t one we can solve with the information at hand. And we certainly can’t solve it at Cannes. Woody Allen the artist—someone whose movies we may or may not like—came here to present a film. As that film was about to be shown for the first time in public, a comedian made a joke that may have been bad or ill advised but was still, after all, just an attempt to get a rise out of the crowd. Both of those things are show-biz, and show-biz is the business of Cannes. Sometimes it’s sadder than it is pretty.

Then again, we must never underestimate Cannes’ capacity not just to delight but also to torment and confuse. We’re all here—presumably—to see movies. Like Romanian director Cristi Puiu’s three-hour family drama Sieranevada, which is showing in competition here and was screened for the press Wednesday night. Puiu, the writer-director of the 2005 The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, helped lead the Romanian-cinema renaissance of the mid-2000s. His pictures wrangle with knotty social and political issues specific to his country, but they also strike a chord with audiences worldwide. Like his compatriot Cristian Mungiu, who made the stark 2009 abortion drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days—and who also has a film in competition this year, Graduation, which will screen next week—Puiu uses fine brushstrokes to show us subtle gradations of human anxiety and outright pain. Sieranevada is a multi-generation family soap opera, set mostly in one multi-room apartment as a family gathers for a memorial service. Sometimes the picture is oppressive; often, it’s pretty boring. But every once in a while, Puiu will add a dash of dark, unexpected humor—as when a prim, nervous middle-aged wife accuses her husband of infidelity using unexpectedly graphic, straightforward language—and the film jolts to life, if only briefly. Sometimes, a short, sharp laugh, one you didn’t see coming, is just the thing.