Kate Winslet recently remonstrated with herself in a public forum that she must have been nuts to have performed in the movies of Woody Allen and Roman Polanski.

About Woody Allen, we think there is more to say than ruing one's cooperation because of charges that have not been definitively proven, and which are vociferously denied by the accused, Allen.  

We believe ardently in the First Amendment.  Moreover, auteur Woody Allen, controversial as he may be for now several decades, is a stellar talent in multiple areas, unmistakably a brilliant writer and director.  His work will be mined for sociological texts for many decades.  Not to air his completed work seems criminal.  

Likewise, his personal memoir ought to be a trove of insight.  Allen is notoriously private, so that is even more of an incentive to read his self-revelations, questionable as this may appear to be.

Mia Farrow may have tainted the well with regard to accusations of molestation; men have had little recourse when accused  by ferocious women outraged by "betrayal" or divorce.  It is possible, you know, that Allen did not molest anyone.  He may like the company of younger women, yes, but that can be laid off on the difficulty of aging, when people cling to the younger and more vital.  We would like to think he is not guilty of the charges.   

In the meantime, we miss the annual...celebration?...of a Woody Allen film to muse over, laugh with, and extract meditational grist from.  He deserves a fair hearing in the public.  His work deserves an airing, too. He is a master of the form, a unique talent, and a man whose like does not come around so frequently that we can afford to stiff his output.   

The court proceedings have not, for some of us, even women, been dispositive.  Even if they were, his work merits being seen and heard.  T.S. Eliot was a known, nasty anti-Semite, but his work continues to be remarkable, admired, studied.  Picasso was a scamp and a rotter to women, yet his art is sublime.   

Let Woody showcase his art.  How many of the men at the publishers at Hachette are perfect specimens of ideal probity?  One guesses not that many.  

Image: jlmaral via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.