Get to work! New non-fiction books: music from a child molester, film from a rapist

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Woody Allen has become quiet. A few days ago, the American comedian, actor and director celebrated his 88th birthday. It is doubtful that he was in a celebratory mood – his image was too tarnished by allegations of abuse by one adopted daughter and his marriage to another. Yet I still find his books funny and love his films such as The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985). And a few years ago I saw him in New York at one of his legendary jazz clarinet concerts – magnificent!

“Many rumors and accusations swirl around the small figure of Woody Allen like a halo of blowflies,” writes American writer and critic Claire Dederer (56) in her book, recently published in German. Does this make his work bad? “As it turns out, Urban Neurotic is still good,” says Dederer. She had previously seen the film at least a dozen times and was still re-enchanted because it was “like a sparkling glass of champagne.”

Woody Allen is a cultural figure whom the New York Times, Atlantic and Vogue reporter discusses in his book – along with Roman Polanski (90), Bill Cosby (86), Michael Jackson (1958-2009), Richard Wagner (1813-1883), Picasso (1881–1973) or Caravaggio (1571–1610): “They were all accused of doing or saying something terrible,” writes Dederer, “and they all created great things.” But how can you separate the creator and the creation? Is this possible?

Dederer answers these questions and shares them with many other women. Yes, women, because genius monsters are almost exclusively men, and the crimes are mostly sexual violence against women. Dederer: “Rape is considered a male crime, and a woman neglects her own children.” Dederer narrowly escaped rape: “I don’t approach these issues with coolness or a clear point of view. (…) And yet I want to continue consuming works of art.”

She describes how she managed to do this casually in her youth: “LPs and books appeared before us as if thrown out of the vacuum of space, divorced from all context.” It was difficult to get information about artists back then. Today, in the Internet era, things are different: it now seems almost impossible to separate work and biography. “We are swimming in biographical knowledge,” says Dederer, “we are choking on biographies.”

Knowledge causes stress. The question of how to deal with the art of monstrous people is just a mosquito buzzing around the elephant that is really at stake: “How do we deal with the monstrous people we love?” Love is not based on a judgment made, but on the decision to suspend that judgment. Dederer: “Love is anarchy. Love is chaos.” We don’t love those who deserve it; we love flawed and imperfect people.

Source: Blick