Comparing Woody Allen to Polanski and Cosby is lazy and dangerous | Catherine Shoard

Yet the three cases are very different. <a href=”http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/oct/30/polish-court-rejects-us-request-to-extradite-roman-polanski” title=”” data-link-name=”in” body link” data-component=”in-body-link” class=”u-underline”>Polanski pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a minor in 1977. He served 42 days in prison, was put on probation, then fled from the US to Paris before sentencing. He has apologised to the victim for his behaviour; she doesnt now feel extradition is necessary: He said he did it, he pleaded guilty, he went to jail. I dont know what people want fromhim.

Cosby has been accused of the rape and, in many cases, drugging to unconsciousness of more than 60 women over more than 40 years. Last year he was charged with sexual assault, an arrest warrant issued and bail set at$1m. His trial is pending.

Allen was accused of one incident of molestation by a seven-year-old at the height of the custody battle between him and the childs mother in 1993. The allegations were looked into by authorities and not pursued. The judge said the evidence relating to sex abuse charges was inconclusive. After 14 months investigation, the New York department of social services said: No credible evidence was found that the child named in this report has been abused or maltreated. No one else has ever lodged such a complaint against him. Allen and his wife, Soon-Yi, successfully adopted two girls in the years immediately following.

Farrow feels that there has been a miscarriage of justice. He sees thedifficulty of his step-sister subsequently getting airtime for her case as linked to the fact that it has not beenvindicated by conviction.

This is true: it has not. This isnt just an inconvenience; it is important. And from the outside at least, it doesnt appear to have been so hard. The legal case ended more than 20 years ago, but the media trial continues. In recent years it has gathered steam as the Farrows have restated their claims, and as social media has facilitated wider debate or stoked flames of prurience disguised as self-righteousness.

The concept of innocent until proved guilty is, in theory, absolute. Scepticism is always to be encouraged. But in Allens case, it is rather more than this. The done thing is instead to simply dismiss the principle, ignore the law andrely instead on rumour.

In his piece, Farrow attacks the press for their failure to ask Allen hard questions. Yet they have, and the answers remain the same: he denies the allegations and believes that his former partner poisoned the children against him as, incidentally, does Ronans sibling Moses. Farrow also takes aim at what he sees as a powerful PR machine insulating Allen. Yet not only does the director appear pretty riddled with potshots, hes also someone that I, at least, have found strikingly easy to access. Now 80, he did three days of press at Cannes. His publicists do not sit in on his interviews; you are free to ask anything; he always replies. In this field that is unusual. For someone of Allens age and status, it is remarkable.

Farrow suggests a film festival should not grant Allen a spot on its schedule. But if innocent people and this, the fact remains, is what Allen is are to be blacklisted because some people think them fishy, we are in very murky water. This is not, thankfully, a world where the art of those people actually convicted of heinous crimes is censored. We are still free to look at paintings by that murderer Caravaggio, and read poems by incestuous Byron. We are encouraged to take our children to the new Alice Through the Looking Glassfilm, despite its almost certainly unsavoury inspiration. Ought we to also chuck out our Sinatra records,given his Mafia links?

People police themselves through their own moral codes. But film festivalsmust stand aside. Writing for the Guardian this week to back Farrow, and <a href=”http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/12/woody-allen-film-cafe-society-cannes” title=”” data-link-name=”in” body link” data-component=”in-body-link” class=”u-underline”>explain her own boycott of Allens movies, Melissa Silverstein called the director Teflon. But he is not. Smears leave an unshiftable residue. His reputation has suffered. But that he is stillcelebrated is not the result of collusion. Its because what ultimately didnt stick were the charges.