One thing that leaps out in the new Woody Allen exposé: “Manhattan” was a fantasy in which his friends were interested in hanging out with him in the company of the kids he was screwing.
“The heart wants what it wants,” says Woody. In his case, it turns out that the middle-aged heart wants lots of threesomes with teen models just above or below the age of consent.
And again, note that Allen was maintaining multiple simultaneous sexual relationships with teenagers throughout his forties. Imagine how different a movie Manhattan would be if it hadn’t hidden that fact.
The fact that Tracy is a composite character really says it all.
And since I see the original tweet is a little obscure if you haven’t read the story: The woman who just came forward as a (one of several, it’s now clear) sources for the Tracy character says he never spent time with her around his friends.
The (already gross) story of Manhattan is one of a middle-aged man who serendipitously falls in love with a teenager, winning his friends’ welcoming approval.
The reality was that he was stringing along a group of young girls, some underaged, keeping them isolated from friends and colleagues and in the dark about his work—even when he was making a movie about them.
