Introduction: ‘I’m interested in the relationships that women have with other women’

Summary

One could say that, over the past ten years, women have created an entire field

within film studies which is now producing some of the most stimulating,

intelligent and exciting work going on and which has dramatically influenced

the criticism of male writers as well.

‒ Ann E. Kaplan, Women and Film: Both Sides of the Camera

Ann E. Kaplan's influential book, Women and Film: Both Sides of the Camera, makes some profound points and was a major driver of this edited volume looking critically at the work of one male filmmaker. Responding to the astute observations of authors such as Kaplan – who further suggested that ‘few books on film, whether written by men or by women, can now ignore issues of female representation’ (1983: iix) – this volume seeks to address the significant role of women in the work of Woody Allen. We specifically use the term ‘work’ as, in addition to Allen's large body of films, his plays, stand-up and television work are considered here.

The perspectives of a diverse group of authors have been brought together in these pages, authors who variously interrogate and analyze the multifaceted representations of women in these texts and in so doing for the first time evaluate the contributions made by women to the work of a problematic filmmaker. A critical reassessment of Allen's output is needed, prompted by the recently resurfaced child abuse allegations regarding Woody Allen's adopted daughter Dylan Farrow and a broader awareness as well as growing consciousness of issues surrounding gendered power structures in society.

The subject of men writing women is an area of film studies that is largely on the periphery of scholarship, despite the fact that, as Sarah S.G. Frantz and Katharina Rennhak have pointed out, borrowing a phrase from Virginia Woolf, there are ‘innumerable books written by men about “the most discussed animal in the universe” [woman]’ (2010: 1). There are scholars who have written about the construction of women by male authors in both literature and the theatre but very little indeed in the world of cinema.