VOORHEESVILLE — Before the start of the #MeToo movement last October, Dennis Sullivan proposed hosting a Woody Allen Film Festival at the Voorheesville Public Library. This month, as he prepared to screen the third and final film in his series, Allen’s daughter spoke out again with allegations she first made during her parents’ bitter custody battle, that Allen had molested her.

“We got several complaints,” said Gail Alter Sacco, the library’s director, of objections to showing the films. “Two said, ‘We understand you’re showing these; we’re not going to come. We do not respect Woody Allen or his films.’” The third complainant “was very concerned in this time” that the library was not just showing the film but also advertising it, said Sacco.

“Pulling the publicity seemed like a reasonable request,” said Sacco, stressing that the third film was to be shown as planned. Flyers promoting the series were taken down as was wording on a sign at the library.

“We didn’t pull all the publicity,” said Michele Reilly, who heads public services for the library. The third film, “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” was still on the library calendar for Wednesday, Jan. 24, and was included in notices about the series that had been sent out to media, including The Altamont Enterprise.

“The poster had Woody Allen’s face on it, giving the impression it was about him, not about the films and the art,” said Reilly. “We felt it had been advertised enough so that the people who would come already knew.”

“We felt it was appropriate to finish the series,” said Sacco.

“Because it’s about the art,” concluded Reilly.

The turnout for the films and discussion following had been scant. The first, “Radio Days,” drew four spectators and the second, “Danny Rose,” drew three people.

Reilly noted that Sullivan is a frequent library presenter and said his programs usually attract many more people. “I suppose you could say people were already voting with their feet,” she said.

Sullivan also writes a monthly column, “Field notes,” for The Enterprise in which he has has written about Allen’s films.

Sullivan said he was “not at all” disappointed in the turnout; he had expected as much.

He said it is important to consider Allen’s films as he is an important director. Sullivan notes Allen, who is now 83 and still making films, is ranked fifth by the American Movie Channel among the greatest directors of all times — Allen is just ahead of Orson Welles; Alfred Hitchcock is ranked first. And Allen’s “Annie Hall” is Number 31 on the American Film Institute’s list of “America’s 100 Greatest Movies.”

For his series, Sullivan chose three movies that Allen made in the 1980s in which “he is exploring his value system to the nth degree.” The discussions that were held during the series were worthwhile, Sullivan said. For example, after the screening of “Radio Days,” he said, the group compared Allen’s partly autobiographical film of a Jewish family in Rockaway Beach to Fellini’s “Amarcord” — about his growing up in Fascist Italy.

Sullivan said of the library’s removal of the flyers featuring a picture of Allen, “I can understand, given the climate we’re in. These things are like waving a red flag in front of a bull.”

Sullivan, himself, does not believe Allen is guilty just because he has been accused. Sullivan cites a piece written for the Daily Beast in 2014 by Robert Weide, who produced a documentary on Allen and his work. Sullivan recommended that library leaders read Weide’s story, too.

Weide explodes myths about Allen’s marriage to Soon-Yi Previn, Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter and Allen’s wife of 16 years, and also notes that the allegations of Allen molesting his daughter triggered a six-month-long investigation, including medical exams, which concluded there had been no molestation. Allen was never charged with a crime.

“People haven’t looked at those facts,” said Sullivan.

Even if the accusations were true, Sullivan said, art should be looked at separately from the lifestyle of its creator. Alluding to Allen’s relationship to Soon-Yi Previn, which started when he was 55 and she was 19, 20, or 21 (she was adopted from Korea with an unknown birth date), Sullivan said,  “Picasso was 51 when he met his girlfriend with whom he had two kids. She was 21. No one would think twice about not looking at ‘Guernica’ because of that.”

“Would you read a Wallace Stevens poem when he used the word ‘coon’ in letters?” Sullivan asks rhetorically. “The art of a person and the artist’s lifestyle are two different things.”

Sullivan said he was concerned that “one of the primary institutions of our community could be budged by a few complaints.” But he concluded, “I support Gail and the library.”

On the intellectual-freedom aspect,” said Sacco, “we have had controversial programs before … Truthfully, the library needs to reflect on this and how we’ll move forward.”

Sacco said that the Voorheesville library has a philosophy of: “First, do no harm.” She went on, “In addition, we have an obligation to provide a balance of materials. Everything we have doesn’t please everybody. It doesn’t mean we pull it off the shelf. We try to have things vetted so that someone qualified has viewed it as valid or good.”

She also said, “We don’t bury things, particularly controversial things, just because there’s  a complaint.” She noted that the Upper Hudson Library System, of which Voorheesville is a member, has over 250 reserves for “Fire and Fury,” the controversial new book about Donald Trump’s first year in the White House.

“Our taxpayers are telling us what they want,” she said. “We try to provide balance and quality.”

Last month, for an Enterprise story about library patrons using computers to view pornography, Sacco said, “We feel it’s not our place to monitor what people see.” Staff at the library would, however, intervene if a patron complained about another patron’s use of the computer, she said.

Sacco concluded this week of the recent MeToo and Time’s Up movements, raising consciousness about the mistreatment of women, “Personally, I’ve noted a lot of books and movies include sexual harassment. I’m more sensitive to it now.”