There’s a line from the cult classic “My Dinner with Andre,” when the famed playwright Andre Gregory says: “If you're just operating by habit, then you're not really living;" then, there's more wisdom shared by two friends just talking over dinner.
Film critic Roger Ebert has added the cult classic “My Dinner with Andre” to his “Great Movies” essay series for good reason: simply put, this film is viewed by movie experts as having some of the greatest dialogue of any motion picture ever made. In fact, the famed Boston Society of Film Critics named the film “Best American Film in 1982” and awarded Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn its prize for best screenplay; while it was also nominated for a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for being, perhaps, the most unusual film ever made since it’s simply a conversation between Gregory and Shawn about life. Moreover, both Ebert and his late TV partner Gene Siskel said they first saw “My Dinner with Andre” at its first public screening – at the 1981 Telluride Film Festival. In turn, the film was released nationwide to “art theaters” on Jan. 20, 1982, some 30 years ago. More recently, Ebert recalled how the film received an almost non-stop “standing ovation,” and Ebert remarked that “the two men seated directly behind me were Gregory and Shawn. Few people knew who they were when they entered the theater. Now, they would never be forgotten where films were taken seriously."
Conversation quotes from “My Dinner with Andre”
-- “Remember that moment when Marlon Brando sent the Indian woman to accept the Oscar, and everything went haywire? Things just very rarely go haywire now. If you're just operating by habit, then you're not really living.”
-- “I wouldn't put on an electric blanket for any reason. First, I'd be worried if I get electrocuted. No, I don't trust technology. But I mean, the main thing, Wally, is that I think that kind of comfort just separates you from reality in a very direct way.”
-- “Do you know, in Sanskrit the root of the verb ‘to be’ is the same as ‘to grow’ or ‘to make grow.’”
-- “Things don't affect people the way they used to. I mean it may very well be that 10 years from now people will pay $10,000 in cash to be castrated just in order to be affected by something.”
-- “We're bored. We're all bored now. But has it ever occurred to you, Wally, that the process that creates this boredom that we see in the world now, may very well be a self-perpetuating, unconscious form of brainwashing created by a world totalitarian government based on money and that all of this is much more dangerous than one thinks, and it’s not just a question of individual survival, Wally, but that somebody who's bored is asleep, and somebody who's asleep will not say no?”
Thus, such rich lines of dialogue don’t end during the two hours that we watch Andre and Wally eat dinner together and just talk.
The meaning of life discussed
For instance, Andre says to Wally: “What does it do to us, Wally, living in an environment where something as massive as the seasons or winter or cold, don't in any way affect us? I mean, we're animals after all. I mean... what does that mean? I think that means that instead of living under the sun and the moon and the sky and the stars, we're living in a fantasy world of our own making.”
In turn, Wally replies: “Yeah, but I mean, I would never give up my electric blanket, Andre. I mean, because New York is cold in the winter. I mean, our apartment is cold! It's a difficult environment. I mean, our life is tough enough as it is. I'm not looking for ways to get rid of a few things that provide relief and comfort. I mean, on the contrary, I'm looking for more comfort because the world is very abrasive. I mean, I'm trying to protect myself because, really, there's these abrasive beatings to be avoided everywhere you look!”
At the same time, there’s no 3D or things blowing up, or car chases or people having sex. It’s just these two friends talking. “But, Wally, don't you see that comfort can be dangerous? I mean, you like to be comfortable and I like to be comfortable too, but comfort can lull you into a dangerous tranquility.”
Andre: “Our minds are just focused on these goals and plans, which in themselves are not reality.”
Wally: “Goals and plans are not... they're fantasy. They're part of a dream-life.”
My Dinner with Andre offers “many gifts”
Famed film critic Roger Ebert can’t say enough about how great “My Dinner with Andre” is; yet many Americans could never sit still long enough to actually listen to two friends talk – just talk – for two hours over dinner.
In turn, Ebert says “one of the gifts of My Dinner with Andre is that we share so many of the experiences. Although most of the movie literally consists of two men talking, here's a strange thing: We do not spend the movie just passively listening to them talk. At first, director Louis Malle's sedate series of images (close-ups, two-shot, and reaction shots) calls attention to itself, but as Gregory continues to talk; the very simplicity of the visual style renders it invisible. And like the listeners at the feet of a master storyteller, we find ourselves visualizing what Gregory describes, until this film is as filled with visual images as a radio play — more filled, perhaps, than a conventional feature film. ... The movie is not ponderous, annoyingly profound, or abstract. It is about living, and Gregory seems to have lived fully in his five years of dropping out. Shawn is the character who seems more like us. He listens, he nods eagerly, he is willing to learn, but — something holds him back. Pragmatic questions keep asking themselves. He can't buy Gregory's vision, not all the way. He'd like to, but this is a real world we have to live in, after all, and if we all danced with the druids in the forests of Poland, what would happen to the market for fortune cookies?”
My Dinner with Andre in 2012
Someone asked Roger Ebert recently if he could name a movie that was entirely devoid of clichés. “I thought for a moment, and then answered, My Dinner with Andre. Now I have seen the movie again; a restored print is going into release around the country, and I am impressed once more by how wonderfully odd this movie is, how there is nothing else like it. It should be unwatchable, and yet those who love it return time and again, enchanted.”
Another fan of “My Dinner with Andre” is the famed playwright Ayad Akhtar, whose debut novel, “American Dervish,” that tells the story of Hayat Shah, a Pakistani-American boy in Milwaukee coming to terms with his religion and identity.”
Ahktar says he drew from the sensibilities of Jewish writers and filmmakers like Saul Bellow, Philip Roth and Woody Allen when thinking about how to give form to his experiences growing up as a young Muslim in the Midwest. He also said his greatest influence on both his art and his life is the film “My Dinner with Andre;” while discussing this cult film that turns 30 this year during a Jan. 17 NPR interview.
After studying with Andre Gregory, the actor and director Ayad Akhtar said he checked out the 1981/82 film "My Dinner with Andre," and then, just as Andre Gregory explains in the film, he went to study with Jerzy Grotowski.
When art imitates real life
“I got particularly fascinated with Andre after "My Dinner with Andre" because of that question of authenticity. You know, the central conceit of ‘My Dinner with Andre’ is that this very successful theater director drops out of life and goes on a quest to discover who he really is and how to live authentically, and in the process, you know, studies with this famous, mysterious, Polish figure, director, Jerzy Grotowski, in a Polish forest and has these amazing experiences,” Akhtar explained during a Jan. 17 NPR interview.
The director went on to state that “I know that watching that movie gave me a fascination for the figure of Grotowski. And I began to study Grotowski in college, you know, writing research papers about him and trying to understand what it was that he was getting at. And as I understand it - or as I understood it before going to work with him - it had to do with the search for how to be true. It's a question that actors have to ask on stage. You have to feel real in order to convince anybody else that you're real.”
A film that teaches about life
In turn, Akhtar also taught with Andre Gregory after studying with Jerzy Grotowski. “He (Andre) was amazing. I mean, I started working with him because I had learned a lot of physical work with Grotowski that Andre liked to use as part of the teaching method. And the thing that struck me was he was a polar opposite of Grotowski, because Grotowski was all about fixing structure and, you know, learning it. I remember - you know, there was one sequence we worked on for probably three months. It was an eight seconds sequence that we worked on for three months, you know, just have every action, every inflection of the voice, every thought choreographed so that the mind was not asking what does it need to do. The body was not asking what does it need to do.”
Also, Ebert writes that the story of “My Dinner with Andre” is one of serendipity. “How as the two old friends talked they began to see how their conversation might be shaped into a play--or perhaps a film,” and it worked 30 years ago. And, Ebert says it still works in 2012 because "My Dinner with Andre" is high art for those who appreciate serious films that actually say something.
Image source of the 1981 film poster for “My Dinner with Andre” that first premiered nationwide in “art cinemas” on Jan. 20, 1982, some 30 years ago. The film was directed by Louis Malle, from a screenplay by Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn. Photo courtesy Wikipedia
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