My Dinner with Andre
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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- | '''''My Dinner with Andre''''' is a [[philosophical film]] starring [[Andre Gregory]] and [[Wallace Shawn]], written by Gregory and Shawn, and directed by [[Louis Malle]]. | + | '''''My Dinner with Andre''''' (1981) is a [[philosophical film]] starring [[Andre Gregory]] and [[Wallace Shawn]], written by Gregory and Shawn, and directed by [[Louis Malle]]. The film was parodied by [[Andy Kaufman]] in ''[[My Breakfast with Blassie]]'' (1983). |
==Plot== | ==Plot== |
Revision as of 22:36, 30 January 2017
Andre: They've built their own prison, so they exist a state of schizophrenia. They're both guards and prisoners and as a result they no longer have, having been lobotomized, the capacity to leave the prison they've made, or to even see it as a prison. Andre: OK. Yes, we are 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? |
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My Dinner with Andre (1981) is a philosophical film starring Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn, written by Gregory and Shawn, and directed by Louis Malle. The film was parodied by Andy Kaufman in My Breakfast with Blassie (1983).
Plot
The film depicts a conversation of two acquaintances in a chic restaurant in New York City. Based mostly on conversation, the film's dialog covers such things as experimental theatre, the nature of theatre, and the nature of life. The dialogue contrasts Shawn's modest, down-to-earth humanism with Gregory's extravagant New Age fantasies.
Gregory is the focus of the first hour of the film as he describes some of his experiences since he gave up his career as a theatre director in 1975. These include working with his friend Jerzy Grotowski and a group of Polish actors in a forest in Poland, his visit to Findhorn in Scotland and his trip to the Sahara to try and create a play based on The Little Prince. Perhaps Gregory's most dramatic experience was working with a small group of people on piece of performance art on Long Island which resulted in Gregory being (briefly) buried alive on Halloween night.
The rest of the film is a conversation as Shawn tries to argue that living life as Gregory has done for the past five years is simply not possible for the vast majority of people. In response, Gregory suggests that what passes for normal life in New York in the late 1970s is more akin to living in a dream than it is to real life. The movie ends without a clear resolution to the conflict in worldviews articulated by the two men.
Filming
The movie was filmed in the then-abandoned Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, Virginia. Although the film was based on actual events in the actors' lives, Shawn and Gregory denied (in an interview by film critic Roger Ebert) that they were playing themselves, and stated that if they remade the film they would swap the two characters to prove their point.
The Boston Society of Film Critics Awards awarded the film the title "Best American Film" in 1982 and awarded Gregory and Shawn its prize for best screenplay. Roger Ebert, along with his TV partner Gene Siskel, had also praised the film and helped bring public attention to it; in 1999, Ebert added it to his Great Movies essay series.
Parodies and homages
- My Dinner with Andre was parodied by Andy Kaufman and wrestler Fred Blassie in My Breakfast with Blassie (1983).
- The name Julius La Rosa was referred by Coach (Ernie Pantuso)in the classic sitcom Cheers in the Episode 107 Friends, Romans, And Accountants, Where the entire bar was filled with Norman's co-workers, they are like dead vegetables. So Diane wants to play the game of charades, and she mimics the movie title "My Dinner with Andre" for which Coach completes the title by saying "My Dinner with Julius La Rosa" ..... instead of My Dinner with Andre.
- The 24th and final episode of the first season of Frasier was entitled "My Coffee With Niles" and involved a long conversation between Frasier and Niles which touched on many topics of their lives and involved Niles recurrently asking the question "Are you happy?"
- In the episode of The Simpsons, "Boy-Scoutz N the Hood", Martin Prince plays an arcade game based on the film.
- In Waiting for Guffman, Corky St. Clair, played by Christopher Guest, shows off his My Dinner with Andre action figures during the tour of his shop.
- A special feature on The 40-Year-Old Virgin DVD features Seth Rogen and porn star Stormy Daniels in a parody entitled My Dinner with Stormy.
- In Nekromantik 2, the two main characters watch a parody of the film in a cinema.
- Rapper Astronautalis penned a song called "My Dinner With Andy" on his album The Mighty Ocean and Nine Dark Theaters.