My Dinner with Andre
by Louis Malle
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DVD details
Actor: Andre Gregory, Jean Lenauer, Roy Butler, Wallace ShawnDirector: Louis Malle
Writer: Andre Gregory
Writer: Wallace Shawn
Cinematographer: Jeri Sopanen
Editor: Suzanne Baron
Producer: Beverly Karp
Producer: Dave Franke
Producer: George W. George
Producer: Keith W. Rouse
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: Pan & Scan, 1.33:1
Running Time: 110 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1998-08-25
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Fox Lorber
DVD Reviews of My Dinner with Andre
DVD Review: Theater on the screen, french style.
Summary: 3 Stars
It reminded me of Solomon's Ecclesiastes without the moral in the end. Here's this guy who is worried about his bills and just barely making a living for him and his wife, who goes to a dinner in an apparently expensive restaurant with another guy who has not those trivial worries to think about but other kind. This other guy has no economical difficulties, his worries are more existential (ludicrous too), he is the 'good socialist', worried about the feelings of others, of how we people (socialists when thinking of themselves always regard themselves as 'the' people) are not really living the moment, are not realizing what life is really about. Transcental thinking alright. A point should be made that all this modern Samaritan does is think, and while thinking he totally misses the food, the reunion with his old friend (?), the waiter, in fact everything around, which he says we ought to be mindful of.
So here is this double side to the coin. The man who is really trying to make ends meet: living too much to think about living; and the man who represents the opposite, who thinks about living and never puts his feet on the ground (in spite of having traveled all over the globe) and whose mind is never at rest, never satisfied.
Wasn't this Solomon's dilemma? But Solomon came to a conclusion. He had experienced all these kinds of living, he had looked for the meaning of life in every possible wrinkle of human existence, and none satisfied him, in the end: all was vanity. Well, without speaking that word, vanity, in this film, it is implied though. Both the poor man's life and the idle-progressive man's life are but vanity. Does the film imply that we should look for a middle-way of life, that we should work out a consensus, that word loved by the guilty-rid of Western society? I don't know. The ending is open. What I liked most about the film, though, is the craft that made possible a film like this: two man having dinner together and talking beginning thru end. That's all. It ain't 'Gunfight at OK Corral' but it's still worthwhile.
DVD Review: You'll love or hate this movie
Summary: 5 Stars
There doesn't seem to be any middle ground with this movie. People either love it or hate it. I love it because it stimulates imagination and gives one lots to think about long after the movie is over. I've probably watched this movie 10 times over the last two decades.
It is basically a one-act play of two people having a conversation over dinner. The conversation is about creativity, a rather bizarre midlife crisis, the purpose of life, and what is important (or self-indulgent) about creativity.
It is based on a series of conversations Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory had over a period of months. These conversations were then condensed into a screenplay. The screenplay was enhanced and modified in order to create a dialogue that was fictionalized but retained the impression of reality. I learned these things from the introductions to the screenplay My Dinner with Andre (Wallace Shawn).
Artists and creative people tend to love this movie. The DVD transfer didn't bother me.
DVD Review: Thoughts
Summary: 3 Stars
This movie should be Shown in All High Schools and THEN,
debates should be had for weeks.
then, DROP it. let the mind simmer in its soup and
you have the buildings of the mind and soul foundations.
what each CHILD needs, before age 18.
in asia, all this talking, is nothing new.
but in your world, this is New.
so be it. Let the rights for this movie be free
and see how many show it on tv, and other media.
pls push the rights owners... to free it .. soon.
world needs Thinkers, right now, more than the billions
who enjoy and think life is only about violence, as
if tv and movies are helping these feeble minded zombies.
this movie is a Last cry for help to humanity.
to THINK.
best wishes
k
DVD Review: Yummy!
Summary: 5 Stars
Call me a formalist, but sometimes I like to turn down the volume and soak in the splendid visuals.DVD Review: A radical concept...2 adults talking about things that really matter, and still matter...
Summary: 5 Stars
Normally, I should dislike a film like this. I don't like talk fests, and honestly, from a cinematic standpoint, this film is quite boring. But the screenplay, direction, acting, and conversation are so outstanding that this flaw seems so inconsequential. The difference I think between modern talk fests and this film is that Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn (who wrote the screenplay themselves) are so interesting, multi-faceted, complex, and engaging, as opposed to current talk fests, where the characters are so amazingly self absorbed and do not see (or refuse to see) the world around them. Andre and Wallace are also real, breathing intellectal types, as opposed to being pseudo-intellectual and smarmy, like a lot of characters can be in current day talk fests. Andre actually talks about this in the film, on how most of the time we don't see the world around us, that we are so myopic in our viewpoint, that we don't see the forest, only the tree. A lot of the things they talk about are the BIG questions, the real questions, not whether C3PO from Star Wars was gay, or what the world's grossest poop joke is. There is hardly any mention of politics, which makes the film resonante even more deeply, as there is no explicit political material in the film.
I remember seeing this film when I was in high school, and being respectful, but honestly, not understanding a word of it. But now as teh world and I get to know each other better, I see it in a completely different way, and it has become even more profound, beautifully simple, and really moving, both emotionally and intellectually. This is a tremendous film, one of Louis Malle's best, and worth the accolades that is has received over the years.
Description of My Dinner with Andre
The sheer audacity of My Dinner with Andre drew throngs of curious filmgoers who made the film the most talked-about art-house hit of 1981. After all, who'd ever heard of a movie consisting of nearly two hours of nonstop dinner conversation? Ah... but this isn't just any conversation--it's the kind of mesmerizing, soul-searching, life-affirming exploration that we feel privileged to listen to, and with unobtrusive style, director Louis Malle invites us to eavesdrop to our hearts' and minds' content. The film was written by two New Yorkers at the dinner table, noted playwright-actor Wallace Shawn and well-known stage director Andre Gregory, who essentially play themselves. They taped their conversations for several weeks and Shawn gradually shaped them into a scripted conversation, but you'd never know it from watching the movie. The talk flows and flows until you're captivated by Gregory's stories of world travel and spiritual quests in Poland, India, Tibet, the Sahara desert... the tales of a soul-searcher who'd dropped out of the theater world to rediscover his zest for living. Shawn plays the skeptic, the voice of reason, his feet on the ground but his own mind willing to soar. The cumulative effect of this conversation is almost hypnotic, and certainly plays into our eternal appetite for storytelling. Both primal and sophisticated, witty and profound, My Dinner with Andre is a film that can be savored over time, offering new revelations with each viewing as the listener-viewer develops his or her own appreciation of life's great mysteries. --Jeff ShannonGeneral DVDs
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