My Dinner with Andre

Plot synopsis:
In New York City, an actor/playwright agrees to have dinner with a theatre director who he has not seen, literally, for years. He is afraid of meeting with him because of the stories that he has heard about the director sobbing on a sidewalk and talking with trees. Obviously, something terrible had happened to him.He meets with him at an expensive restaurant (he is given a coat and necktie to wear, since he is not dressed appropriately) and waits at the bar for his old friend to arrive.Once Andre arrives, he hugs Wally, who feels that he is really in the theatre now. The staff at the restaurant know Andre well and seat the two immediately at a table that provides a fair amount of privacy.Wally needs help understanding the menu, and Andre, with a sense of humour, helps him with the French cuisine. They both order quail.Over the next 45 minutes or so, Andre tries to explain what has happened in his life. It seems that he has been on a fantastical journey of enlightenment. Wally mostly listens in disbelief.Andre takes the viewer on adventures to the forests of Poland where he worked with a fellow experimental theatre director; to the Sahara with a Tibetan Buddhist monk; to a lush paradise of plants in an inhospitable region in the north of Scotland; to Montauk, Long Island, where he stayed on Richard Avedon's estate and took part in a rebirth ritual.Andre had been involved in breaking free of the habits of mechanical, automatic living.The dinner conversation ends with Wally challenging some of the methods and purpose of Andre's pursuits. He is confused, angry, and feels Andre has wasted years of his life. Wally is a pragmatic rationalist, to assign a label to him. He feels that Andre's magical thinking is ridiculous and can be harmful to both himself and others.As Wally continues to verbally attack his former colleague, he begins to realise how confused he is about the stories that Andre has told him. In confronting his confusion, Wally begins to understand there may be other ways to view the world. There is no resolution in the conversation.As he rides home in a taxi, an indulgence, he reflects on the evening's conversation as the city passes by the window. He recalls various events from his childhood that had taken place in this part of the City; however, he seems to be viewing everything in a slightly different way.

Tags: cult, philosophical

Review:
Caught in a vortex of corporate America office work drudgery as a single parent, the movie inspired me then to really examine my life and actively work to change it.I struggled to understand how a theater director (Andre) could ever become disenchanted with his life enough to drop out and search for more meaning.
As I watched the film, it became apparent how even someone in the arts could become disconnected - in fact, even more so than other people, who had resigned themselves to live the way that they were expected to according to standards they didn't agree with.
This is a beautiful masterpiece of a film, that can be watched many times, to produce different points of view which provoke interesting, engaging and enlightening discussions by those who experience it.
MY DINNER WITH ANDRE is one of the greatest movies of all time because it works on a seemingly infinite number of levels.
The interesting thing is that Shawn and Gregory plays himself, they themselves wrote the script and what they say are supposedly parts of conversations they have actually had over the years.With this in mind you should already know that you are about to encounter something out of the ordinary.If you take away the journey to and from the restaurant, which can't have taken up more than a few minutes, all the action takes place around a table.
The excitement lies in the words coming out of their mouths, and fortunately their conversation is extremely interesting.At the beginning it seems like Andre is a maniac, just some crazy person babbling on about nonsense.
But by the time of it's arrival, it's almost too late, and the first real collective roar of laughter from the audience feels like something earned, needed, perhaps even knowingly wise.Mortality is so extremely forwarded via the vehicle of Andre's desperate search for meaning, that for the first time in my life, after the experience of a piece of culture, i left with the absolute conviction that there really is nothing beyond death, That death is absolute and final.
I have recently re-watched this, and see why a person who is interested in many aspects of life, would be intrigued by a conversation between two men; something unusual.While several reviewers have mentioned, the film is not for everyone.
Wallace Shawn is the less traveled, non-pretentious friend, while Andre discusses his travels to India, Poland, Scotland, and the many philosophies he has encountered therein.The discussions about daily life, its esoteric meanings, and how these two men interpret their lives, is quite interesting.
I rate it down just a bit on that account (seems unfair to other films), though I find there are some subtleties to be picked up on, and I found Wallace Shawn to give a pretty good performance with his sincere and mildly intense reactions to Andre (and at one point finds something to be INCONCEIVABLE!).
I wish the two would appear on talk shows and carry on the same type of conversation.2000I'm afraid what looks like art in a movie would look perfectly banal in real life.
The only things that are mystical about the Universal Hall are that it was ever completed at all, given the many financial problems of the Foundation, and the electrics, which are held together by good intentions.Equally, there were never any giant cabbages produced by miraculous devic powers - that is a myth started by one of the founders, Peter Caddy, who was a nice guy who possessed the marketing ethics of Microsoft.Finally, Eileen Caddy, another of the founders, was a very nice person but she did not talk to God. The 'still, small voice within' is better seen as Eileen, talking to herself and others, saying the things she was unable to put her own name to.The only real miracle of Findhorn is how so many people can be so gullible for so long.
And Andre talks the most in this movie during the conversation while sharing his theater experiences, enthusiasm and perception.
Regardless of what one may say about "My Dinner with Andre's" dialogue, message, and overarching content, the fact remains that it should not have been a film.I will admit to a personal bias when it comes to philosophy--for the most part I find it boring and a waste of time.
I can not think any task more boring.If Andre was adamant that his life philosophy be brought to film, I would have expanded the visual landscape beyond the four different shots currently employed.
To make matters even more interesting, I might have even employed (dream-like) flashbacks to help flavor and represent Andre's background and highbrow dialogue.As an art form, film should strive to represent its creator's beliefs, ideas, and message so that they can be interpreted individually by those who view it.
Deceptively simple, yet breathtakingly masterful "My Dinner with André" tumbles the whole conception of the "movie as entertainment" on its head and boldly presents film as a thought- provoking medium.
Since we are all brainwashed that movies have to "have a story" the whole idea that we can watch two hours dinner conversation sound somewhat absurd - not only it works, but it leaves one head buzzing for days, if not for weeks.
Perhaps it is too early to say and I might need to see it several more times before I finally made my mind about this, but maybe - just maybe - we could keep our own gentle, dreaming André inside and live outside lives as Wally and his simple joys, electric blanket and all.I am perfectly aware this is not a movie for everyone, for the simple reason that lots of people don't have any point of reference to all of this - surprisingly big number of them don't even know what is a conversation like this.
Or it is just a pretentious director desperately trying to be artistic by filming the most absurd thing: two friends just giving us the greatest hits collection of their conversations, which they think are the most interesting on Earth.
However, I'm of the kind of people that believes that if you really try, you can come up with great philosophical meanings in any movie, even "Robot Monster".I say that instead of watching this movie you just go out with one of your more interesting friends, get some coffee or beers, and do your own pseudo-philosophical story-telling.
Former Broadway writer and now actor, whenever he can find work, Wally Shawn was very apprehensive at the news of his friend Avant-Grade director Andre Gregory inviting him for dinner that evening at a swanky upper East-Side restaurant to talk over old times.
In that the audience becomes not just an observer but a vital part of their conversation.We, and Wally, learn from Andre that his wanting to find himself and his reason for living had lead him over the last few years to travel to a number of exotic and far flung places that opened his eyes to a world he never knew existed!
It's when both Andre and Wally begin to exchange opinions later in the movie, Andre did most of the talking during the first half, that the two make contact with each other and draw the audience into their conversation.
Very esoteric at times but never at all boring or confusing "My Dinner with Andre" is a two hour talk between two friends about a whole list of subjects.
Their conversation keeps you glued, and listening, to the screen about how were losing our souls and identities to a both modern and indifferent, to the individual, world.In the end both Wally and Andre even though they have different opinions on how man can find his way back to nature as well as recovering his long lost sense of reality.
Both Andre and Wally agree that opening up one's mind by letting out what one feels deep down inside of him, or her, and not being afraid or embarrassed in doing it is the bases of man going forward and improving the broken society that we all now, in the 1980's, lives in.The two diners, Andre & Wally, philosophical sparring on issues like life and death and what existence is all about gets a bit redundant at times in them trying to find fault in on how valid or false they are.
But as they each get to see how their views on the many different subjects they discuss start to coincide with each other they, and we that are watching, realize that their on the same wavelength.The two end their dinner not just quenching their appetites but their minds as well by exchanging ideas and opinions and coming to an incisive and thought-provoking conclusion about almost everything there is to know about themselves and those around them.
The very interesting film ends on an optimistic note as a now less skeptical and far more optimistic Wally says it, on a cab ride back home as the movie ends, from what he learned from "My Dinner with Andre"..
This movie is just a video recording of a very long dinner conversation between a self-absorbed second-rate philosopher and his "straight man."Being a non-philosopher myself, I started purposely noticing whether there was anything "cinematic" going on in this film.
I guess that's a sign of good art -- two people see two completely different things.Watching this movie does test your listening skills.
That's about as profound as this film gets in contrasting a quasi-scientific world view to a quasi-luddite one ("I won't get an electrical blanket because that kind of comfort just separates you from reality in a very direct way [...] and 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" (!?) Watch Waking Life instead, or just read some introduction to critical thinking or philosophy..
This film by Louis Malle is simply a dramatized version of a dinner-table conversation between playwright Wallace Shawn and theatre director Andre Gregory, and mainly concerns Gregory's recounting of his experiences travelling around the world - Tibet, India and Scotland  and his meditations on the nature of existence.
Perhaps Gregory is really a pretentious attention seeker fond of his own words, but the ideas he discusses and describes are interesting and weave a fascinating web given the limitations of time and place we have in the movie.
Personally, if you made the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay watch it, I'd have to agree that it was torture.By the end of the movie I was praying that someone would teach Andre the meaning of life with their fists.
"My Dinner with Andre" sounds like a strange concept for a movie: two men have dinner and discuss their experiences over the past few years.
As Douglas Adams would say, My Dinner with Andre is about Life, the Universe, and Everything (at least it would seem).Oh, it's a bit odd to just have two talking heads as an entire movie.
The interesting thing is this: I started to see in my mind what Gregory talked about.In that sense, My Dinner with Andre leaves the audience imagining as they would reading this in a novel.
What is there when people, intellectual theater types, wouldn't go near certain plays years ago that now they go to and say "oh, that was pretty good?" This leads into the philosophical meat of the movie, which is: what does it mean to really "be" in a society that numbs people, makes them feel mechanical in nature?
Two old friends meet for dinner; as one tells anecdotes detailing his experiences, the other notices their differing worldviews.This is very much an indie film -- lots of dialogue (and I do mean lots), overly intellectual discourse, and very limited settings (more or less a single table).
However, a film about two people talking makes a lot of sense as long as their conversations happen to be interesting.
This is something which the great French director Louis Malle has achieved when he cast actors André Gregory and Wallace Shawn in "My dinner with André", a film where human ears do more work than eyes for normal films.
The two main actors Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory pursue this line of enquiry after Andre tells Wally about his travels and experience over a period of many years trying to find meaning in his life.
Yes, as the story goes, these two old friends caught up much like in the film after Andre's return from an awakening journey of life through Asia and during dinner discussed philosophy, life/death and existentialism.
The pure magic of 'My Dinner With Andre' is its ability to make us feel like we are sitting at the dinner table with them, contributing to the ideas and thoughts of the conversation.
So basically this somewhat improvised film which, has the feel of a play, is an actual conversation these dear friends had one evening over dinner.
This movie reminded me a lot of another great film that is simply one long conversation called "mindwalk." I think this movie was brilliant, and I look forward to watching it again someday with others, so that maybe the film can be the spark that ignites such a profound discussion that me and my friends or girlfriend can engage in ourselves.
What's most amazing about this film is how easily you forget you are watching a movie, and not just two friends having dinner.
Roger Ebert called this 'the only movie without clichés", and while it's not completely true(what really could be), it does manage to invert any expectations of characterization or plot.The conversation is NOT random either, all ideas explored here get re-integrated into the film later on, what begins with the "director" telling the details of his breakdown and bizarre attempts at spiritual and artistic fulfillment, in a cross between the most pretentious theater professor you have ever seen and the most interesting man in the world from those "Dos Euis"commercials.
The play-write....don't know why I keep calling them by these titles, the characters names are their names in real life Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn (who it's nice to see in a serious role after his mad scientist Southland Tales bit)...anyway Shawn mostly listens to Andre who obviously loves attention and hearing himself speak, but later interrogates, contradicts, and adds much needed balance to Andre's new age excesses and paranoia.
The first time I viewed "My Dinner With Andre," I found it fascinating, unusual, and compelling--certainly a unique film experience.
The conversation had an effect, like Saint-Exupéry (whom André often mentioned): Wally started looking with his eyes instead of living mechanically.I can't express with the same quality of words how the film mirrored my own life.
In this way, My Dinner with Andre becomes a great film.
I remember a couple of years ago when IFC or Sundance was running this film on an endless loop.At first I avoided it like the plague because I'd heard so many negative things like "it's boring" Or "all they do is talk"--but then I watched it anyway and saw that the great Wallace Shawn was one of the actors.How can I not watch a movie with him in it?And the other guy-I forget his name-was the evil bishop in Ladyhawke!(I think--I could be wrong and anyway he looks just like him...
apparently, he and Wallace Shawn had taped this very conversation after Andre had in fact been away and going through everything he discusses in the film.
Greatness is in the eye of the beholder, and those who think "nothing happens" in this movie are operating at very low levels of perceptiveness and curiosity about the nature of the human species and our short time on this earth.If you are interested in the meaning of life, in art, in the expression of the human spirit, I think you'll enjoy this movie.If you want to watch things be exploded or people kill other people you might not like it so much..
Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory (presumably playing themselves) are old friends who have not been in touch for some time and decide to catch up over dinner at a fancy NYC restaurant.
Two actors talking.André Gregory and actor Wallace Shawn play themselves as they meet for dinner for the first time in several years.
The amazing thing about this film is that the dialog causes us to imagine we are experiencing the stories that Andre and Wally share with us.
When the cheque arrives, one of the two men will never look at the things in his life the same way as he did before.I couldn't help feeling I was eavesdropping on an intimate conversation when watching this movie.
In fact, I would argue that there is more of a market for work such as this and that just because all there is in the theatres now is trash does not mean that that's all that people want to see.If you've ever had a stimulating conversation about life watch this movie!.
Virtually the entire film consists of a seemingly recreated real life dinner conversation between two friends, and yet somehow there's not moment that fails to keep the interest of the viewer.
Still for those who realize what they're getting into (yes the whole film really is two people talking over dinner) the conversation can be truly absorbing.
'My dinner with Andre' is one of those rare films that really can impact the way a person thinks about their life..
Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn, apparently playing themselves in the two leading roles in which for almost two hours they sit in a restaurant and engage in a completely believable conversation ranging from the surreal to the social to the metaphysical also write the film.
Throughout most of the film, I got the impression that Wally thought most of Andres experiences were fascinating.
My Dinner With Andre is one of the best movies I have ever seen.