My Dinner with Andre
| My Dinner with Andre | |
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Original theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Louis Malle |
| Produced by |
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| Written by | |
| Starring |
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| Music by | Allen Shawn |
| Cinematography | Jeri Sopanen |
| Edited by | Suzanne Baron |
| Distributed by | New Yorker Films |
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Release date
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Running time
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111 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
My Dinner with Andre is a 1981 American comedy-drama film directed by Louis Malle, and written by and starring Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn.
The film depicts a conversation between Gregory and Shawn (not necessarily playing themselves) at Café des Artistes. Based mostly on conversation, the film's dialogue covers such things as experimental theatre, the nature of theatre, and the nature of life, contrasting Shawn's modest, down-to-earth humanism with Gregory's extravagant spiritual experiences.
Andre Gregory is the focus of the first hour of the film, when he describes some of his experiences since giving up his career as a theatre director in 1975. These include working with his friend, director 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 to create a play based on The Little Prince by St.-Exupéry. He worked with a group in a small piece of performance art on Long Island, which resulted in Gregory's being (briefly) buried alive on Halloween night.
The rest of the film is a conversation as Wally Shawn tries to argue that living life as Gregory has done for the past five years is simply not possible for most people. He relates ordinary pleasures, like having a cup of coffee. Gregory responds 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. Wally reminisces during a taxi ride about his childhood and mentions that when he arrives at home, he tells his girlfriend Debbie about his dinner with Andre. Erik Satie's Gymnopédie No. 1 plays in the background.
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