Stardust Memories
| Stardust Memories | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster
|
|
| Directed by | Woody Allen |
| Produced by |
Robert Greenhut Charles H. Joffe Jack Rollins |
| Written by | Woody Allen |
| Starring | Woody Allen Charlotte Rampling Jessica Harper Marie-Christine Barrault Tony Roberts |
| Cinematography | Gordon Willis |
| Edited by | Susan E. Morse |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
|
Release date
|
|
|
Running time
|
88 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English French Persian |
| Budget | $10 million |
| Box office | $10,389,003 |
Stardust Memories is a 1980 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Woody Allen and starring himself, Charlotte Rampling, Jessica Harper, Marie-Christine Barrault and Sharon Stone in her film debut. The film is about a filmmaker who recalls his life and his loves - the inspirations for his films - while attending a retrospective of his work. The film is shot in black and white and is reminiscent of Federico Fellini's 8½ (1963), which it parodies.
Stardust Memories was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy written directly for screen, but was not warmly received by critics on its original release, and is not among the most renowned works in Allen's filmography. The film has nonetheless been re-evaluated to some extent, with modern reception more often positive than negative. Allen, who denies that the work is autobiographical and has expressed regret that audiences interpreted it as such, even considers it to be one of his finest, alongside The Purple Rose of Cairo and Match Point.
The film follows famous filmmaker Sandy Bates, who is plagued by fans who prefer his "earlier, funnier movies" to his more recent artistic efforts, while he tries to reconcile his conflicting attraction to two very different women: the earnest intellectual Daisy and the more maternal Isobel. Meanwhile, he is also haunted by memories of his ex-girlfriend, the unstable Dorrie.
Allen has asserted that Stardust Memories is not an autobiographical work. "[Critics] thought that the lead character was me," the director is quoted as saying in Woody Allen on Woody Allen. "Not a fictional character but me, and that I was expressing hostility towards my audience. That was in no way the point of the film. It was about a character who is obviously having a sort of nervous breakdown and, in spite of success, has come to a point in his life where he is having a bad time."
...
Wikipedia