My Dinner with Andre

Caught this the other night. I´d forgotten how much I liked it when it first came out. But what astonished me is that this movie is from 1981. Before Gordon Gekko, Iran Contra, the Falklands War, Chernobyl, Nintendo, cell phones, internet billionaires, SUVs, McMansions or subprime mortgages. I think it´s positively prescient.



Now many people thought it was an interminable bore featuring two New York pseudo-intellectuals yammering on for 2 hours.  And be warned, that´s all there is, just two people talking.  Shawn is a struggling playwright/actor who reluctantly meets his more successful friend Andre Gregory after his return from 5 years of experimental projects and seeking spiritual enlightenment.

WALLY SHAWN :   I've lived in this city all my life. I grew up on the Upper East Side. And when I was ten years old, I was rich, I was an aristocrat. Riding around in taxis, surrounded by comfort, and all I thought about was art and music. Now, I'm 36, and all I think about is money. 
 

 Like any student of theatre, I was thrilled to see references to the experimental avant guard anywhere. BTW - Findhorn is still operational!

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?

As Andre says - ¨Escape - before it´s too late.¨

My Dinner with Andre is a 1981 film starring Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn, written by Gregory and Shawn, and directed by Louis Malle.  More from wikipedia here.