Louis Malle directed My Dinner with Andre, a serio comedy written by and starring André Gregory and Wallace Shawn as fictionalized versions of themselves, while sharing a conversation at Café des Artistes in Manhattan.
Grade: B
Devoid of cliches, the film’s dialogue covers the nature of theater and of life, and contrasts Andre’s spirituality with Wally’s humanism.
Struggling playwright Wally dreads having dinner with his old friend Andre, whom he has been avoiding since Andre gave up his career as a theater director in 1975 and embarked on an extended spiritual midlife crisis including: synchronicity, eastern spirituality, near-death experience and utopian communes.
In a fancy New York restaurant, Andre tells Wally about the adventures he has had since they last saw each other, which include working with director Jerzy Grotowski, and a group of Polish actors in a forest in Poland, traveling to the Sahara to try to create a play based on The Little Prince by Saint-Exupéry, and visiting Findhorn in Scotland.
Andre and a small group of friends arranged Halloween-themed experiences for each other, and one piece consisted of the participants being buried alive.
While Andre says he needed to do all of these things to get out of the rut he was in and learn how to be human, Wally describes how he finds pleasure in more ordinary things–a cup of coffee, his new electric blanket.
Andre says that what passes for normal life in New York is more akin to living in a dream than living in reality. While Wally agrees with many of Andre’s criticisms of modern society, he takes issue with the more mystical aspects of Andre’s stories, which reflects his rational worldview.
After having expressed themselves openly, they part on good terms. Since Andre paid for dinner, Wally treats himself to a taxi ride, during which he observes the familiar places on his way home.
After years away from the theater, André Gregory asked his friend Wallace Shawn if he wanted to collaborate with him. Shawn suggested they develop a story consisting of a conversation between them, based on their contrasting personalities and Gregory’s anecdotes.
Although the film was based on events in the actors’ lives, Gregory and Shawn denied that they were “just” playing themselves. He claimed that, if they remade the film, they would swap characters to prove their point.
Shawn said that he “wanted to kill that side of myself by making the film, because that guy is totally motivated by fear.
My Dinner with Andre was filmed in December 1980 in Richmond, Virginia, in the vacant Jefferson Hotel, which has since been restored. The set was designed to look like the Café des Artistes in New York, and the shoot lasted two weeks.
Andre refers to his wife “Chiquita,” he was married to Mercedes “Chiquita” Nebelthau until her death in 1992.
Nebelthau was a documentarian who made some films about Jerzy Grotowski, whom Andre and Wally discuss in the film.
In the film, Wally refers to his “girlfriend Debbie,” his longtime partner Deborah Eisenberg, who would become a writer. Eisenberg has a cameo as a dark-haired diner Wally sees at the restaurant while waiting for Andre
Cast
André Gregory as Andre
Wallace Shawn as Wallace “Wally” Shawn
Jean Lenauer as Waiter
Roy Butler as Bartender
