My Dinner with Andre (1981)

Director:

Louis Malle

Writers:

Wallace Shawn
Andre Gregory

Release Date:

11 October 1981 (USA)

Plot:

Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory, apparently playing themselves, share their lives over the course of an evening meal at a restaurant...

Plot Keywords:

Restaurant | Electric Blanket | Reference To The Little Prince | Graffiti | Reference To Jane Austen

Awards:

2 wins

US TV Schedule:

Sat. June 2	8:45 AM	TMC
Tue. June 12	6:05 AM	TMC

Cast

Wallace Shawn	...	Wally Shawn
Andre Gregory	...	Andre Gregory
Jean Lenauer	...	Waiter
Roy Butler	...	Bartender

Directed by
Louis Malle

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Andre Gregory
Wallace Shawn

Produced by
Dave Franke	....	associate producer
George W. George	....	producer
Beverly Karp	....	producer
Keith W. Rouse	....	associate producer

Original Music by
Allen Shawn

Cinematography by
Jeri Sopanen

Film Editing by
Suzanne Baron

Production Design by
David Mitchell

Art Direction by
Stephen McCabe

Set Decoration by
Doug Kraner		(as Douglas Kraner)

Costume Design by
Jeff Ullman		(as Jeffrey Ullman)

Makeup Department
Barbara Rouse	....	makeup artist

Production Management
Lloyd Kaufman	....	production manager (as Lloyd Kaufmann)

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Norman Berns	....	assistant director

Art Department
Jean-Vincent Fournier	....	properties (as Vincent Fournier)

Sound Department
Michael R. Burnstine	....	boom operator (as Michael Burnstine)
Jean-Claude Laureux	....	sound

Camera and Electrical Department
Pedro Bonilla	....	assistant camera
Robert Lechterman	....	gaffer
Diana Michener	....	still photographer
Ralph Perri	....	key grip
Robert Strong	....	grip
Doug Sutton	....	first electrician (as Douglas Sutton)
John Thomas	....	second electrician
Deborah Watkins	....	grip

Editorial Department
James Bruce	....	assistant editor
Keith W. Rouse	....	assistant editor

Music Department
Joseph Villa	....	musician: piano, "First Gymnopédie"

Other crew
Ruth Ansel	....	title designer
Richard Blankenship	....	production assistant
James Bruce	....	production coordinator
Matthew Gaddis	....	production assistant
George W. George	....	presenter
France Lachapelle	....	script supervisor (as France LaChapelle)
Vincent Malle	....	assistant to director
Richard Siegel	....	production assistant
Michael White	....	associate presenter
Scott MacDonough	....	publicity coordinator (uncredited)

Thanks
Mercedes Gregory	....	special thanks
Dede Leiber	....	special thanks
Steve Leiber	....	special thanks
Margaret Ramsey	....	special thanks
George Ross	....	special thanks
Max Stafford-Clark	....	special thanks
Frederick M. Supper	....	special thanks

Production Companies

• Saga Productions Inc.
• The Andre Company

Distributors

• New Yorker Films (1981) (USA) (theatrical)
• Cinegate Ltd. (198?) (UK) (theatrical)
• Al!ve AG (2011) (Germany) (DVD)
• Criterion Collection, The (2009) (USA) (DVD)
• Fox Lorber Home Video (1998) (USA) (DVD)
• Momentum Pictures Home Entertainment (2001) (UK) (VHS)
• Optimum Home Entertainment (2009) (UK) (DVD)
• Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) (1984) (USA) (TV) (broadcast premiere)

Other Companies

• Atlas Theatre Company Inc.  special thanks
• Gensaco Marketing  certain properties
• Mason Candlelight Company  certain properties
• Norman Winston Foundation  special thanks
• Oneida Silversmiths Inc.  certain properties
• Royal Court Theatre  special thanks
• Saga Productions Inc.  production supervised by
• Syracuse China Inc.  certain properties
• Troma Entertainment  additional production services by
• Upstate Films Inc.  special thanks
• Virginia Film Office  special thanks

Also Known As:

Runtime:

110 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:G | UK:12 (DVD rating) | Finland:S | Sweden:Btl | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

Jefferson Hotel - 101 W. Franklin Street, Richmond, Virginia, USA

Company:

Saga Productions Inc.

Trivia:

Lloyd Kaufman of Troma, Inc. was production manager and his fledgling company provided support to the making of this film. This was one of his first credits.

Goofs:

Continuity: The amount of wine in Wallace Shawn's glass varies in a manner not consistent with his drinking from it (or having it refilled).

Quotes:

[first lines]
Wally:The life of a playwright is tough. It's not easy as some people seem to think. You work hard writing plays and nobody puts them on. You take up other lines of work to make a living - I became an actor - and people don't hire you. So you just spend your days doing the errands of your trade.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Mystery Science Theater 3000: Fire Maidens of Outer Space (#5.16)" (1992)

Soundtrack:

Gymnopedie 1

misconceptions in the slug lines used to describe this film:

This film is well described in the comments and reviews . however misinformation is affirmed through lazy use of incorrect descriptives.

Here are my correctives:

1. The premise is not so much about a conversation between familiars. In truth, Wallace and Andre have not seen each other for a significant period and Wallace actively avoids Andre. What we see are two individuals who, in the past, met as idealists and lovers of theatre at the onset of adulthood, encounter the reality of themselves and their life choices at the onset of middle age. They see that they are in fact total strangers to each other. The context is an attempt, in part, to critique the previous decade, the 1970s, where Andre embodies the most excessive experimental characteristics of that decade. Wallace is his opposite, an entropic and resigned realist, very NYC.

2. The dialectic falls along two fault lines. Theatre and Mortality. If there is one thing that should be said about this film, is that you should see it within the context of cinematic space and with the presence of an audience. Malle sets up an interesting technique. In many respects this film is a little homage to Woody Allen. This is where the cinematic familiar of the piece lies. However, Malle makes one crucial exclusion. He pushes the improvisational , the theatrical element to the extreme, but he removes the comic punctuational relief, the spacial permission to laugh. The result is that he induces in the audience a state of exasperation which at it's best invokes involuntary cries and gestures. He literally provokes the audience to acts of primal theatre. At precisely the point he has pushed them to their limit, Andre's conversation draws attention to the kind of gestures they are making, and instantly it is realised the extraordinary way Malle has acknowledged the presence of the audience. It's an electric moment, and it's worth seeing this film in a cinema to witness this exchange.Only within the last 20 minutes does the one real permission to laugh at the spectacle arrive, when Wallace exclaims complete incomprehension. 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've had friends who become just as Andre, perhaps we all will have had in time. But there was something about the cinematic intimacy and the distance of it's voyeuristic gaze that enabled one to really see a man so consumed by his emotions that simply can't be achieved in the encounter with that in real life, largely because their 'fire' is too overwhelming to achieve such a distance easily.

Finally to say, Malle does not judge in the end. He expertly remains aloof, simply shows with such simplicity and via the brilliant melding of devices of the theatrical with the cinematic. It's this that allows this piece to claim a status of masterpiece.