MY DINNER WITH ANDRE

US, 1981, 110 minutes, Colour.
Andre Gregory, Wallace Shawn.
Directed by Louis Malle.

My Dinner With Andre might be considered the modern cinema equivalent of the dialogues of Plato. Two articulate men meet for a restaurant dinner and for almost two hours discuss. There are some establishing shots of New York, Wally's voice-over commentary on his appointment with Andre for dinner and the establishing of the restaurant. At the end Wally gets a taxi home to discuss his dinner with his girlfriend Debbie. In the meantime two men talk.

Initially many audiences may find the experience almost unendurable. Then one warms to the dinner, to the two talkers, and one listens to what they have to say. At times the conversation is esoteric ? even absurd or pretentious. Andre is an articulate enthusiast and it is his experiences that are discussed. Wally is much more down to earth ? and sometimes objects to what Andre says, even feeling forced to defend his wanting an electric blanket!

The discussion ranges over midlife crisis, the American theatre, experimental experiences to put oneself in touch with the inner self. These have been popular themes for intellectualist discussion during the late '60s and '70s. while the audience may not fully understand what is being talked about, there is sufficient arresting material to keep the attention.

Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory play themselves, prepared the screenplay, and it is difficult to tell how much is contrived and how much is spontaneous. The film is cleverly and unobtrusively directed by Louis Malle, one of the French New Wave directors, maker of so many classics of the '60s, who moved to America in the late '70s with such films as Pretty Baby and his Oscar-nominated Atlantic City. An interesting experiment about a rather esoteric subject.

1. For what audience was the film made? Entertainment, experiment? How well does the film work as cinema? The cinematic presentation of a discussion? The establishing of situation, character? The maintaining of interest in character? The importance of the relationship between form and content?

2. The skills of Louis Malle in making this conversational meal watchable? The establishing shots of New York? Wally's story and the voiceover technique? A sense of impetus and liveliness in the city which is the milieu for this kind of conversation? Wally's curiosity and friendship with Andre? Wondering what was to happen? The restaurant and the establishing of a sense of place, detail? The waiters? The meal? The techniques used for the conversation: close ups, profiles, quick-paced editing, cut-aways, the insertion of the progress of the meal? Wally emerging from the restaurant at the end? His indulgence in getting the taxi? His voiceover comments? Did the audience share the desire to go out and discuss the dinner with Andre? The contribution of musical score? The cinematic presentation of conversation, pauses, breathlessness, pace? The combination of the visual and the verbal? Audience ability to sit out the length of the film?

3. The character of Wally: his short, dumpy appearance, age, his career, writing and acting, his life story, home, relationship with Debbie? An ordinary man with ordinary hopes? Curious, gauche? His playing the listener and questioner to Andre? His venturing into critique and self defence? A likable character?

4. The build up of expectations for Andre: his personality. capacity for friendship, life story, marriage, career and success? His dropping out? The rumours of oddness? His invitation to Wally ? and their being no explanation of why he should want to talk in this way with him? His appearance, manner, articulation of ideas? His enjoying the talk? His capacity to listen? Audiences liking him, appreciating him?

5. The long tradition from Plato for dialogues at meals to raise in artistic form philosophical and ethical issues? Intellectual enjoyment of the dialogue? The personal contribution to it? The emotional involvement in the dialogue? The risk of personal revelation? The blend of the funny, the serious, the pretentious, the absurd? The discussion and insight? Wisdom? The dialogue dinner as an occasion?

6. Audience response to the themes of the dinner and Andre's viewpoint: The American way of life, being alive, caught up in the rat race, robot living in America, living in a dream? Andre's understanding of comfort and the deadening influence of affluence? The critique of the capitalist society? The objectivity of the criticism? The role of performance in art and in real life?Acting and masks? The reference to Ingmar Bergman's Autumn Sonata and Andre being moved? Life crises and the coping with these? Revelation of self to self, to others? Career: theatre, skill, popular success? Wally and his writing and ordinary involvement with theatre? Andre and his opting out, the nature of his disgust, the discussions with the Polish director, the long explanations of the beehive experience, as theatre, as therapy? The range of his experiences and experiments - the Buddhist monk, the Sahara, the Scottish community, the Halloween being buried alive? The experience of non-intellectual living? Creating conditions for experience and therapy? Spontaneity? The discovery of finite life, the facing of death? Relationships: Wally and his ordinary relationship with Debbie? Andre and his reflections on his love for his wife Chiquita? The reminiscences of marriage, the wedding ceremony, early married life? The reflections on the photo and how people change? How married people are not the same as they were when they committed themselves to one another? Puzzle, hurt? Andre's moving out and travelling? Rediscovering himself? The risk of having to fall in love again, to grow in the experience of marriage with a person who is not the same? Sexual liaisons as deadening? The comments on the Buddhist monk and his living with the family, his change from selflessness to selfishness? The nature of friendship, the capacity for listening and appreciating, masks and lack of communication? The respect for the guru? Likes and love? Likes and dislikes? The telling of the truth? The nature of identity in the self: crises, the experience of emotionalism, the search, the luxury of having the time, money and range of experience in which to search? The horrible selfishness of such a search and its imposition on others? The pretentiousness of so much of the therapy? Optimism and pessimism, reinforcing old standards and values or awakening to new? Wally's defence of the status quo and the ordinary person's inability to change? How persuasive was Andre's explanation of his experiences, therapy, change? His views about modern society ? selfishness, comfort, affluence? The possibility of war and destruction? The seeing through of pretentiousness and selfishness to a new creative ordinary way of life?

7. The audience's experience of the conversation? Watching, listening, observing the dialogue, unable to join in and comment? Sharing points of view? Dissenting?

8. Wally wanting to go home and tell Debbie - not romanticising the dialogue but a realistic appraisal? Did the audience share Wally's response to the dinner with Andre?