I watched My Dinner With André a couple of nights ago - the holiday period is great to catch up on all those movies you've always meant to see but never did. It's from the early 80s. When I worked as a doorman at the Seville Theatre as a teeenager, it was regularly on our repertory schedule. I can still remember voices from the film droning on in the background, as I did my lobby chores cleaning up spilled popcorn, while the movie played. But I actually never sat through a screening of the film. The movie is the very definition of a 'message' movie. Hard to believe it was sort of celebrated when it came out. The film critic Roger Ebert chose it as the best film of 1981, and he and Gene Siskel ranked it as the fifth-best and fourth-best film, respectively, of the 1980s. In 1999, Ebert added the film to his Great Movies essay series, starting the retrospective review by stating: "Someone asked me the other day if I could name a movie that was entirely devoid of clichés. I thought for a moment, and then answered, My Dinner with Andre."
This is a movie that I doubt would have a snow ball's chance in hell of being made today. Nearly two hours of watching two men having dinner in a restaurant - a real one, the Cafe des Artistes in Manhatten - discussing the philosophy of theatre, and by extension the meaning of life. The two men are the playwright and actor Wallace Shawn and the theatre director, producer and actor Andre Gregory. It's seemingly a real life conversation that's been shaped, stylized and scripted, so it walks a curious fine line between fiction and reality, which is part of the point. They talk. And talk. Gregory does most of the talking, telling stories about why he abruptly and mysteriously abandoned his work in the theatre after he became disillusioned with it. He recounts his unusual adventures and experiences - in a community of environmentalists in Scotland, and with a group of non-verbal seekers in a Polish forest - to try and find meaning and restore his enthusiasm for his work. I fell asleep after about an hour. But the conversation, if you can stay awake for it, is actually quite interesting in parts. Gregory argues that everyday life is performative (like Shakespeare said): We're all essentially phonies, playing parts, speaking in ways that we've been taught, a lexicon of clichés, following norms and conventions, and doing so because it facilitates fitting in to society. Goals that we are taught to have to guide our lives, for example, are just another script we learn to follow, and essentially turn us into automatons, drumming the creativity and sensitivity out of us. Our script becomes so engrained in us that we lose authenticity, and any sense of what 'real' life actually is. We don't even realize what we don't realize because the trance we inhabit, the condition of our dream state, is so deep. Gregory argues that theatre-training, the training of the actor, somewhat ironically, puts us back in touch with authenticity and creativity because it sensitizes us to what it feels like to act. Trained actors, because they know what acting feels like, can resist and transcend it, and start really feeling and living life authentically once again. Shawn argues the opposite. He thinks that what Gregory is defining as 'real life' is bullshit. You don't have to transcend ordinary life. Ordinary life is real life. It's learning how to appreciate and enjoy the experience of the simple things that constitutes authentic living. The problem most people have is that they are always seeking some gold ring like fame, or, in Gregory's case, a kind of transcendence. Living an authentic life is being grounded in everyday life. Ultimately both Gregory and Shawn arrive at the same place, a new appreciation for where they always were and the work they already did. I guess you might call that returning home. Each of us just has a different road to get there. Damn I didn't want to end this with a cliché. Guess I couldn't help myself.
