Welcome to The Gemsbok! This video is about My Dinner with Andre, a 1981 film directed by Louis Malle.
"THE WHOLE IDEA OF MEETING HIM MADE ME VERY NERVOUS. I MEAN, I REALLY WASN'T UP FOR THAT SORT OF THING.
I HAD PROBLEMS OF MY OWN! I MEAN, I COULDN'T HELP ANDRE. WAS I SUPPOSED TO BE A DOCTOR, OR WHAT?"
It is an odd fact that one of the most daring and excellent films of the early 80s
was a movie about two characters sitting down to dinner and having a full conversation with
each other in real-time. The daring nature of My Dinner with Andre, of course, comes from the
unabashed simplicity of its premise (as well as the far-ranging content of its writing),
but that leaves the source of its excellence still to be accounted for. Folks who have not seen it
may hold the understandable-yet-mistaken notion that perhaps the film succeeds in
the same way as other acclaimed single-location dialogue-driven movies, like The Man from Earth
and 12 Angry Men—by having the characters slowly uncover or reveal shocking details over time.
"THE WOMAN WHO TESTIFIED THAT SHE SAW THE KILLING HAD THOSE SAME MARKS ON THE SIDES OF HER NOSE."
But the conversation in My Dinner with Andre is just not a traditional narrative; its conversation
is rather more similar to, well, a conversation. One of the men, the eponymous Andre (played by André Gregory),
shares some recent biography and some philosophical notions, and the other man,
Wally (played by Wallace Shawn), responds to Andre’s ideas. That’s it. So, what is it then
that makes this movie work so well? That makes it have consistently high ratings from critics and audiences alike?
That made Siskel and Ebert each separately rank it as one of their top five films of the entire 1980s?
Well, by employing some basic concepts from my background in literary theory,
this video will be my answer to those questions. And the answer has two parts. First, as much as
I acknowledge all of the ways in which My Dinner with Andre breaks from tradition, and its lack of
any significant twists or plot developments—I do think that underneath the meal and the meandering
subject matter, through close attention we can uncover hints of, suggestions of, a structured
plot in its writing. And second, once you’ve understood that structure, you can comes to grips
with the meaning and power of the film, by gaining access to the character arc of its protagonist.
"BUT THE WORST THING OF ALL WAS THAT I'D BEEN TRAPPED BY AN ODD SERIES OF CIRCUMSTANCES
INTO AGREEING TO HAVE DINNER WITH A MAN I'D BEEN AVOIDING LITERALLY FOR YEARS."
Between his framing narration and the conspicuous perspective of the movie’s title, it’s clear that our protagonist is Wally,
an unsuccessful playwright and actor living in New York City.
The movie opens with him walking to the restaurant and detailing his struggles in the world of professional theatre.
The narration is full of frustration and nervousness,
both about his day-to-day struggles and about his friend obligating him to meet up with
former fellow theatre professional Andre (about whom Wally has heard strange rumors).
"SOMEONE HAD MET HIM AT A PARTY AND HE'D BEEN TELLING PEOPLE THAT HE TALKED WITH TREES OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT."
Once both parties have reached the restaurant, the first major segment of the film begins;
it is dominated by extended monologues from Andre, who describes various atavistic, ritualistic, and spiritual experiences
he has had in recent years while attempting to re-instill meaning in his life and his work.
To make explicit the understated structure I’m trying to draw out, let’s call this
segment the first of three acts in the plot. During this first section, Wally is aloof, almost mocking.
He internally thinks to himself that he’ll spend the evening as something akin to an investigator,
digging dispassionately into this odd character. For his part, Andre is forthcoming,
sharing with apparent sincerity the unusual and possibly drug-fueled adventures and hallucinations
he has had both at home and abroad.
"WHEN I CAME OUT OF FINDHORN, I WAS HALLUCINATING NON-STOP.
I WAS SEEING CLOUDS AS CREATURES, THE—THE PEOPLE ON THE AIRPLANE ALL HAD ANIMALS' FACES.
I MEAN, I WAS ON A TRIP!"
Wally continually and quietly eggs him on, and it may seem to the viewer that this rhythm will continue for the whole duration.
"YOU REALLY WANT TO HEAR ABOUT ALL THIS?" "YEAH . . ."
But then there’s a turn, seemingly unexpected by Wally. As he comes toward the end of his list of
outlandish and occasionally pretentious tales, Andre suddenly becomes highly self-deprecating about them.
"FRANKLY, I'M SORT OF REPELLED BY THE WHOLE STORY, IF YOU REALLY WANNA KNOW."
"WHAT?" "WELL, I MEAN . . .
WHO DID I THINK I WAS, YOU KNOW?
I MEAN, THAT'S THE STORY OF SOME KIND OF SPOILED PRINCESS."
He speaks of the foregoing years of experimentation as a needless and privileged distraction from life,
which left him barely less discouraged than he was, and barely less fake than the people around him.
"SO, THE QUESTION IS, WHEN I GET ON MY DEATHBED, WHAT KIND OF A PERSON AM I GONNA BE?
AND I'M JUST VERY DUBIOUS ABOUT THE KIND OF PERSON WHO WOULD'VE LIVED HIS LIFE THOSE LAST FEW YEARS THE WAY I DID."
Andre begins bemoaning the falsity of people in everyday life, masked figures that are empty and emotionless,
throwing vacuous parties and never really engaging with life or reality.
This combination of, on the one hand, vulnerability and self-criticism, with, on the other hand,
frustration at the shallowness of their fellow New Yorkers—draws Wally into agreement with him,
and thus the second of the three acts begins.
"NOW, THEY'RE LIVING IN AN INSANE DREAMWORLD. THEY'RE NOT LOOKING.
THAT SEEMS VERY STRANGE TO ME."
"RIGHT . . . BECAUSE THEY JUST DIDN'T SEE ANYTHING SOMEHOW, EXCEPT, UH,
THE FEW LITTLE THINGS THAT THEY WANTED TO SEE."
Wally becomes enthusiastic. The two echo each other’s sentences,
castigating the alienation of modern life, wishing for authentic relationships with authentic people.
They’re both bitter at everyone who doesn’t see the world as clearly
as they feel that they see it, and so they get to be fat- headed together. It’s like a brief span of harmony,
a stretch of common ground. But it’s also the shortest act of the film.
The harmony begins experiencing interruptions, which begin in a strikingly innocuous fashion: with an electric blanket.
Wally mentions he uses one and is mildly concerned it may be changing the way his mind or body work in some fashion.
Andre latches onto that concern, and contends an electric blanket is a
potent symbol of modern isolation from the world, a disconnection even from the vicissitudes of weather.
"THAT KIND OF COMFORT JUST SEPARATES YOU FROM REALITY IN A VERY DIRECT WAY."
Wally rejects this conclusion, however, as he finds it an indispensable creature comfort.
The subtext is that Andre considers Wally, insofar as he’s the type of person to use such a thing,
to be living as (or in danger of living as) one of the hollow automata they’ve been whining about.
"TURN ON THAT ELECTRIC BLANKET, AND IT'S—LIKE TAKING A TRANQUILIZER.
IT'S LIKE BEING LOBOTOMIZED BY WATCHING TELEVISION.
I THINK YOU ENTER THE DREAMWORLD AGAIN."
From here, their fundamental philosophical divide reappears, as Andre begins to make it clear that,
self-deprecating or not, he actually does stand by most or all of the weird beliefs and experiences
he enumerated in the first act—and does consider them to be among the few ways for a person to get
back in touch with reality. And as Wally has now been drawn into the conversation, invested,
no longer aloof, this difference begins moving them farther and farther apart. As I would render it,
this initiates the third and final act. They clash on whether theatre and related art can possibly
wake people from the stupor of inauthenticity, on whether it’s necessary to leave one’s immediate
surroundings in order to find meaning, and overall (at what I would deem to be the climax of the film)
on whether the path to truth in life lies in scientific humanism or in mystical spirituality.
But there is a resolution to this conflict, if a mediated one, in a momentary return to common ground.
Wally concedes that, whatever its many successes, science has in the twentieth
century brought about great evils as well. And Andre concedes that Wally’s unassuming everyday
life can be fulfilling and authentic, moreso even than one full of affairs and adventures,
provided that he always remains vigilant about staying intentional and attentive.
Finally, Andre is able to get at the core of what initially drew Wally into the conversation near the start of the second act,
that—whatever their methods or differences of opinion—the best aim one can have
is to never settle into a predefined role and play it like an actor.
"PEOPLE HOLD ONTO THESE IMAGES OF FATHER, MOTHER, HUSBAND, WIFE, AGAIN, FOR THE SAME REASON:
'CAUSE THEY SEEM TO PROVIDE SOME FIRM GROUND."
Andre pays for the meal, and the pair part amicably. Wally takes a cab home, narrating very briefly the effects of the conversation
while one of Erik Satie’s beautiful Gymnopédie compositions plays.
"WHEN I FINALLY CAME IN, DEBBIE WAS HOME FROM WORK,
AND I TOLD HER EVERYTHING ABOUT MY DINNER WITH ANDRE."
Okay, so it can be described as following a three- act structure. But that’s not an interpretation;
it’s a shape. If we think about the development of the conversation across those acts, however,
I think you’ll see the character arc and meaning I promised at the outset emerge.
"I LOOKED AT THAT GUY AND I THOUGHT, 'WHAT A HORRIBLE, EMPTY, MANIPULATIVE RAT.'
THEN I THOUGHT, 'THAT GUY IS ME.'" [ANDRE LAUGHING]
A character arc is basically a way of talking about a character changing in some
way across the duration of a narrative, having had formative experiences. For our protagonist Wally,
the formative experience he undergoes is being drawn into genuine engagement with a way of
thinking which is alien to his own in almost every way. Andre and Wally have reached the same
diagnosis of modern life: that it puts people to sleep, blinds them to the reality of death,
denies them real emotional access to the world and people around them, steeps them in perverse superficiality.
But their prescriptions for that ailment couldn’t be further apart.
Andre’s visions, theatrical experiments, and attachment of grandiose mystical significance to simple coincidences
may all be silly and even, at times, naive.
"YOU KNOW THAT ONCE KOZAN AND I—
WE WERE SITTING ON A DUNE AND WE JUST ATE SAND?
AND WE WEREN'T TRYING TO BE FUNNY. I STARTED, THEN HE STARTED.
WE JUST ATE SAND AND THREW UP. THAT'S HOW DESPERATE WE WERE."
He seems to Wally, as he does to most viewers,
at first a ridiculous figure and later an outrageous one (at one point, for instance,
casually comparing his menial interactions with the doorman of his building to chattel slavery).
"THE DOORMAN CALLS ME 'MR. GREGORY,' AND I CALL HIM 'JIMMY.'
ALREADY, WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THAT AND THE SOUTHERN PLANTATION OWNER WHO'S GOT SLAVES?"
And as Andre confirms in the second act, his odd recent past hasn’t, at any rate,
actually brought him all of the meaning and contentment he was seeking.
"I MEAN, I'M FEELING VERY RAW RIGHT NOW. I MEAN, UH, I MEAN, I CAN'T SLEEP.
MY NERVES ARE SHOT. I MEAN, I'M AFFECTED BY EVERYTHING.
I MEAN, I REALLY FEEL THAT I'M JUST WASHED UP, WIPED OUT. I FEEL I'VE JUST SQUANDERED MY LIFE."
But Andre sees one vital thing that Wally doesn’t: that the underlying cause or causes of the inauthenticity
manifesting in so many people’s lives must somehow be found in the way the affected
people are living and thinking. The distractions from real emotional engagement have a form,
and the form in question can resemble works of art, or cups of coffee, or cities, or electric blankets.
"I MEAN, YOU LIKE TO BE COMFORTABLE AND I LIKE TO COMFORTABLE, TOO, BUT
COMFORT CAN LULL YOU INTO A DANGEROUS TRANQUILITY."
Wally certainly isn’t wrong to like such things, but he may be wrong to accept all of them uncritically.
Never taking a step back from them and considering their role in his life has led
him to the place he’s at in act one: in general, neurotic, anxious, annoyed; and in conversation
with an interesting person, vaguely interested, viewing them more as an exhibit than a partner.
"EVEN IF THEY'RE IN ABSOLUTE AGONY, I ALWAYS FIND IT VERY . . . INTERESTING."
In act two, the discussion suddenly seems to Wally like a safe place in which to make and agree with
banal remarks about everyone else being careless sheep. So he enters into the discussion.
But Andre is nowhere near unctuous enough to remain polite and agreeable in the face of remarks with which he disagrees.
Thus we move into act three, which mirrors act one, but with the singular difference
that now Wally is just as animated and passionate as Andre. So this time, as Andre offers mysticism,
Wally counters with materialism. And so both parties become energized, active, authentic.
"WHY IS IT NECESSARY TO HAVE MORE THAN THIS, OR TO EVEN THINK ABOUT HAVING MORE THAN THIS?
I MEAN—I DON'T REALLY KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT."
It ends up being crucially important, then, that the pair are so frequently at odds.
It’s disagreement itself that gives force to the film, that causes each party to have to defend their way of life
and so produce some justification for it. This energy sharpens Wally’s awareness of his conclusions,
and turns his considerations away from the bills and jobs he talks about at the outset—
toward the humans and community near him in the city, and in his life. His opening narration is curmudgeonly.
But his closing narration is introspective and romantic.
"THERE WASN'T A STREET—THERE WASN'T A BUILDING, THAT WASN'T CONNECTED TO SOME MEMORY IN MY MIND."
He’s not going to participate in Andre’s experimental theatre exercises in Eastern Europe after the end of the film.
"TREES DO NOT TURN INTO PEOPLE, OR GODDESSES, AND THERE'RE VERY GOOD REASONS
WHY THEY DON'T, AND YOU CAN'T JUST BELIEVE ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING."
He hasn’t changed in beliefs, but in attitude and acuity. It’s the mere fact of having been pulled into a genuine
and passionate conversation, full of tense debate, which has lent renewed authenticity to his life.
"ALRIGHT, NOW YOU'RE SAYING THAT PEOPLE TODAY WOULDN'T GET IT, AND MAYBE THAT'S TRUE,
BUT I MEAN ISN'T THERE ANY KIND OF WRITING OR ANY KIND OF A PLAY THAT, I MEAN,
ISN'T IT STILL LEGITIMATE FOR WRITERS T—TO TRY TO PORTRAY REALITY SO THAT PEOPLE CAN SEE IT?"
The reading I’ve offered here is by no means a definitive interpretation.
In particular, I’ve said nothing about the movie’s fixation on money, nor even really
addressed its continual discussion of theatre. And I think you’ll also find that my reading
of the film has nothing in particular to say about Andre’s obsession with the Holocaust,
with him bringing up it or Nazis roughly every ten minutes or so without fail, and variously
worrying that there may be fascist undertones to everything from freeform improvisational
theatre to experimental ecocommunes to The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
"NOW, OF COURSE, TODAY . . . TODAY I THINK THERE'S A VERY . . .
FASCISTIC THING UNDER THE LITTLE PRINCE. YOU KNOW, I . . .
WELL NO, I THINK THERE'S A KIND OF . . .
I THINK THERE'S A KIND OF SS TOTALITARIAN SENTIMENTALITY IN THERE SOMEWHERE."
The one advantage, however, that my take on My Dinner with Andre can boast over studies that
delve more deeply into the specific topics of conversation—is that it makes a strong case for
why so many viewers find such an apparently simple film so very compelling. Many viewers are wont to
point to whichever character they personally agree with, and insist that that character holds the key
to the meaning of the movie. To my mind, that’s a mistake.
"PULP FICTION, MILKSHAKES, BEAN CANS? LISTEN TO HOW WE TALK TO EACH OTHER! WE'RE LIKE
ROBOTS EXCHANGING CATCHPHRASES AND REFERENCES." "AND YOU THINK POINTING THAT OUT COUNTS AS A REAL CONVERSATION?"
Ultimately, I believe it has nothing to do with the half of the conversation with which you comfortably agree,
and everything to do with the half of the conversation with which you attentively disagree.
That’s the half that gives you, as an audience member, an experiential arc that mirrors Wally’s.
The experience of art is often composed of exposure to a challenging multiplicity of viewpoints,
yet this art provides that experience with uncommonly little dilution. A person is apt to come away from My Dinner
with Andre with Satie’s sweet, clear, precise music in their head, and paying some additional
careful attention to their own thoughts and experiences—past and present—and those of others.
"THE TROUBLE, WALLY, WITH ALWAYS BEING ACTIVE AND DOING THINGS
IS THAT I THINK IT'S QUITE POSSIBLE TO DO ALL SORTS OF THINGS AND AT THE SAME TIME BE COMPLETELY DEAD INSIDE."