Andrew Cuomo's "muscular brand of politics"Is there a Chaplin/Little Prince connection?
Politicians, including Hitler, using children
Hitler's resemblance to Chaplin
When André tells the story of his attempt to workshop a production of The Little Prince, and how he found himself eating sand in the Sahara desert with a Buddhist monk, eat some sand.
Throw a banana at the screen every time André mentions his wife Chiquita....
When André and Wally discuss the lamentable state of the theater and wonder if it’s possible to create a theatrical experience that would shake people out of their complacency, ask yourself: Is attending this screening/performance of My Dinner With André making you less complacent, or does it allow you to wrap yourself in yet another protective layer of ironic detachment? Is endlessly reenacting My Dinner With André a way for members of The MDWA Midnight Madness Troupe to hide behind a mask of performance and avoid exposing who we really are? Are we really saying anything with this show, or is it just an excuse for people to get drunk and dress up on a Friday night?
Treat yourself to a nice amaretto when Wally orders an after-dinner drink....
In the promo for the new webseries, Seinfeld's old partner Larry David affirms that connection: "It's comedy in cars with coffee. What does that mean? ... You have finally done a show about nothing!"Here's the first episode of "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee." Nice attention to the car (a 1952 split-window Volkswagen). The episode title is "Larry Eats a Pancake."
Among the "wins" for Sandler: Worst Picture, Worst Actor (for Sandler's work in "Jack & Jill" and "Just Go With It"), Worst Actress (as "Jill"), Worst Supporting Actor (for Al Pacino's cameo as himself), Worst Supporting Actress (for pal David Spade as "Monica"), Worst Screen Ensemble (for the entire cast), Worst Director (Dennis Dugan for "Jack and Jill" and "Just Go With It"), Worst Remake, Rip-off or Sequel ("Jack and Jill" for ripping off Ed Woods' camp classic "Glen or Glenda"), Worst Screen Couple (Sandler and Katie Holmes, Sandler and Al Pacino or Sandler with himself) and Worst Screenplay.Yeah, Sandler won in both the actor and actress categories, but I think the funniest thing there is that Al Pacino won Worst Supporting Actor when he was playing the role of himself. How can you screw up playing yourself? Ah! That seems like a deep and metaphysical question. It reminds me of the notion that made André Gregory cry, as described by Wallace Shawn in "My Dinner with André":
The reason I was meeting André was that an acquaintance of mine, George Grassfield, had called me and just insisted that I had to see him. Apparently, George had been walking his dog in an odd section of town the night before, and he'd suddenly come upon André leaning against a crumbling old building, and sobbing. André had explained to George that he'd just been watching the Ingmar Bergman movie Autumn Sonata about twenty-five blocks away, and he'd been seized by a fit of ungovernable crying when the character played by Ingrid Bergman had said, "I could always live in my art, but never in my life."But let's check YouTube for what Pacino actually did in the movie "Jack and Jill." Here:
"You see, we worked together for a week in the city before we went off to our forest. Of course, Grotowski was there in the city, too, and I heard that every night he conducted something called a beehive, and I loved the sound of this beehive, so a night or two before we were supposed to go off to the country, I grabbed him by the collar and I said: "Listen, about this beehive: you know, I'd kind of like to participate in one. Just instinctively I feel it would be something interesting." And he said: "Well, certainly. In fact, why don't you with your group lead the beehive instead of participating." Well, you know, Wally, I got very nervous, you know, and I said: "Well, what is a beehive?" He said: "Well, a beehive is at eight o'clock a hundred strangers come into a room." And I said: "Yes?" And he said: "Yes, and whatever happens is a beehive." And I said: "Yes, but what am I supposed to do?" He said: "That's up to you." I said: "No, no! I really don't want to do this. I'll just participate." And he said: "No, no. You lead the beehive!" Well, I was terrified, Wally. I mean, in a way I felt on stage. I did it anyway."
... I hate zombie apocalypses, because they imply that other people are an obstruction to you getting through your day and would be better off getting shot through the head. The sweet release of just opening fire on a crowd of people because they're not as special and alive as you are: That is disgusting. That is actual misanthropy disguised as entertainment, appealing to the grossest things inside you, and I hate it....
[T]hink about the people you know that love zombies the most. Not the girls who pretend to like zombies and video games so boys will think they've found a unicorn, because those girls are worthless anyway; not the AMC dads or Twilight moms who are trying to be down with the kids these days. They have no effect on culture whatsoever.
I'm talking about your nerdy grumpy jerkoff friend who likes porn and zombies and dark shock-humor and hates women because he's scared of them and loves Tyrion Lannister more than anything and thinks his sarcasm is a defense or that being a cynic opts you out: That asshole. That's who you're being when you play along with the zombie bullshit. Don't do it. It's bad for the part of you that is still alive.Hmmm... Jason seems to think he's more alive than those people he hates because they think they are more alive?
ANDRE: [W]e're just walking around in some kind of fog. I think we're all in a trance! We're walking around like zombies! I don't think we're even aware of ourselves or our own reaction to things, we're just going around all day like unconscious machines, I mean, while there's all of this rage and worry and uneasiness just building up and building up inside us!So is the current fascination with zombies because, in some ways, we feel like zombies — we identify or we want to scare ourselves into coming back to life? Or is it that we perceive others as the zombies, and there is something pretty sick about our misanthropy?
We inspect our exit point — a manhole in the middle of the road. Will Hunt, a bespectacled 26-year-old who is writing a book about the underground (“The last frontier,” he says, “in an over-mapped, Google-Earthed world.”) will serve as our spotter. Will’s job is to watch for traffic: ascending from the hole, we do not wish to be hit by a car. We are to communicate by walkie-talkie. Will ties a long pink ribbon to the inside of the manhole cover. Dangling downward, this will be our signal we have reached the end....Time to hop on the subway again?
Filthy, backpacked, smelling of the sewer, we board a rush-hour subway....
The sewer under Greene Street was only four feet high (Erling is 6 foot 3.) It got smaller and smaller, until they were forced on hands and knees, then eventually on their bellies. Crawling through raw sewage. The ceiling was higher on Canal Street, they report, but the floor was caked with so much feces they sank in it like quicksand. They were turned back by an impassable mountain of waste....
Why do we require a trip through the sewers in order to be able to perceive one moment of reality? I mean... is the sewer more "real"? I mean, isn't New York "real"? I mean, you see, I think if you could become fully aware of what existed in the cigar store next door to this restaurant, I think it would just blow your brains out! I mean... isn't there just as much "reality" to be perceived in the cigar store as there is in the sewers? I mean, what do you think? You see, I think that not only is there nothing more real about the sewers I think there's nothing that different, in a certain way. I mean, because reality is uniform, in a way. So that if you're — if your perceptions — I mean, if your own mechanism is operating correctly, it would become irrelevant to go into the sewers, and sort of absurd! Because, I mean, it's just — I mean, of course, on some level, I mean, obviously it's very different from a cigar store on Seventh Avenue, but I mean...
But, well, I agree with you... But the problem is that people can't see the cigar store, now. I mean, things don't affect people the way they used to. I mean, it may very well be that ten years from now people will pay ten thousand dollars in cash to be castrated, just in order to be affected by something!
Well, why...why do you think that is? I mean, why is that? I mean, is it just because people are lazy today? Or they're bored? I mean, are we just like bored, spoiled children who've just been lying in the bathtub all day just playing with their plastic duck and now they're just thinking: "Well! what can I do?"
Okay! Yes! We're bored! We're all bored now! But has it ever occurred to you, Wally, that the process that creates this boredom that we see in the world now may very well be a self-perpetuating, unconscious form of brain-washing, created by a world totalitarian government based on money? And that all of this is much more dangerous than one thinks? And it's not just a question of individual survival, Wally, but that somebody who's bored is asleep, and somebody who's asleep will not say "no"? See, I keep meeting these people, I mean, uh, just a few days ago I met this man whom I greatly admire...? And he told me that he no longer watches television, he doesn't read newspapers and he doesn't read magazines. He's completely cut them out of his life, because he really does feel that we're living in some kind of Orwellian nightmare now, and that everything that you hear now contributes to turning you into a robot!
WALLY: I'm looking for more comfort, because the world is very abrasive, I mean, I'm trying to protect myself, because really there are these abrasive beatings to be avoided everywhere you look.
ANDRE: Yeah, but Wally, don't you see that comfort can be dangerous? I mean, you like to be comfortable and I like to be comfortable, too. But comfort can lull you into a dangerous tranquility. I mean, my mother knew a woman, Lady Hatfield, who was one of the richest women in the world, and she died of starvation because all she would eat was chicken. I mean, she just liked chicken, Wally, and that was all she would eat, and actually, her body was starving but she didn't know it 'cause she was quite happy eating her chicken and so, she finally died! See, I honestly believe that we're all like Lady Hatfield now, we're having a lovely, comfortable time with our electric blankets and our chicken, and meanwhile we're starving because we're so cut off from contact with reality that we're not getting any real sustenance.
32 Short Films About Glenn GouldNow, you may wonder which of these movies Meade had already seen and which ones have I succeeded in getting him to watch. You may wonder which ones, once watched, produced a negative reaction and about which ones did we see eye to eye. I'll leave that for Meade to say in the comments if he wants. The rest of you are welcome to guess, to produce your own lists, or to opine about mine.
American Movie
Aguirre the Wrath of God
Clockwork Orange
Coffee and Cigarettes
Crumb
Divorce Italian Style
Don't Look Back
Dr. Strangelove
Election
Fast, Cheap & Out of Control
Fight Club
Grave of the Fireflies
Grey Gardens
Grizzy Man
Heathers
It's a Gift
Lolita
Memento
Modern Times
My Dinner With Andre
Nights of Cabiria
Pecker
Psycho
Pulp Fiction
Room with a View
Rosemary's Baby
Royal Tenenbaums
Salesman
Serial Mom
Slacker
Spirited Away
Streetcar Named Desire
Stroszek
The Blood of a Poet
The Shining
The War Room
The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl
Wisconsin Death Trip
Wuthering Heights
You see, that's why I think that people have affairs. Well, I mean, you know, in the theater, if you get good reviews, you feel for a moment that you've got your hands on something. You know what I mean? I mean it's a good feeling. But then that feeling goes quite quickly. And once again you don't know quite what you should do next. What'll happen? Well, have an affair and up to a certain point you can really feel that you're on firm ground. You know, there's a sexual conquest to be made, there are different questions: does she enjoy the ears being nibbled, how intensely can you talk about Schopenhauer in some elegant French restaurant. Whatever nonsense it is. It's all, I think, to give you the semblance that there's firm earth.But, Althouse, are you live-blogging my remarks?
One workday, while we were waiting to shoot, Roman was discoursing about the impossibility of long-term monogamy given the brevity of a man's sexual attraction to any woman. An impassioned John Cassavetes responded that Roman knew nothing about women, or relationships, and that he, John, was more attracted than ever to his wife, Gena Rowlands. Roman stared at him and blinked a few times, and for once had no reply."Rosemary's Baby" was made in 1968, the year Polanski married Sharon Tate (who was murdered the following year).
Mrs. Bissage and I watched the Criterion release last night. We were both spellbound.And, once again, here's the link to buy the DVD.
Unfortunately, houseguests arrived just as Andre started his grand surrebuttal. Crap!
Oh well. We agreed this morning we’ll watch it again later this week.
One remark, on the merits, I will hazard to make. As I’m sure you are sick of hearing, Professor, I was involved (half-assedly) in the theater back in the late-seventies/early-eighties. Well, what of it? The thing is, I watched the movie and I was astounded by how much the dialogue reminded me of actual conversations from back in the day.
“Authenticity” is not the be-all and end-all, of course, but that movie is absolutely brimming with theater-culture authenticity, at least according to my experience.
Yep. We really used to wear blindfolds and sit in a circle and listen to each other breathe and stuff like that.
THE THEATER IS ALIVE!!1!!!!!!1!!!
Ha!
-grittiness of pre-Giuliani NYC
-Wally is 36? Looks a decade older, awful hair
-both look so shabby for such a nice place
-nervous about who would pay?
-Poland story a snooze-fest, felt sorry for Wally, how long will this go on?
-The Matrix was maybe inspired by this?
-Andre's experiences reminder of Don Quixiote / mushrooms
-Andre’s name dropping seems pretentious (my husband didn't agree)
-Wally chews with his mouth open - yuck
-irony of mention about status v. them not paying attention to waiter
-irony of mention of people not “seeing,” when they are oblivious to restaurant environment
-sympathetic to Wally’s view, that why aren’t mundane daily tasks enough, even profound
-cold coffee from night before? Ugh
-dead fly / cockroach - ugh again
-did they actually eat?
-sympathetic to Ande’s view at same time, for the need to be “clear”
-violence, trivia, etc. of mass media, art even more overwhelming since ‘80s
-mid-life crisis of hip NYC folks
-totalitarian reference reaction to Reagan's election? (I didn't think so, film may have been in works earlier)
-so many Nazi and fascism references
-moral conflict (reminded me of Rosenthal’s comments about what is our responsibility to starving people across the world in Kitty Genovese documentary)
-in the taxi, Wally finally "sees" NYC streets at the end
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