The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current, November 04, 1982, Page Page 11, Image 11
Thursday, November 4, 1982 Daily Nebraskan Page 11 Two men eating dinner make life seem easier ' - i i; if Si n ixM&lmw passer By David Thompson "When I was young ... all I thought about was art and music," Wally Shawn says, walking through New York City. "Now I'm 36, and all I think about is money." He describes this move from enthusiastic idealism to pragmatic materialism while he makes his way along dingy streets to a fancy restaurant where he is meeting his friend for dinner. The dinner, along with these opposing attitudes, forms the heart of "My Dinner With Andre," a film Louis Malle that opens at Sheldon tonight. At the restaurant Wally meets a friend whom he hasn't seen for several years. Andre has been on a spiritual quest to Poland, Scotland, India and the Sahara Desert, and he's meeting with Wally to fill him in on what's been going on. The conversation between the two men com prises most of the film, and their words and faces are all we have to go on. That's an interesting point on which to build a film. There is no real plot. The structure of the film has been stripped of events. We have merely a situation and the sounds of words bouncing off the walls of that situation. Like a philosophic dialogue, it is constructed "to bring up bits of reality and show them to people," Sound pretty arid? Well, it's not, because unlike a philosophic dialogue perched on methodical constructs, this conversation is a skin of ideas laid across the skeleton of Andre's wild experiences. He talks to trees, eats sand, dances around fires stark naked and throw magazines onto tables waiting for them to flip open and reveal the secret of his existence. Before the chat gets under way, Wally says, "I was feeling nervous. I wasn't sure I could sit through an entire dinner with him." At the start, we aren't sure either. But once Malle's camera scrutinizes Andre's face and we see the wild-eyed sincerity written all over it, we accept what he says. This also means accepting the tone of condescension in his voice, the way he barely lets Wally get a word in The College of Business Administration Announces Mr. Robert A. Beck Chairman and Chief Executive Officer The Prudential Insurance Company of America "HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS" Thursday, Nov. 4, 1982 2:00 pjn. CBA Third Floor Lounge ALL ARE INVITED TO ATTEND y Movie yc Review edgewise and the fact that he is an upper-class individual with enough cockiness to think he can run around the world "flashing on death camps" and expect us to listen to him. We forgive him to some extent for being pretentious, because he is continually calling those pretensions into question. "Who did I think I was?" he asks. "The Shah of Iran?" He realized the conceit involved with thinking that, because he's an artist, "the rules of ordinary life didn't apply." Or perhaps Andre Gregory and Wally Shawn, who wrote the script about themselves, threw in statements like that just to make themselves look good. We don't, know, and there's really little point in trying to find out. Shawn, a playwright, and Gregory, a theater director, based the script on tapes of their conversations. The story is true, and Gregory claims that everything he describes in the film, like learning to hold his hand in a fire without burning it, actually happened. Whether they happened or not doesn't really matter either, because what they are attempting to do is construct a mythology, "a new language, the language of the heart." They believe that people fail to appreciate life because they are numbed by modern times, scien tific "truth" and electric blankets. They believe that a new basis needs to be found from which to make spiritual leaps and bounds. They find this basis in the stories of their lives, whether Gregory's harebrained excursions or Shawn's thrill at finding that "there's just as much reality to be perceived in a cigar store as there is on Mt. Everest." They weave these stories with the stories of others whose names are tossed all over the place. Whether it be Bertolt Brecht, George Orwell, a Swedish physicist or these two men eating dinner together, everywhere about us there are stories, signs whose bits and pieces we can put together to help make life a little easier. Soundlike a big job? Well, these guys aren't the first to try to tackle finding new light, but Jesus wasn't the first either. Malle's subdued direction enunciates the point by continually poking the material world into the flighty arguments. . At one point, Wally says, "The wonderful thing about scientific theories is that they're based on experiments." As he says this the waiter plops coffee cups on the table, merging objects with ideas. Wally represents one and Andre the other, and Malle shows the interplay between the two, moving his camera back and forth from the gleam in Andre's eyes to Wally's skeptical chin jutting from its resting place in his hand. The argument between the two will never cease and, also, will never cease to be intriguing. What it all comes down to is who you are, and how sincere you are at living that identity, at living with other people, at talking over dinner. "Have a complete relationship with another person," Andre says, "and you're sailing off into uncharted seas." SPECIAL save SHOWING 33 AT THE ATRIUM AND EAST PARK PLAZA Three Days Only I November 4th thru November 6th. A.T. Thomas of few you 14k fold chain, bracelet and genuine cultured ptarli at special savings. Regularly Priced from f 24.60 to 11260.00, all (Urn. featured are priced 13 off at 19.96 to 9136. Buy now orlayaway for Cbrtitmea It SAVE. ONE DAY ONLY! c2T Womas Jewelers If J . i ft IL Photos courtesy of Sheldon Film Theater If you can keep yourself from being too conscious of the boat, the film is a fascinating voyage. When Wally goes home that evening, he looks around him and sees that "every single building was connected to some memory in my mind." This frames the voyage, showing that Wally changed a little bit along the way. . AiX 1 Y:?;V vaV YT,. i rrr t?OON 3ir THE FELED BALLET NovemtMr 5, 6 i 7 tt 8 pm Regular Admission H2$tO UNL Students $715 Thta proorem support m part by fcxMkng irom the Nebrufcs Am Counc and ih National Endowment tot Arta'Oence tounna Pro y OTwew dotted by efcM America AftA.eAce KIMBALL HALL11&R Boi Office (U S) 113 Music BWa. 11th A R 4723375 Student Accounts Invited test ferk 46 1 540 J 66h "O" Strtet r University Of lebras. Lincoln