![]() ![]() That all said, “Stardust Memories” may be Woody’s most personal film. It did last a bit longer in New York but ticket sales were underwhelming to say the least. Subsequently, bad word of mouth killed the film off within a month in most areas of the country. Most of the movie going public did not get it either, and as I said, that included myself at the time. Certainly it is the one that will inspire the most heated debate, though the film makes fun of those who take all these things too seriously.” Vincent Canby of The New York Times was one of the few who praised it, saying “Stardust Memories” is his most provocative film thus far and perhaps his most revealing. It was called self indulgent, pretentious, disjointed, nasty and to some extent all of these do apply. Most critics were offended, some were vicious (Pauline Kael), and others even became personal with comments having little or nothing to do with the film itself (John Simon). To say that “Stardust Memories” met with dreadful reviews when first released would be an understatement. All I can say is hallelujah brother! I have been seen the light and have been converted! One day I found a copy at a local library and for no particular reason decided to give it another shot. The one film I never went back to was “Stardust Memories.” Frankly, until I watched it for the first time in years, just a few months ago, I remembered little about it except for the feeling of confusion I had and a why bother attitude about taking a second look. His films are like old friends with whom you gladly sit, have a drink, and reminisce about those days gone by. Now, let me just say here, I watch many of Woody’s film all the time, over and over, true some more than others, I have lost count on how many times I have seen “Manhattan,” “Bananas,” “Sleeper,” “Manhattan Murder Mystery,” “Annie Hall, “Hannah and Her Sisters,” “Broadway Danny Rose” and so on. At the time of its original release, I chalked up “Stardust Memories” as a failure, hell everyone is entitled to a failure now and then, right? I actually relished his celluloid journey, his growth from dubbing a cheesy Japanese spy flick with completely new dialogue turning it into “What’s Up, Tiger Lily?’ through his early visually clumsy, but oh so funny, films like “Take The Money and Run” and ‘Bananas” to his classic “Annie Hall” and on to the Bergman like “Interiors” and the homage to his home town in “Manhattan.” Woody always seemed to be expanding his artistic horizons. I wasn’t and am not one of those folks who keep wishing Woody would trek back to his ‘funny’ early films. I found the film, to say the least, hard to swallow. Filled with Fellini like imagery, bizarre inhabitants straight out of Diane Arbus and seemingly resentful, bitter attacks on his fans. The break in art that Allen refers to-between “the early, funny ones” and what came later-would also become breaks in life.When I saw “Stardust Memories” for the first time back in 1980 (Baronet Theater in Manhattan) I was completely lost as to what Woody Allen was doing. It’s also a setup that invites catastrophe as a principle of creative destruction, and that, too, is something that Allen audaciously suggests in the film. The circularity of the self-consuming artist is reflected in the movie’s structure. He kvetches, therefore he is-and therefore he can make a film about it and kvetch some more about doing so. In “Stardust Memories,” Allen confronts the ultimate conundrum of the personal artist: all the stuff that gets in the way of the work becomes part of the work, then becomes essential to it. Allen didn’t have a whole lot to complain about-only a few years earlier, “Annie Hall” walked away with a parcel of Oscars, and his serious drama “Interiors,” though it didn’t win any, garnered five nominations-but Allen’s kvetches have never been about money or success but about existence itself. Of course, this movie is about much more than the burden of celebrity-the cinematic retrospective gets Sandy to become inwardly retrospective about his own life. There, famously, one of the fans on the reception committee gushes about his movies-”I especially like your early, funny ones.” The line has been canonized as the stock response of culture consumers who, having gotten used to artists’ work in one style or mode, hold them to it for life. In “Stardust Memories,” from 1980 (which I discuss in this clip), Woody Allen plays Sandy Bates, a director who grudgingly fulfills a commitment to attend a retrospective of his films.
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