Stardust Memories (1980)
In writer/director Woody Allen's self-indulgent, often
incoherent, impressionistic and dark comedy - an homage to Fellini's 8
1/2 (1963) and Sturges' Sullivan's Travels
(1941), with Gordon Willis' harsh and washed-out B/W cinematography:
- the hysterical and nightmarish sequence on a train
(the proposed ending of the protagonist's latest work, in which
he was trapped) with a collection of hopeless Fellini-esque "grotesques"
filmed in wide-angle closeup
- the demanding groupies - at a reluctantly-attended
weekend's retrospective film seminar held at the Stardust Hotel beach
resort in New Jersey - where pretentious, successful, and much-revered
comedic filmmaker Sandy Bates (Woody Allen) answered questions during
a forum and was harrassed with:
- nonsensical questions ("Why are all comedians hostile or latent
homosexuals?, or "Have you ever had intercourse with any type
of animal?")
- requests for autographs or sex: ("I drove all the way from Bridgeport
to make it with you...empty sex is better than no sex, right?")
- and proposals for ridiculous films from aspiring film-makers: ("It's
a comedy based on that whole Guyana mass suicide!")
- the studio's uplifting "Jazz Heaven"
altered ending to one of his Berman-esque-like dramas
- the fantasy sequence in the countryside of Sandy hearing
a Martian alien advising him to stop taking himself so seriously
and to go back to making comedy films: ("And, incidentally,
you're also not Superman. You're a comedian. You want to do mankind
a real service? Tell funnier jokes")
- the ending twist/plot device in the Stardust Hotel
projection room, where Sandy was told: "Why do all comedians
turn out to be sentimental bores?"; suddenly, Sandy fainted
from "nervous tension," after a disturbing hallucinatory
fantasy of being shot by an ultimately-adoring, fervent fan with
a .32 caliber pistol ("Sandy? You know, you're my hero")
(eerily presaging the John Lennon murder by Mark David Chapman shortly
thereafter)
- the scene of Sandy recalling his favorite loving and
emotional moment one spring with former bipolar, neurotic and unbalanced
lover Dorrie (Charlotte Rampling) accompanied by Louis Armstrong's
recording of Stardust: (""It was one of those great
spring days, a Sunday, and you knew summer would be coming soon.
And I remember that morning Dorrie and I had gone for a walk in the
park. We came back to the apartment. We were just sort of sitting
around. And I put on a record of Louis Armstrong, which was music
that I grew up loving. It was very, very pretty, and I happened to
glance over, and I saw Dorrie sitting there. And I remember thinking
to myself how terrific she was and how much I loved her. And I don't
know. I guess it was the combination of everything, the sound of
that music, and the breeze, and how beautiful Dorrie looked to me.
And for one brief moment, everything just seemed to come together
perfectly, and I felt happy. Almost indestructible, in a way. And
it's funny, that simple little moment of contact moved me in a very,
very profound way.")
- in a train compartment with Isobel, (Marie-Christine
Barrault), Sandy's married French mistress, he begged her to stay
with him, by claiming that he had thought of a new and better ending
for his film - the film being watched - about being on a train with
her and having a "good sentimental" relationship with her;
she thought otherwise: "You like those dark women with all their
problems...They give you a hard time and you like"; eventually,
he convinced her to give him "a huge, big wet kiss" - it "would
go a long way to selling this idea"; he then added: "I'm
very serious. I think this is a big, big finish, you know?";
the train pulled out of the station as they hugged and kissed - and
the audience clapped its approval of the film's coda
- the plot twist -- all of the characters exited the
theatre - leaving Sandy alone with an empty screen and chairs, signifying
that the entire movie was a 'film-within-a-film' being screened at
Bates' (or Woody Allen's?) film festival/charity event