STARDUST MEMORIES

(September 1980, U.S.)

By 1980, Woody Allen had established himself as a filmmaker of successful comedies, beginning with the slapstick ones of the early 1970s. His streak of comedy was broken in 1978 with the very serious (and very depressing) INTERIORS and returned a year later with MANHATTAN. One can only imagine what his critics and audience must have been wondering when he made the very provocative STARDUST MEMORIES. Had Allen gone off the incomprehensible deep end? What was he trying to say with this one? Was he truly an artist alienated and fed up with his audience? No one understood any of it and it failed miserably at the box office and with his fans.

Time passes, though. Look harder, look deeper, and as a prerequisite, take the time to view and appreciate Federico Fellini's 8 1/2, which Allen's black and white film clearly parodies and pays homage to. In fact, I've discovered over time that it's with great affection for 8 1/2 that one can approach STARDUST MEMORIES with any clear understanding and appreciation. The film follows famous filmmaker Sandy Bates (played by Allen himself), who is constantly plagued by fans who are never shy about declaring that they prefer his "earlier, funnier movies" to his more recent artistic efforts, which is, I suppose, how many of Allen's true fans felt by now. While Sandy tries to reconcile his conflicting attraction to two different women, one of them the artistic and intellectual Daisy (played by Jessica Harper) and the other being the French woman with two small children Isobel, he's also repeatedly haunted by the memories of his neurotic, unstable and often insatiable girlfriend Dorrie (played by Charlotte Rampling). Like Fellini's alter-ego, Sandy must contend with the conflicts of his personal life while trying to make a movie the studio heads are fighting him on every step of the way. Sandy is a stagnant artist, and such art often means self-indulgence, depression and very non-Hollywood endings, something studio execs just don't understand, and don't want to when box office figures are at stake.

Not to suggest that STARDUST MEMORIES doesn't contain the Woody Allen wit, humor and insanity we've come to expect. There are great photographic moments of dreams, flashbacks, nostalgia and fantasy that are purely outrageous, particularly the moment when Sandy is chasing down his own escaped hostility (in the form of a hairy beast) that's just murdered his ex-wife. We can't help but recall Allen's fear of live lobster in ANNIE HALL when he suddenly panics with a fire extinguisher when a pigeon unexpectedly flies into his apartment. And just what are we supposed to make of that morbid and murderous image from the Vietnam War on the back wall of his dining area??

Is Allen attempting to express humor with this shot or merely call attention to just how incomprehensible his character is in a world that seems to be constantly in his face and out to get a piece of him? We're likely not meant to understand, at least not the first time we watch it. Perhaps this is what makes an art film true to its intentions. Like a great painting without any direct meaning, we're left to our own interpretations and feelings. In 1980, those feelings were very negative. Today, with a better understanding of who Woody Allen is, and with an equally good understanding of Fellini's 8 1/2, STARDUST MEMORIES, like a fine wine, greatly improves over time. It does for me, anyway.

Favorite line or dialogue:

Sandy Bates: "It's funny, because in my family nobody ever committed suicide, nobody. This was just not a middle-class alternative, you know? My mother was too busy running the boiled chicken through the deflavorizing machine to think about shooting herself or anything."