Stardust Memories (1980)

Funny, moving, imaginative, bold, intelligent, surreal, nostalgic and beautiful; Stardust Memories (1980) is one of Allen's greatest films, if not THE greatest. At its most simple level, the film is a merciless satire on the film industry, on the notion of celebrity, and on Allen's public persona, as he here essays the role of a stand-up comedian turned filmmaker wrestling with a number of weighty personal issues, including the death of a close friend, the breakup of a relationship and the beginning of an affair - all the while trying desperately to reconcile the need for personal success in relation to artistic expression. It is without question one of the filmmaker's most radical and imaginative works released at the peak of his powers, featuring a great deal of wit, warmth and human emotion alongside irreverent moments of personal homage, silliness and surrealism.

The film opens on a train as a ticking clock fills the soundtrack. Allen's character, Sandy Bates sits helpless in the carriage, surrounded by ugly, depressed looking people who stare back at him with dead eyes. As he looks out of the window he sees another carriage, this time filled with beautiful, revelling sophisticates all cheering and waving. Sandy tries desperately to convince the conductor to let him off the train so that he can switch carriages, but his pleas fall on deaf ears. As he tries frantically to signal to the other train, a beautiful woman kisses the glass and laughs as Sandy's train pulls away from the station. The next shot shows the ugly, depressed people from the train wandering through a garbage dump, recalling elements of The Seventh Seal (1957) and One Plus One (1968) before the film reaches the end of the reel and we realise that what we are seeing is a film within a film. The sequence works on a number of levels - firstly, as an extended homage to Fellini's 8 ½ (1963); establishing the theme of film-making and the games within the narrative, etc. Secondly, it is a comment on the nature of the character and on life itself; with none of the characters satisfied with the situations that they're in and always wanting something more. Lastly, the scene establishes the tone of the film; being every bit as stark, surreal and enigmatic as anything by Bergman, Fellini, Godard, etc - with the comment on mortality, on artist expression and on the journey of life - but is also incredibly funny.

Unlike later films of Allen that were more mature and more serious in-tone than the "early funny ones", like, for example, Crimes and Misdemeanours (1988) or Husbands and Wives (1992), Stardust Memory is a film rich in absurd humour, imagination, fun and frivolity, whilst also containing some of Allen's most moving and intelligent ideas. I'd liken it to a combination of the aforementioned 8 ½ and elements of the Coen Brothers' last definitive film The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), which would seem to have taken influence from certain elements depicted here. As a comment on the struggle of the filmmaker and the argument of art over commerce, Allen is entirely ruthless; turning the backroom nature of film production into a leering Fellini-like circus of stupidity, banality and contempt for the audience. At one point, Allen's character is being berated by the studio heads for turning in a film that is "pretentious, self-indulgent and unfunny", while carefully positioned in front of the famous Eddie Adams photograph of the execution of Vietcong prisoner Nguyễn Văn Lém; creating a tra

Fmovies: To describe only one scene, the voiced-over flashback of the Dorrie character (Rampling) reading the newspaper while listening to Louis Armstrong on a calm Sunday morning is possibly the best that this minimalistic style of shot will ever get. Allen used a single, close minute-long shot of the partner looking back at him to illustrate the sweet spot of a relationship, in which a pair is seeing in each other mainly things that they like. That's the point for which the serious are always angling, and the point the romantically frivolous can never reach. Which one Allen is - that's left up to the viewer. Possibly he considers himself less than romantically serious, but fantastically lucky to have gotten to this moment.

It's no secret that Woody Allen tends to make his films somewhat autobiographical of his own life and personal experiences, but Stardust Memories takes it to the next level. It is basically a complete reflection of Allen's state of mind in 1980. The movie is about a film director named Sandy Bates, who is starting to have anxiety about what he is doing for a living and starts to question its purpose. He goes into a retrospective recluse about his previous work and begins to recall all the things that influence his love of film. I wasn't alive in 1980 and I didn't know Woody Allen in 1980, but if you can't call this autobiographical to the extreme, I don't know what you can.

Stardust Memories is an odd film because it really has no storyline. It is told in an anecdotal narrative style as Bates recalls different moments in his life as new moments arise and influence him. He considers all the different oddities that inspired him to make the popular films he's made. There are a lot of different women in Bates' life and they all have various amounts of influence on him as a filmmaker, and the whole film is told through these stories about women he's encountered or loved in the past. After a while you start to think, what is the point of all this? The film doesn't seem to be going anywhere after a while, and it all boils down to just a lot of retrospect and internal conflict more than anything else. It feels as though Woody Allen made this film for himself rather than anybody else. And there isn't necessarily anything wrong with that, but to the viewer it's not very appealing.

One of the biggest issues with this film is that Woody Allen's character, Sandy Bates, isn't likable. He's a complete narcissist and is completely full of himself. He doesn't necessarily convey it outwardly dramatically, but he has a constant aura of egotistical jerk that is impossible to really connect with. He feels detached from the world and it makes it difficult to relate to his conflict, but that really just goes back to the fact that this is a film for Woody, not a film for the audience. And that's a paradox that just doesn't work with me, and it only made me feel like this film was a waste of time.

Artistically this film doesn't have a whole lot going for it either. It has your typical Woody Allen nuances, but not to the level that some of his other great films have. It doesn't stick to one specific style and its thoughts seem a little scattered. It is shot in black and white which was interesting, but eventually got to the point where it served no purpose. Visually there was nothing in this film that gave me that fascination or 'wow' reaction that Allen's films typically incite in me. There are undoubtedly some well designed moments of the film with shots that made me nod my head in appreciation, but it doesn't have that consistent visual style that other Woody Allen films have.

Allen was 45 years old when he made this film. I think you could definitely call it his mid-life crisis movie. All of the thoughts that were whizzing around in Allen's mind at that point in his neurotic life are conveyed and put into a script through Stardust Memories. For Allen I'm sure this film was a huge success that probably helped him sort through his life and allow his mind to clamber out of that jumbled crisis it was going through. But for me as the viewer I didn't get much of anything out of this film. Allen's intentions were clea

Stardust Memories fmovies. Contrary to popular and critical opinion, this is Woody Allen's Best film. Yes, better than Manhattan or Annie Hall and all the others (about 30 i think). It is his best film because it is his most truthful, and it's angry. Critics dont like it because it attacks critics. But it is inventive, brillantly imaginative and purely cinematic, the narrative is almost non-existent and the film is really feelings put onto celluloid, in this sense it is a very PURE film, and probably autobiographical. Although no doubt Allen would deny this! I love the off-beat characters , and its also a very atmospheric film. I have seen about 25 Woody Allen films and think this is the most honest of them all.

...and, in Sandy Bates, the lead of his satire on celebrity, loves, and his usual themes of turmoil over life and death, is a sense that Woody Allen is doing one of two things (or both perhaps)- taking from his own life and thinly disguising characters and situations, or using his own public image in film's culture to look through the looking glass slightly at some of his popular themes. This is not to say that the film is one of his very best. I could see what Allen was doing, for example, with the scenes and instances of tipping the hat to Fellini and his masterwork 8 1/2- the two films share that common thread of an artist in an overall funk of bittersweet memories and creative confusion. But while Fellini made his film out of a burning need to reveal all of his love for cinema out of his angst(s) after La Dolce Vita, Allen's track record shows that he's near incapable of waiting around too long to make a film (he's averaged nearly a film a year in 37 years up till 2003) so much of what comes forth in Stardust Memories isn't as much autobiographical as it is told through a character filtered with and not with himself. In short, a lot of the 8 1/2 dues were my least favorite parts in the movie (though I did like the quick Superman-type mementos).

But does that make Stardust Memories a failure, pretentious? Not to my point of view- once Allen starts the story rolling, and he gets his characters/actors into the gist of the film, it goes along like most other Allen films involving phobias, fears, loves (women), and sophisticated sense of varied parody. There are moments that Allen's stand-up act is injected into the mix, or a scene that could've been a chapter from one of his books, but mostly the audience gets the sense of his OWN love of cinema via Sandy Bates. Bates is another one of those Woody characters that seems all the more impressively formed and executed since it feels like the Woody we know, but Bates is just a little more on the edge of satire, viewing into his own self-doubts and trying to see if there can be any hope or meaning to it all- or if he can tell funny jokes.

The script contains some of the most memorable moments of Allen's career in one-liners (there are a few from the fans and autograph-hounds that stick out) and in having a natural flow, close to a type of poetry, in the conversations and dialog in the film. Even if one doesn't laugh, it definitely shows the work of a wonderful writer at the peak of his game. His direction is also intrinsically interesting, especially how he uses the unique, dark, and evoking cinematography by the great Gordon Willis, and the unusual editing stylizing by Susan Morse (though, once again, some of these editing tricks are to Fellini's credit). And the performances work well enough for the material, more often than not, with Charlotte Rampling as Dorrie, Bates' wonderfully stressed ex-girlfriend, Marie-Christine Barrault as Isobel, an old friend who left her husband for him, Jessica Harper as Daisy, whom he falls head over heels for while she and her professor-boyfriend are at the Stardust attending Bates' appearance(s), and Tony Roberts, who had a worthy supporting role in Annie Hall, pops up here as well.

I can recommend Stardust Memories for Woody Allen's main fan base, as it gives those who love his early films and his films that have more mature subject matter a bit of a (delightful) challenge. I don't know if I could recommend it however, as the very first film someone could see if the pers

In my opinion, Stardust Memories is Allen's greatest achievement. The film perceptively explores the relationships between art and reality, between the artist and his work, between the work and its consumers. Beyond its philosophic concerns though, this is also an incredibly funny film. There are more genuinely funny moments within this serious film than in many of Allen's earlier pure comedies. It skewers the movie industry, the movie-going public, Allen's own earlier work, Allen's present insecurities (surprise!), and a number of other targets. Intelligent, thought provoking, and at times hilarious, this film is an overlooked gem in the Allen canon.