The break in art that Allen refers to-between “the early, funny ones” and what came later-would also become breaks in life. 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. ![]() His journey takes him into a world beyond his wildest dreams and reveals his true identity. 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. Movie Synopsis: In a countryside town bordering on a magical land, a young man makes a promise to his beloved that hell retrieve a fallen star by venturing into the magical realm.
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