Woody Allen
Stardust Memories

In 1980, Woody Allen is coming off the success, both commercially and critically, of "Manhattan." He is in a melancholic and dreamlike period, and in his recent films, the repeated choice of black and white highlights the atmosphere and emotions of the characters he portrays, suspended and disoriented by the fateful midlife crisis, where professional and romantic success take shape and definition and serve as a pretext for self-reflection and personal choices. I am not just talking about "Interiors," whose title is almost an analysis of the film, but "Zelig," where the protagonist's personality is undefinable, or again in "A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy," where all characters are caught in the doubts of their equally confused romantic relationships. This premise leads to "Stardust Memories," which raises some long-standing issues in the career of the New York director, who is too often accused of "excessive autobiographism" in each of his films.

The film tells the story of a successful director, with a good romantic life (a serene Charlotte Rampling as a wife), who is nonetheless experiencing a nervous breakdown.

The film received harsh criticism, especially in the United States, because it was believed that the central character was not invented but completely autobiographical; Allen himself expressing hostility towards the audience and critics. Allen has always explained that the best he can write about comes from situations he knows well, and to remain credible, he prefers to delve into those rather than venture into unknown territories.

"I don't want to make comedy films; they can't force me. I don't feel like a comedian. I am looking around and I see only human suffering."

Indeed, in the film, critics and the audience are portrayed as very characteristic characters, bordering on the grotesque, even monstrous, with harsh and altered voices, ravenous looks, and improbable hairstyles. Allen justifies and insists that the character, the director, is not him. People tend to confuse the character with the actor portraying him. Clark Gable was often addressed with phrases like: "Listen, you think you're such a tough guy..." The same fate befell Humphrey Bogart or Chaplin, who was never a tramp, or Lewis, a "scatterbrain." The collective imagination led to a detachment from the real cinematic intents. Over the years, this film will face less resistance and be more appreciated for its philosophical value.

At the beginning of the film, a nebulous dreamlike sequence without dialogue, at the crossing of two trains and their passengers, somewhat recalls Fellini's "8½," even if it's a much more personal matter, a dream in which a man feels suffocated, feels that his life is being restrained. Allen's sequence, however, is metaphorical in a different way, dealing with the sensation of being on a train of failures, dirty, destined to live a miserable existence with other failures. The people on the parallel train are all beautiful, rich, having fun, and will especially travel in the opposite direction. In the end, the trains end up in the same dump. The film has a sort of Fellinian touch, particularly in content that often sees reality and fantasy opposed and in the man's relationship with his own mortality. In the film, in the beginning, you notice in the character's majestic apartment a giant photograph of a Vietnamese policeman pointing a gun at a death row inmate's head, but later, in a flashback, the same wall is covered by a giant photograph of Groucho Marx. In reality, the apartment represents a psychological state of the character, and the wall reflects the life phase the character is going through. The character is initially obsessed with human suffering and guilt for his wealth, position, and success. In the flashback, he is in an evidently happy phase of his life.

In this film, as in "Interiors," Allen is seeking to expand his expressive boundaries and not chasing a formula for success. The hostility of critics and the public shook Bergman, but in Allen's case, there were no repercussions. The important thing was to continue working.