If I told you that Before and After Dinner was my
favorite movie of this past year you might easily
think, well he likes it because its about him,
because he gets to watch himself for 108 minutes,
because he’s a narcissist who believes he is a wise
man who likes nothing better than to listen to his
own stories and relishes the chance to observe
the brilliance of his own work in the appropriately
hushed and reverential atmosphere of a movie
theater. Yet, when I watch Before and After Dinner,
I feel, as I did watching My Dinner With André that
the André Gregory character is quite fascinating,
but doesn't seem to really be me. I am interested
in and concerned with this man not because his
is the same face I see each day as I peer into the
mirror to shave but because the trajectory of this
man’s life seems to capture some meaning with
respect to the particular, rather extraordinary
era in which we all have been living together. And
indeed, this film is not just about me. It is about
many entities—people, ghosts, and abstract ideas
such as are found in art. It’s also about Cindy, a
brilliant and devious film maker, and about a marriage.
It is about how Cindy, in the living out of
daily life, like my Guru, who is not seen in the film
but whose presence is palpably there, has taught
me to be an Ecstatic, to see the beauty and the
joy of living. Cindy the Trickster is a master of the
McGuffin—Hitchcock invented the term—the trick
of letting you think you are going in this direction
when actually you are going in that direction. So
Before and After Dinner, seemingly the chronicle
of an artist’s life and work, is on one level a film
about a happy marriage, perhaps the first such
film since Mrs. Miniver. When couples tell me they
have a pretty good marriage and they’re working
on it I always think: what’s to work??? We get sick,
we lose our jobs and that’s work. But marriage is
great. The problem is the people in it. So the real
work is on ourselves. We have been given this oh
so precious gift of Life and the task of appreciation
for this gift is to constantly be working to make this
instrument we have been given, a thing of beauty,
to make it more conscious, to make it more valuable
to the world around it. So the extremely subversive
Kleine uses this guy, this theatre director,
André Gregory, to explore themes other than André
Gregory. Kleine is a radical making films that cannot
be defined. Before and After Dinner is radical
because in these times in which we revere those
who are financially successful—hedge fund barons,
super stars, and personalities who are famous only
for being famous—to consider individuals who have
dedicated their lives to the creation of beauty, who
ask questions rather than give answers, who are
Artists, to consider them important, national treasures,
is a radical act. Kleine shows this artist, who
happens to be me, and can probably call himself an
artist because he has been working on, and changing
his craft with dedication and hard work for half
of a century and is quite good at what he does.
This artist who just happens to be me, is of some
value because his work at times actually changes
lives. When My Dinner with Andr$eacute; was released I
received a letter of thanks from a man who gave
up being a US Marine and took up the cello. After
Vanya came out I received a letter of thanks from
a woman who told me that she had seen the film
many times and it was helping her to die. So Kleine
is asking questions about the purpose of Art, the
value of Art and the necessity for Art. She is also
asking questions about the nature of the artist. I
think that many artists are trying their whole lives,
consciously or unconsciously to answer one central
question and if they ever found an answer might
feel no more need to be an artist. In my case the
question, depicted by Kleine as a kind of cloak and
dagger story, is the mystery of my father, the man
who saved my life and scared the shit out of me.
Why? Who was he? What did he really do? This
issue of the central, unanswered question is of
importance to all of us because each of us is an
oyster and within the oyster is an annoying grain of
sand which can be transformed into a lovely pearl.
But we have to attempt to name the grain of sand.
And even the attempt, the willingness to enter
into the unknown, to ask the question can create
a richer life, which is also a gem. Ruth Nelson,
one of the great actresses of the Group Theatre,
the theatre that gave birth to Clifford Odets, Lee
Strasberg, Elia Kazan, Harold Clurman and through
them, in the next generation Brando, Montgomery
Clift, Paul Newman and many, many more; Ruth
who was blacklisted by HUAC at the pinnacle of
her career; Ruth who, during rehearsals of Vanya,
would always call me "dear, dear André" because
it was the first work she had deeply enjoyed since
her work with The Group in the 1930s; Ruth who
played our Vanya on the stage but died before
we could do the film. The last thing she said was
"Geronimo," her last word upon dying. Kleine
makes the unknown central to the film. Because its
a film about process and process is always a voyage
into the unknown, even the process of dying
which can be, if we can find the way, a final and
even beautiful work of art.
Central to Kleine’s film is the making, the rehearsing
of the staged version of The Master Builder.
And even if I didn’t just happen to be the guy who
directed the play I would love the film because at
its center is one of my very favorite forms, going
back to the great days of Hollywood; a movie about
the making of a movie, a movie about the making
of a play. You know, Singin’ In The Rain, Stage
Door, Waiting For Guffman. Everyone, I think, and
most especially me, loves a movie about putting
on a show. Kleine also covers some of her favorite
themes--be sure to watch her amazing film Phyllis
and Harold, the scariest film about marriage since
Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage. She is fascinated
by hidden family secrets and the passing of
Time. And there is a doozie of a family secret in
Before and After Dinner.
And what about that passing of Time? How the hell
did I get to be nearly 80? (By what miracle am I
at the top of my game, rehearsing two plays at
the same time and finishing another movie?) What
effect does my age have on Cindy, much younger,
married to a guy who is part Tarzan and part
METHUSELAH? Aging and dying, in a materialist
culture, are the ultimate failures. Before and After
Dinner does away with this taboo of aging. In
Kleine’s film there is more than hope, there is also
joy, creativity and accomplishment, if you so wish
it, right down to the finish line. So there in a word,
or two or a thousand (who would expect less from
that guy in the Dinner movie?) are my reasons for
Before and After Dinner being one of my favorite
movies of this last year. But it wasn’t made for me.
It was made for YOU and I sincerely hope you enjoy
it just as much as I have.