stardust memories

Despite his fame (and more recent infamy) I'd guess that most modern multiplex moviegoers have probably never seen a Woody Allen film in its entirety. So they would probably be equally clueless about the self-reflexive celebrity satire on display in Stardust Memories (1980), a rather brutal attack on the director's fanbase and his own foibles. But, as writer Julie Kirgo points out in the Blu-ray liner notes, time has not only improved the film's reputation, it's put enough distance between Allen and the character he plays in the film - neurotic filmmaker Sandy Bates - to make this 8 1/2-inspired artistic meditation one of the director's most satisfying films.

Riding high on the buzz from Manhattan (1979), Allen is still in fine creative rhythm but turning curiously introspective. Things begin as a film within a film as Sandy Bates latest picture, a black-and-white Bergman-esque downer, is eviscerated by studio executives who try to convince the director to return to his earlier "funny" films (a running gag that gets a laugh every time). Instead, Sandy agrees to attend a retrospective of his early works on the Jersey shore where he bobs and weaves through childhood memories, personal relationships and overly enthusiastic fans. The experience sets up a crisis of faith about his own romantic and artistic choices...this from a man who ironically cast himself as God in his last picture!

There is no particular plot to Stardust Memories but it does take Sandy Bates, and his audience, on quite a journey. There are the dueling love interests: Charlotte Rampling as a clinically fragile actress, Jessica Harper as commitment-phobic bisexual violinist and Marie-Christine Barrault as a potential roommate with baggage from a failed marriage. But they circle Sandy with dangerously unstable orbits, threatening to crash into his unsettled emotional landscape. Love, fame, freedom, or casual sex? The director (both in front of and behind the camera) can't seem to make up his mind.

But all that anger makes for great comedy. Allen's script is smart and viciously funny, running through a gauntlet of bi-polar cinematic adoration and resentment populated by exaggerated fanboys (and girls), each with a real zinger up their sleeves. But the filmmaker saves the biggest criticism for himself, constantly comparing his own work others and questioning the very meaning of his existence. Does God want us to go out with a laugh or a whimper? Allen's film doesn't answer the question, but it's posed with irrefutable style by cinematographer Gordon Willis who shoots each frame with the style of a European master.

Twilight Time's 3000-copy limited edition Blu-ray is their best looking Woody Allen transfer yet accompanied by the usual slate of extras: an isolated score track, theatrical trailer and aforementioned liner notes.