Stardust Memories

Yesterday I was kind of tired from the previous night's partying and i decide to spend the morning in bed, relaxing and watching movies. And I ran across a great movie on the Retroplex cable channel. It's a Woody Allen movie I had never seen before, called "Stardust Memories". I remember that when this movie was released the critics didn't like it too much. This what at the time when Allen was rejecting all his slapstick movies and was trying to make serious movies. As every artist who initially wants to make a change in his or her career, Allen became kind of pedantic and pretentious. And this movie has some of that pretentiousness, still it is an interesting one. And there are actually funny moments in it.

And there are moments that are downright brilliant. There is an amazing scene in which he talks about a "perfect moment" he once had. It involved sharing a quiet Sunday morning with his then girlfriend. The camera shows this scene in all its simplicity and wonder as we see Charlotte Rampling simply turning the pages of the Sunday paper and smiling. It is such a beautiful scene and Rampling shows what an excellent actress she is.

Here is what he says on that scene:
"It was Sunday, and you-you knew summer would be coming soon. I remember, that morning Dorrie and I had gone for a walk in the park. We came back to the apartment. We were just sort of sitting around. And…I put on a record of Louis Armstrong, which is music that I grew up loving. It was very, very pretty, and…I happened to glance over, and I-I saw Dorrie sitting there. And I remember thinking to myself…how terrific she was, and how much I loved her. And, I don’t know…I guess it was the combination of everything…the sound of that music, and the-the breeze, and, and how beautiful Dorrie looked to me. And for one brief moment, everything just seemed to come together perfectly, and I-I felt happy. Al-al-almost indestructible, in a way. It’s funny that that simple little moment of contact moved me in a very, very profound way."

A wonderful moment in a wonderful movie that I saw in a marvellous, quiet Sunday