Andre Gregory And Wallace Shawn

“I'll comment on this for sure because it was, I saw Weekend of Godard with my mother and I was enraged by it. And I said, "This is the most horrible thing that I've ever seen. I hate it." And over the course of maybe two days it sank in on me, and I then decided that it was like my favorite movie that I'd ever seen in my life, and I... And it was prophetic. And it was prophetic. Yes, it was prophetic. It was a great, great film and I, I, and it was a big shock to me that that could happen.”

“I had a very interesting experience with Antonioni, which is slightly the opposite of what happened to you because I loved his movies when they came out, because he seemed again like a prophet. He was showing the shape of things to come. And then about 25 years later, I went back to see his movies and hated them because the world had already become what Antonioni was predicting. And then about 10 years later, I went back to them and again was just staggered by them, absolutely.”

“That's, I had an interesting experience with him. There was a screening of Red Desert, which is maybe my favorite of his films, a director's cut at MoMA, and somebody took us as a surprise and didn't tell us where we were going, because Antonioni is Cindy, my wife's, favorite filmmaker. And there were these little tables we sat at for dinner after the screening of the film, and strangely enough Antonioni was at the next table, and sitting all by himself. Everybody had left him, either because he only spoke Italian or French. And I went and sat next to him and said, introduced myself and I said, "This must be an amazing night for you." And he said, " no, I hated tonight." I said, "Why?" He said, "There are 14 frames in the film that I can't stand, and every time I see the film it breaks my heart, but I can't do those over again." That's a tragedy of film.”

“Goodness me, this is the late and very adorable Paul Bartel, Eating Raoul, a wonderful film from the time of My Dinner with Andre, by a wonderful filmmaker. Anybody who hasn't seen this... Well, I haven't, let me take a... I'm sure you did at the time.”

“Oh look there's a box set this is one I can highly recommend. Oh Colonel Blimp yes this is one of the great films ever. I like all of their films but this was one of the very most thrilling. Yeah that one was wonderful.”

“Well yeah, there is one scene in our film, Vanya on 42nd Street, where I always leave my seat and go to the bathroom, because I know there was another way of doing that scene.”