There is this tremendous feeling of possibility that comes from genuinely connecting with another human being.
I eased into 2020 COVID quarantine with no website and various bad habits. I hadn’t been to the gym in months, years of overeating, years of too much beer and wine, miserable at my job.
I’ve made strides to alleviate or mitigate in the year since quarantine began. This website provides a bit of a creative outlet, although less frequently than I’d prefer. Therapy helps keep the anxiety at bay, which helps the self-medication. Sleep therapy helps with the overeating and provides more energy to do what exercise one can do at home in the middle of a Pittsburgh winter that is also in the middle of a generational disruption to patterns and habits. As for the job… ask me again in May.
A continuing regret is that I don’t have acquaintances with whom I find myself talking big picture questions any more. There are plenty of smart people in my life, and creative people, and people who are passionate about jobs/family/hobbies. I have meaningful conversations. What I lack are chance conversations that capture my complete attention, the kinds of conversations that cause long nights of soul-searching and reevaluation.
You know the kind of conversation that I’m talking about. It’s the kind that either makes you roll your eyes or makes you jealous. Philosophical dead-ends and asides and musings and veiled, desperate hypotheticals that are anything but hypothetical. Existential crises. Big picture stuff.
My Dinner with Andre was one of my first film experiences of this. I probably saw it around 2002, 2003. The movie felt simultaneously like it meant everything and like it was the kind of introspection limited only to the very young or the well-to-do. It’s an intellectual wankfest, and it’s a masterpiece.
Rewatching it during my own midlife crisis in 2021, with the big 4-0 looming, gave me a different perspective. I found it funnier and sadder this time, and marveled more at how the dialogue was so carefully constructed. Most of all, though, I was envious that the two characters—though estranged somewhat and coming together after one experienced rather dramatic spiritual and vocational revelations—made such a strong connection, even if only for that one evening and that one meal. I can’t even bring myself to talk about my job at present: it embarrasses me with its banality and its tedium, and here these guys are vamping at length about the purpose of art and religion and how the two cause real human connection.
Human connection is hard to come by in a late-stage capitalist United States. Everything we buy is market-researched and psychologically engineered to generate satisfaction and dissatisfaction (unease, really) at the same time. Enjoying those empty spaces between Marvel releases or seasonal beers or Magic: The Gathering expansions, that is the hard part. That is the precious commodity. Just being, in a room, with other humans who are just being. It is heady stuff, and I hope we can experience it again some day after vaccinations and all that. And most of all, though, I want to again experience those unexpected moments of human connection with someone who I don’t know well. I want the thrill of discovery.
I’m excited to do this project, though. The magnificent year of cinema that was 1981 starts us off, and while there were many worthy candidates (see below), My Dinner with Andre really sets the tone for this countdown to the start of my fifth decade on earth.
Other candidates released in 1981: Thief; Blow Out; Escape from New York; Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior; Raiders of the Lost Ark; Possession; Body Heat; The Decline of Western Civilization
I turn 40 in December. To commemorate the milestone, I’m writing 40 short biographical essays pertaining to a movie per year of my life.