While the quest itself was a bit lackluster, the slow pace really gave the world and the characters a chance to breathe life into the book. This is a quest story that follows the Midnight Merchant and her mysterious bodyguard, a prince who has been stuck in the palace all his life, and a jinn hunter who doesn’t know all the secrets around her. An Arabian-inspired fantasy that draws heavily from One Thousand and One Nights, it paints a fascinating story of humans and jinn. The Stardust Thief is a story of stories. Joffe (executive), Jack Rollins (executive)Ĭast: Woody Allen (Sandy Bates), Charlotte Rampling (Dorrie), Jessica Harper (Daisy), Marie-Christine Barrault (Isobel), Tony Roberts (Tony), Daniel Stern (Actor).One Sentence Summary: In a world where the humans and jinn are at war with each other, the Midnight Merchant and her bodyguard are sent by the sultan to recover a jinn relic from a jinn city underneath the Sandsea and are accompanied by the High Prince and one of his thieves.
The latter sequence would prove to be prophetic when, just a few months later, former Beatle John Lennon was murdered outside his New York City residence by a psychotic fan.
STARDUST MEMORIES SYNOPSIS MOVIE
And in the opening sequence of the film, you can spot Sharon Stone in her movie debut as the beautiful blonde who blows a kiss to Bates from the opposite train car window.Īmong the many memorable scenes in Stardust Memories are the comic nightmare where Bates' 'hostility' goes on the rampage in Central Park, pursued by police and tracker dogs the appearance of an extraterrestrial named Og who confesses he prefers the filmmaker's earlier films a sequence which epitomizes Bates' idea of a perfect day with his former lover, Dorrie (Charlotte Rampling), accompanied by Louis Armstrong's rendition of "Stardust" on the soundtrack a paranoid fantasy in which an autograph hound assassinates Bates. Andy Albeck, the former head of United Artists, also makes a brief appearance as a film mogul who is concerned that Bates' new movie won't be funny. The 'Film Culture' weekend event in Stardust Memories is modeled on the Tarrytown film seminars organized by movie critic Judith Crist who also has a cameo in a flashback sequence. It was shot mostly in the Nassau area of Long Island with additional locations in Asbury Park, the old Filmways Studio in Harlem, and the Ocean Grove Great Auditorium, which served as the exterior of the Stardust Hotel. I wondered if I had contributed over the past twenty years to this man's unhappiness." But for Allen, Stardust Memories was about an artist on the verge of a mental breakdown who viewed the world through a distorted state of mind.ĭespite the controversy surrounding Stardust Memories, the film remains one of Allen's most complex and fascinating works. In an interview in The New York Times, Joffe said, "When I walked out of the first screening, I found myself questioning everything. The New Yorker's Pauline Kael called the film "a horrible betrayal.a whiff of nostalgia gone bad," while Andrew Sarris of The Village Voice thought the film seemed "to have been shaped by a masochistic desire to alienate Allen's admirers once and for all." Even Charles Joffe, Allen's steadfast executive producer on most of his films, had his doubts. Though the director has denied it, many critics felt Allen was using this film to express his disgust with his audience, the critics, and the film industry in general. However, it is entirely speculative whether Sandy Bates is really an alter ego for Woody Allen. There's no denying that Stardust Memories paints a bleak picture of Bates' profession with its stark black-and-white cinematography by Gordon Willis and a gallery of grotesque characters who wouldn't be out of place in a Diane Arbus photograph or a Hogarth painting. And he is further incensed by the studio suits who want him to make funny movies when all he sees is human suffering everywhere. Sandy no longer finds any personal satisfaction in his achievements or in his current relationships. Obviously influenced by Fellini's 8 1/2 (1963), Stardust Memorie follows a prominent filmmaker named Sandy Bates to a weekend movie seminar at the Stardust Hotel in New Jersey where he is besieged by adoring fans and sycophants. The true acid test for any fan or critic who loves Woody Allen movies is Stardust Memories (1980), his misunderstood and generally maligned ninth feature.
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