[WATCHED: March 5, 2012] Midnight in Paris
I took a course on Woody Allen’s films in college and, as a result, I had seen everything he had done (and a lot of what had inspired him). After college, I made a point of seeing everything he released. Often on opening day. (My double feature of Deconstructing Harry and Good Will Hunting on Christmas Day is still a highlight).
But after The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, which was okay, but just barely, I basically gave up on him. I watched Match Point in three parts (no time at the time) and really enjoyed it, but I never really got back on track with Woody. And then came Paris.
Despite its huge popularity, I knew nothing about this Woody Allen film. I knew Owen Wilson was playing the Woody Allen character in this one and it was getting amazing reviews. Now, it’s very true that critics don’t always get Woody Allen, but when they unanimously get his film it’s pretty safe that it’s a good one.
And boy was it ever.
Even though I didn’t know this, I’m sure it’s no spoiler to reveal that Owen Wilson (playing Woody Allen) is unhappy with the era he lives in. And he longs to live in 1920s Paris. His fiancée (in a role that would never win a woman an Academy Award and which, frankly, is a little one note and mean) is rich and loves that Wilson is a rich and famous screen writer. Her parents are Republican (Woody gets a good joke at the Tea Party which is a few years late, but has Woody’s inimitable panache to it) and are distrustful of this Hollywood guy who wants to move to Paris and write novels.
The movie opens with a beautiful visual tribute to Paris (as Manhattan opened with a beautiful visual tribute to Manhattan). If you’ve followed Woody all these years, you know the tropes of a Woody Allen film: walking in the rain, listening to Cole Porter, having more than enough money to do what you want, and being unsure of a marital commitment. Most of Woody’s films have some combination of these, but when he’s firing on all cylinders, the sparks really fly.
There was (to me and Sarah) a huge surprise in the story, a wonderful delightful twist that turns the film into so much more than a disaffected romantic comedy. And I couldn’t believe that I didn’t know about it. Although watching the trailer now, I see that the twist is never actually mentioned, and so I won’t mention it here. But man that’s going to make it hard to talk about what I liked so much about the film. Let’s just say that there is an embrace of expat culture in Paris in the 20s.
As I mentioned, Owen Wilson longs to live in that era with expat Americans writing novels. Meeting Picasso, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Dali, Buñuel, Man Ray: it’s just so romantic. Imagine partying with all of these fantastic people, seeing what their lives were like, living in this Golden Age.
But as we all know, living in the past leads you nowhere. And again, without giving away the surprise it’s really hard to mention how Owen Wilson learns that. But it’s very clever and very funny (with a hilarious punchline at the end of the film that plays on this to a wonderful degree).
Owen Wilson plays his character wonderfully (he even looks considerably older than I think of him looking, whether that’s make up or the ravages of life I’m not sure, but it gives him gravitas). And the pseudo-intellectual character Paul (who is insufferably charming) is terrifically awful–spouting every conceivable pretension he can (this film is not unlike Annie Hall in many ways).
The film is very funny, terribly romantic and beautifully filmed. In short, it’s everything you want from a Woody Allen film (and this one pulls out a few extra special tricks).
I found this film to be especially relevant to me as I was just finishing The Great Gatsby and of course, Fitzgerald is one of the major expats of that era in Paris. I had literally no idea that Fitzgerald would come up in the film and when he did (and I had Gatsby sitting next to me on the side of the couch) it was wonderfully serendipitous (not unlike many moments in the film).
It was great and makes me want to go check out the films I missed this decade (and watch some Buñuel as well).
For ease of searching I include: Bunuel
I Just Read About That... 
And don’t forget a shout out to our recently read Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt!
I loved watching this film with you 🙂
This courtesy of Roger Ebert’s blog. What can Woody do but enumerate old themes?
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/the-first-draft-of-woodys-orig.html
And while I respect your holding back on that which you characterise as a spoiler, I’m amazed that anyone, including you, didn’t know the plot before viewing.
I loved the film. I thought it was a return to the old-school Woody, who can blend the Bob Hope/Groucho comment with the discussion of a more abstruse concept. It began with Annie Hall, where everything meshed, lost it with the intellectual masturbation of Manhattan (IMHO); then in Crimes and Misdemeanours he managed to do it with a sub-plot; here he has the theoretical discussion (the scene at Versailles), followed by the magical realism of an Alice or Oedipus Wrecks (or The Kugelmass (sp?) Episode) where the idea is played out for laughs, and then back down to land when the protagonist gets a comeuppance of sorts.
You’re right–this is hard to do without referring directly to the movie.
It’s also beautifully written. I didn’t see past the central issue of nostalgia the first time out, but on the second viewing (and allowing for the fact that he has never been able to write exposition) the descriptive writing is stunning. The Hemingway cadences aside, take this monologue from Wilson’s character Gil:
Adriana: I can never decide whether Paris is more beautiful by day or by night.
Gil: No, you can’t, you couldn’t pick one. I mean I can give you a checkmate argument for each side. You know, I sometimes think, how is anyone ever gonna come up with a book, or a painting, or a symphony, or a sculpture that can compete with a great city. You can’t. Because you look around and every street, every boulevard, is its own special art form and when you think that in the cold, violent, meaningless universe that Paris exists, these lights, I mean come on, there’s nothing happening on Jupiter or Neptune, but from way out in space you can see these lights, the cafés, people drinking and singing. For all we know, Paris is the hottest spot in the universe.
That’s why he won Screenplay. Sometimes, like when Dylan writes a book, you forget that Woody has a way with words.