into the past
by Douglas Messerli
Woody Allen (screenwriter and
director) Midnight in Paris / 2011
Woody Allen's romantic valentine to
Paris, Midnight in Paris, is also his
least intelligent film in that it presents the simplest of concepts embellished
with the clichés of American Literature and Art History 1. For all that, there
is something charming, almost magical about the flick, and despite what I'm
about write below, most people will come away from the film having thoroughly
enjoyed it.
We should start with the successful aspects of this fable. Although
Allen is best known, perhaps, for the stories he tells and the "Woody
Allen-ish" slightly screwball way of seeing the universe, he is also, in
fact, a talented cinematographer working with gifted lighting designers. He is
particularly brilliant with interiors such as those of Hannah and Her Sisters. Here, however, he brings a glow to the City
of Light that one seldom witnesses in Paris itself. The city is always
beautiful, but in Allen's hands—beginning with a long prologue which takes us
across much of the urban landscape—it becomes a glowing gem that on a sunny day
absolutely radiates in the way Rome sometimes does, and on a rainy night,
sparkles in a rainbow of colors reflected in small puddles. Wherever Allen
takes us, it is so beautiful that we readily agree to the tour, particularly
when the hero, Gil (Owen Wilson), travels back into the literary and art world
of the 1920s. Much of this film, in fact, is concerned with tourist activities,
as we visit Versailles, see Rodin sculptures, discuss paintings by Picasso and
Matisse, and drop in at various antique shops. It is as if Allen was determined
to take his audience on a small tour of the grand city, pointing out its
wonders as we join him.
If only the pedantic and braggadocio Paul (Michael Sheen) and the
arch-conservative waspish prigs Helen (Mimi Kennedy) and John (Kurt Fuller)
would stay home! And then, of course,
there is their daughter, Gil's contrarian fiancée, Inez (Rachel McAdams) who
has so little in common with her lover that one can see their relationship is
doomed from the start, and who gushes with enthusiasm over Paul, in Paris with
his wife to lecture at the Sorbornne. Gil, who makes a good living by writing
for Hollywood movies, feels that he is nothing more than a hack, and is
attempting to change all that by writing a novel. A romantic, in love with the
1920s, he would like to remain in Paris, while Inez, whose parents are wealthy,
wants Malibu for an address.
But here the "charm" disappears. For the rest of the film, in
the manner of the dislikable Paul, spews out pedantic-like statements that
summarize Allen's simple theme and even simpler way of presenting the imaginary
worlds into which his character enters.
Gil, quite clearly, would like to live in the past, a phenomenon which
Paul summarizes:
Nostalgia is
denial—denial of the painful present...the name for
this denial is
golden age thinking—the erroneous notion that a
different time
period is better than the one one's living in—it's a
flaw in the romantic
imagination of those people who find it
difficult to cope
with the present.
So here is Allen's theme, which the rest of the film will
obviously play out. After a wine-tasting party, Gil, slightly drunk, determines
he will not join Inez and her friends, Paul and Carol, who intend to go
dancing. He walks the streets before becoming lost and sits down for a rest
while a nearby clock strikes midnight. A 1920's car suddenly turns the corner
as its inhabitants, drinking heavily, noisily invite him to join; they are on
their way to a party. Once he has reached the event where everyone, it appears,
is dressed in costume, Gil begins to perceive something is amiss. His friends,
the Fitzgeralds, are named, just like the famous couple, Zelda and Scott. At
the piano sits a man singing Cole Porter songs who looks very much like Cole
Porter. Other famed celebrities of the period pass by. When Fitzgerald later
takes him to a bar where he meets Ernest Hemingway, Gil realizes he has somehow
entered a "twilight zone," that he has magically returned to his
beloved past.
Paris, in fact, as my poet friend Jerome Rothenberg once described it,
is a "living museum." Nearly everywhere one goes in the city, there
are small plaques reminding one of the famed figures who once lived or worked
within. The city's several cemeteries, filled with the remains of renowned men
and women, are regularly visited by both tourists and Parisians. I've been to
all of them.
The problem is that Allen's vision of the past is as empty as Paul's
pedantic speeches. One by one many of his characters speak dogmatic statements
that sum up the vision of college freshmen English texts. Here's Hemingway
(Corey Stoll), for example, speaking of his own book:
Yes, it was a good book
because it was an honest book, and
that's what war does to
men. And there's nothing fine and
noble about dying in the
mud unless you die gracefully. And
then it's not only noble
but brave.
Kathy Bates' Gertrude Stein seems to me more of a domineering scold than
a great conversationalist; nothing is even mentioned about her being a writer.
Other figures are names only: Djuna Barnes, T. S. Eliot. At least Cole Porter
(Yves Heck) gets to sing, and Dali (Adrien Brody), in describing his Persistance of Memory (not painted until
1931), is humorously fixated on rhinoceroses. It is not even the fact that
these people of the past are stick figures; perhaps that is the way Gil sees
literary and art history. But by filling the most magical moments of the film
with pop-up stereotypes, we quickly lose interest in Gil's nightly
transformations. Few of these ghosts are figures any of us might wish to meet.
Having met with and talked to Barnes—like Stein, a witty and imposing
conversationalist—I cannot imagine her as a Charleston dancer of whom Gil quips, referring to her dominant lesbian behavior, "she wanted to lead." These silly one-liners drain any wonderment
from the fantastical events. Only the lesser renowned Adriana (Marion
Cotillard), Picasso's mistress, has any flesh and blood about her, and it is
natural, accordingly, that Gil falls in love with her.
But first, he must take one last trip into the 1920s, where Stein, again
with evaluative pronunciamentos, declares Gil's novel to be of value—although
Hemingway (who has also now read it) does not understand how its major
character would not perceive that his fiancée is having an affair "right
before his eyes." The suddenly
pained Gil turns away, suggesting "that might be described as
self-denial."
The inevitable moment arrives, as he declares he is staying in Paris and
leaving Inez, her father revealing that he has had Gil followed. Each night the
detective has observed Gil getting into a car, but the detective himself is now
missing. We see him at the Court of Louis XIV, being chased by guards out of
Versailles.
In all his walks about Paris, Gil has fortunately met another woman,
this one working in an antique shop that sells Cole Porter recordings.
Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) accidently meets the down-hearted Gil walking along the
Seine. It begins to rain, but like Gil, she enjoys walking in the rain, just as
she loves her native city.
Los Angeles, January 3, 2012
Reprinted from Nth Position [England], (January 2012)
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