Woody Allen's Midnight In Paris

One of the year's greatest movies for me was Woody Allen's Midnight In Paris. I loved it for several reasons, but mostly for the journey on which the lead character takes us as he becomes a special guest to noted personalities who lived in the 1920s. I loved the cars, the clothes, the Woody Allen dialogue, the beautiful cinematography--but mostly the message of the film.

The original screenplay won Woody Allen an Academy Award a few weeks ago, deservedly so. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Allen said the script was written for star, Owen Wilson. He knew the story would be set in Paris, but he didn't know what it would be about. The legendary director then said, "I went for a couple of months without being able to come up with anything. Then one day it occurred to me — if I had my protagonist walking around Paris at midnight and a car pulled up and they said get in and they took him on an interesting adventure. So that’s how it formed."

One of the early scenes in the film involved Wilson's friend, who was described later in the film as pedantic (a person displaying of useless knowledge or minute observance of petty rules or details). Every time the friend comes upon a famous painting or an historic place, he seems to know everything about it. As Owen takes his adventure into 1920s Paris, he meets famous artists such as Picasso and Salvidor Dali, and writers Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein. Owen's character, a writer himself, is strengthened by the wisdom and critique these great artists offer him on his first novel. When he leaves his 1920s friends behind each night, he is transported back to his modern-day hotel, his preoccupied fiance, and her shallow, wealthy parents. The know-it-all friend continues to give Owen history lessons on the great artists he actually visits each midnight. Owen then begins to correct his friend on inaccurate details, surprising him by showing the hopeless pedantic that he may not know as much as he thinks.

I've met many a know-it-all in my day; they obviously have a deep need to validate themselves by spouting their superior knowledge, and obviously seem to enjoy the sound of their own voice in the process. As I watched the movie unfold, and Wilson's character began to gain the courage to stand up to the pedagogic friend, I thought of a favorite quote by Tom Waits: "The bad thing about history is, that the people who were there are not talking, and the people that weren't there, you can't shut them up."

Midnight In Paris takes the audience on a wonderful escape into an idealized world and a lost era. A Daily Mail Online article summarized it like this: "The real message of the movie is not the one that it seems to be laboring — that nostalgia is a trap — but that life and art are both worth the most meticulous re-examination and a life without art or romance is one that’s only half-lived."


Whatever the conclusion, Midnight In Paris is a wonderful movie--fully entertaining, warm, wise and sure to sell plane tickets for vacations to France this summer.