In Midnight in Paris, even the 1920s geniuses long for an earlier age
Woody Allen's 2011 comedy sends a frustrated screenwriter back to 1920s Paris every night at midnight, to drink with Hemingway and hand his novel to Gertrude Stein. The twist: the woman he falls for there dreams of the Belle Époque, and its painters pine for the Renaissance. The film won an Oscar for its screenplay.
Owen Wilson plays Gil Pender, a Hollywood writer holidaying in Paris in 2010 with his fiancée Inez, played by Rachel McAdams, and her wealthy parents. Gil is stuck on a first novel about a man who runs a nostalgia shop and dreams of moving to the city of the Lost Generation. Inez waves the idea away and warms instead to Paul, an old college friend who lectures confidently and often wrongly about French history.
Walking home tipsy after a wine tasting, Gil is collected at midnight by a vintage car and delivered to a party for Jean Cocteau. Within hours he is out with Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, then discussing craft with Ernest Hemingway, who promises to pass his manuscript to Stein. When Gil steps out to fetch it, he lands back in 2010 in front of a laundromat. On later nights he watches Stein critique a Picasso portrait of Adriana, a costume designer who has also been involved with Modigliani and Braque, and he falls for her. He even tells the surrealists Dalí, Man Ray and Buñuel he comes from the future, which they accept without blinking, and pitches Buñuel the plot of The Exterminating Angel.
The turning point comes when a horse-drawn carriage takes Gil and Adriana further back, to the Belle Époque she idolises. At the Moulin Rouge, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin and Degas insist the true golden age was the Renaissance. Adriana chooses to stay, but Gil sees that every era feels a little disappointing to those living in it, and that nostalgia is a trap. Back in the present, a rewritten draft wins Stein's approval, Inez admits her fling with Paul, and Gil stays on in Paris alone.
Made by Spain's Mediapro with Allen's Gravier Productions, the film had its premiere at Cannes in 2011 and reached American cinemas on 20 May that year. Its cast also included Kathy Bates, Adrien Brody, Marion Cotillard, Tom Hiddleston and Carla Bruni. Critics embraced it, and in 2012 it collected the Academy Award and the Golden Globe for its screenplay, plus Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Art Direction.
Source: Midnight in Paris
