Midnight in Paris.
It sounds like a straight to DVD romantic comedy just by name alone. The film’s name draws upon the heavy clichés of Paris being the center of romance and culture of the world, and the film itself doesn’t fall too short of this initial premise. I couldn’t look past the fact that this all seemed a little too intentional, especially for a Woody Allen film. This stereotypical Hollywood film coming from this man begs that there must be something more than just a story about a man wanting the cultural and romantic freedom that the city of Paris can only provide, or in easier terms, a story about a man falling in love with Paris. In my opinion, Woody Allen creates the illusory world of the Hollywood interpretation of a romance in Paris not to just create a film that the populace would enjoy, but also to bring attention to itself as an illusion rather than a reality.
There is a moment in this film that seems to encapsulate this idea I presented. In the movie, Gil, his fiancé, and Paul are in a museum, where Paul goes on one of his long, pompous spiels about a Picasso painting that just so happened to be the same one that Gil had seen being discussed when he traveled back to 1920’s Paris. Soon Gil interrupts Paul with a version of the painting that came directly from his encounter with Pablo Picasso himself.
Within this moment the audience is shown how there are two differentiating opinions on the same painting. Where one seemed a little too high cultured and overly pseudo-intellectual, the opinion of Paul; the other came off more down to earth and driven by human desires and forces. This seems too deliberate of a choice in the film to be just a way to crack a joke at Paul’s expense. In a way, Woody Allen seems to be expressing a few different ways to look at a film after a first glance. For example, Midnight in Paris seems like a very superficial Hollywood movie at first glance, but as we have discussed, it seems too superficial to be such. Like the painting we have to see it a few different ways with various opinions even though many would disagree and say it is cemented in one way. Like Gil, we have to challenge the established ideas about that painting, or in a broader sense about film in general.
I liked Luis’ take on Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, and the moment he chose to support his argument was one of my favorites. The discussion between Gil and Paul about the Picasso painting was indeed a moment that showed Luis’ point nicely that a film, like a painting, can have multiple interpretations. However, I believe that Allen is poking more fun at the spectator than perhaps Luis accounted for.
ReplyDeleteThe exchange between Gil and Paul is funny because it pokes fun at not just Paul’s “high cultured” interpretation but also Gil’s accidentally insightful interpretation. I believe that Allen is commenting on all those who claim to “know” the true motivation behind a work of art, including those of us who are watching his film. I believe this can be supported by the moment when Gertrude Stein is arguing with Picasso about his painting of Adriana. She insists that his painting is motivated by the sexual feelings he has for Adriana, while the entire time Picasso insists he was simply just painting what he saw.
Similarly, Allen seems to be making fun of spectators of his film who try to interpret his motives and intentions (which may include us). Interpretations and opinions of a film are so subjective that it oftentimes seems silly to continue to argue about what is the “right” or “wrong” answer when there simply isn’t one.
Danielle Dobies