"Midnight in Paris" Five Months On...
Wednesday, November 9, 2011 at 11:30PM 
Oscar in Paris? Five million months after its release I'm hearing "Midnight in Paris" at Oscar shindigs more often than I'm hearing the title of any other movie. Seriously just in the last few weeks I've heard it pop up in virtually every "what movie do you like?" conversation. So I just went and locked it up on the Best Picture chart. (Shoulda done that with the last gold man column.) This seemingly widespread preference -- though I have heard a few "eh, it was okay"s amidst the name checking -- could simply be the fact that everyone has already seen it. You'd be surprised how few of the members have seen the presumed big guns...even things that have screened a lot like The Artist. They really do appear to wait until this time of year to watch movies!
I mentioned its conversational ubiquity on my twitter which prompted some conversation amongst friends. Colin pointed me to this old review at Rules for Anchorites which helped him understand the movie's appeal a little better. That review says lots of things I relate to but it does seem to willfully ignore the point that Woody Allen is not actually endorsing his altar ego's romanticizing of the past in the screenplay. It reminded of something really cynical Woody once said about Hannah and Her Sisters when it became popular. I wish I could find the quote but it was something about how he always felt that if his movies became popular they were popular only because people misunderstood them. To the Midnight naysayers I said that while you can quibble with the execution all you like, the movie is popular because the conceit is very very strong. I genuinely thought this was a "no duh" controversy-free statement but I was surprised to get immediate dissent. Nick & Joe & Guy all seem really dismissive of even the movie's central conceit which I just unequivocally love. Are my friends just hard-to-please bitches (kidding!) or are they right? I personally wish Midnight were a bit funnier and less jerry-rigged for Owen sympathy -- you'd get a much smarter/stronger movie instantly if you soften the fiancee or remove her entirely -- but I liked it and, again, the core is marvelous.
I'm eager to reassess soon. Do you still think about the movie? Did you like it enough to see it twice?
Midnight in Paris, Oscars (11), Twitter
Reader Comments (37)
I really think (and hope) it may not happen. The biggest factor against it is that nothing about it exudes IMPORTANCE. And what was the last movie to be nominated that didn't have at least one purely dramatic scene? The most recent example of a nominee that was this "lightweight" per se that I can think of is The Full Monty. I'm sure it will be in a good amount of top fives but I could definitely see it lacking top votes and missing.
I don't understand what the big deal is about this movie. I didn't think it was anything special.
As I age, I'll be 29 with Anne Hathaway this Saturday, I continue to remind myself, my own taste comes before anyone else's, and, in the end that's all that matters. Fuck them. There are people in this world you find no joy in Verhoeven, and see no Kubrick in Cameron. Almodovar is everything to foreign language film. Any one you says other wise can be ignored by me. <I>Midnight in Paris is comfort food. Those that don't enjoy likely likes some shitty romantic-com, a boring cunt in the lead.
I don't think about Midnight in Paris at all. It faded from my mind shortly after I saw it. The film pales in comparison to Allen's earlier films like The Purple Rose of Cairo or Alice which also had whimsical elements.
I love Midnight in Paris. Absolutely one of my favorites, both in Woody Allen's oeuvre and of the year (so far). The fiancee is bitchy, but there are moments, especially in the beginning and during her walk with her mom, where you can see this disillusioned, exhausted woman whose fiance's annoying pipe dreams were probably what appealed to her when they first met. I can sympathize with her just as much as Owen. And I agree, the conceit is wonderful. Who wouldn't want to party with the Fitzgeralds? True, the Tea Party parents are terribly written, and Kurt Fuller certainly isn't helping; and the affair with the pedantic gentleman is forced. But overall, it's a beautiful film.
I was honestly shocked at how hostile I felt towards this film. It didn't just bore me senseless, i actively hated it. It was stupid, facile, ugly, and mysoginistic. I'm such an easy push-over when it comes to romance movies, and I was really looking forward to having fun with this, but the movie has stayed with me in the worst possible way. I also don't think I have loathed a main character more this year than Owen Wilson (and that includes Jude Law's dodgy dentistry in Contagion). The thought that this movie is even a minor Oscar contender is mystifying. I'm honestly not sure if the strength of my reaction is more of a reflection on me or the film but it doesn't take much to get it going!
I guess your "at least the conceit is strong" argument kind of articulates what I've been thinking about it, but I just really don't get the love for this film. It's certainly no better than "Match Point", it's just a bit nicer, which I guess is what the Academy have been desperately waiting around for Woody to be for the past seventeen years.
I just thought it seemed like the first draft of a screenplay, one which Woody has bashed out quickly and was meaning to come back to, and I'm not talking about the unsympathetic fiance or anything, I just mean the basic execution of the concept. I don't mind that the time travel wasn't explained, but Woody just cut in and out of it without any build up or care for how magical it was, and by the end it just seemed to drab and normal (which it wasn't supposed to be). I honestly think that "Muppet's Christmas Carol" did a better job of portraying a man going in and coming out of a magical timeframe and his reactions to it (directorically, I mean 0 it has nothing to do with Dickens).
I guess the best comparison is with "Being John Malkovich" - that film really made the idea of someone entering a magical world only to try and re-capture it the focus of the film. Woody seemed to struggle to do that.
Also, some of the dialogue was just awful, the kind of dialogue that if I had written it I would really think that it just wasn't good enough - yet this is from an Oscar-winning writer whose own screenplay for this is being talked up for an Oscar. Owen Wilson's final speech to Marion Cotillard where he just tells there the whole damn moral of the film is inexcusable.
Just to further emphasize how boring and drab the whole thing was - this is usually the kind of film that the Academy would love to give Art Direction and Costume Design nods to, but it was just so visually uninspired that Nat hasn't got it anywhere near on his charts (I know that's not definitive proof of how the nominations will go, but it feels like it ;) )
My guess is that it works for so many people because it has Woody Allen's talent behind, but not his mysanthropy which made some of his recent movies very difficult to digest (Whatever Works).
What I still don't get is why people want to see Cotillard nominated for her nth role as love interest. She plays it nicely, but there isn't much to do with it.
I'd like to see it nominated for BP.
People still remember this film?
I have seen it twice. LOVE it. I'd really love it to take Best Picture but it's like no chance in hell I know. But that doesn't mean it's not deserving. One of the very best of the year and recent years.
I still think about it only because of the awards talk, not because of the film itself - a C at best for me. At one point while watching it, I thought: If Owen Wilson says one more time "Isn't Paris magical?", I'll throw something at the wall. I'm totally a hard-to-please bitch, unapologetically :) Isn't that the problem of the Academy that a lot of the members are way too easy to please?
I'm with The Jack, Sebastian and Ian on this one. I dont understand the hysterical love for this movie other than "Oh, Its Woodey Allen + 1920`s Paris + Fancy authors and painters" so I MUST love it so people will think I'm educated, cultivated and intelectually acceptable.
The characters are laughable charicatures, shallow, unidimensional and poorly written, the characters motivations, reasons, intentions and points of views are never developed, relationships between characters are underdeveloped and underexplained as well; the parents are borderline insulting in how cliche and superficial they are, the affair with the professor is beyond obvious and the whole structure gets old quickly.
Oh, there's Hemingway. Oh, there's Fitzgerald. Oh, There's Man Ray.....It gets predictable, repetitive and old very soon....The viewer finds itself wondering "ok, who's next....", and so the next painter/writer/thinker would show up, do a little joke, say a line or two, never to be seen again...
And yes, I saw glimpses of mysoginy in the screenplay, and the dialogue was plain awful.
As a rule I avoid Woody Allen films (especially if he's in them.) Ditto for Owen Wilson (is it that patented frat-boy leer, the proboscis monkey nose, the "I'm smarter than you AND I have marbles in my mouth" acting style? Whatever - each time I see this guy my teeth itch.) That said - MIDNIGHT IN PARIS was definitely my favorite film of the year so far. Story, story, story! When was the last time any of us saw an intelligent, thoughtful and skillful movie about ... nostalgia? So many aspects of this film work on such a surprising and satisfying level. (Kathy Bates as Gertrude Stein? Sign me up!) Lovely film - I even went out and bought the soundtrack.
I want to marry you Bill.
I think Midnight in Paris has won over enough people to get nominated for Best Picture. It won't win because too many people are left underwhelmed, but the film has too many defenders to not have sparked off enough interest in the Academy voters.
And yes, it is fluff if you look at it on a purely superficial level. That's the point. It's the protagonist's imaginings of what 1920s Paris was like. It's the perfect veneer of historical memory that even manages to gloss over issues like depression and mental illness in some very intriguing ways. The Woody surrogate doesn't want the bad things to happen in the past, so he alters them when confronted with them as much as possible. He can't handle his own reality, but he can navigate the world of literary and art figures he is obsessed with with great ease.
The depth comes not from the story being told but how it is told and the way it holds up a mirror to anyone who becomes obsessed with nostalgia. We can dream all we want to about the salons with Hemmingway and Fitzgerald and Porter and Picasso, but it doesn't mean that that these artists and writers were any happier than we are. Midnight in Paris is about accepting the conditions of our current reality through exploration of an idealized past. It's as deep or as shallow as you want it to be. I think there is enough resonance to get it a few nominations at the Oscars.
It had charm, humor, atmosphere, romance, and an inspired cast...this movie is dessert. Who cares if it might be a little predicatable or obvious in its machinations? You still want to take the journey regardless.
I'm down with it. I'm pretty sure he hasn't had a best picture nominee since Hannah and Her Sisters, and this is a terrific movie, so why not? I like it a lot - and I know a lot of people who just love it. Worse feel-good movies (like Slumdog) or nostalgia-fests (like Gump) have won, and if other movies fall short, the love people have for Midnight could carry it to a win.
I hate it, too. Awful.
@Bill
Wait, Kathy Bates was Gertrude Stein? I thought she was playing Roger Ebert.
Truth be told, I fell asleep during part of Midnight in Paris. (Fortunately a subsequent flight let me catch up on what I missed the first time.) That said, I thought it was a charming truffle of a film overall, which is why its widespread, nostalgic appeal is totally understandable. True, the characters are thinly-sketched, broadly-shaded archetypes or purely functional narrative devices but, in that and other ways (plot structure, etc.), it felt like a sweet homage to good old-fashioned silent films. (And we know how all-the-rage THAT is in 2011.)
Wow. I'm really surprised by all the negativity here. I fucking loved this film, and in a just world, it would be up for BP, Director, Cinematography, and Supporting Actor (for Stoll and Brody).
It's better than alot of the other crap that's come out this year.
Like Take Shelter, which is a piss-poor right-wing analogous shitfest with a wildly overrated Michael Shannon performance in the lead. Only good thing about that was Chastain, yet EVERYONE seems to be eating it up. Same with 'Like Crazy'.
@//3artful
Those that don't enjoy likely likes some shitty romantic-com, a boring cunt in the lead.
Every time I forget, you remind me what a charmer you are. Stay classy.
I thought this was a decent enough trifle, but any enjoyment I got out of the scenes set in the past (although I agree with iggy that the idea that people want to see Cotillard nominated kind of blows my mind) was almost completely negated by the scenes in the present. There is no reason for Rachel McAdams's character to be such a heinous, shrill caricature, and her parents weren't much better. First draft of a screenplay indeed.
On the positive side, I would love to see Corey Stoll get more work. His Hemingway was easily the highlight of the movie for me.
Crap. Nat, could you fix the tags? The bold should end after iggy's name.
The only acting nominations I'm interested in are Corey Stoll for Supporting Actor and Allison Pill for Supporting Actress. Her Zelda Fitzgerald was one of the highlights of the film to me. The scene by the river is strong, but her manic introduction scene at the party is breathtaking.
I saw it twice for the part that was set in the 1920s. I've read books and memoirs of that time and I find it fun (my favorite book of that era was Gertrude Stein's "Paris, France". She's still fresh and funny).
But the contemporary parts! I've finally found a way to explain the inexplicable non-appeal of those. They're like a Punch and Judy show. You know how in period movies sometimes, they'll be watching a Punch and Judy puppet show in the park, and everyone, including children, will be laughing. The horrible violent Punch and his shrewish wife Judy are beating each other, then Punch kills Judy, then the policeman comes for Punch, then Punch tricks the policeman. How is that amusing, funny, or entertaining? That people watch that over and over is some kind of obsessive psychopathy. Yet the puppet watching crowd is all laughing. And that's how I feel about contemporary Woody Allen.
@adri
Holy crap, that is a brilliant analogy. Seriously, that is probably the definitive statement on how I feel about this movie and possibly the last, say, ten years of Woody Allen films altogether.
I bow down to you.
I liked, not loved, MIP and still firmly believe VCB is Woody’s best film since 1994. And, aside from Wilson’s lovely lead performance and some flashes of greatness from Cotillard, nothing about the film has really stuck with me--despite having seen it twice now. In terms of Oscar, how weird will it be for a Woody Allen film to score Best Pic/Directing honors and zero acting nods?!
Jasper Kathy Bates is going to chop you up as meat for her lunch salad on the set of Harry's Law. Be nice.
@Liz
Liz love I never said I had class just good taste.
@//3rtful
Anyone who refers to any random actress he doesn't know personally as a "cunt" does not have good taste or class. Period. As if your patronizing tone toward me wasn't enough to illustrate that.
Rachel McAdams had a horrible character, yes. But I WISHED she would have tried to salvage something of that part, do something CRAZY with it. Like what Tomei did with 'Crazy, Stupid, Love' which was just batshit insane, out of the pace of the film surrounding her, but damn was she entertaining.
Beau -- perfect comparison really. you're right. it almost feels like rachel wasn't even remotely trying. was this the film on which she met michael sheen? maybe she was too distracted. Not to cast aspersions on her professionalism. but damn that performance had me questinoing how brilliant i thought she was in Mean Girls. Mean Girls seems like so long ago for her.
/3rtful -- yes lets go easy on certain words. Please and thanks.
Liz -- i fixed that coding problem.
Ryan -- good point. that will be quite weird. it's usually acting or screenplay or nothing.
It opened here in Australia 3 weeks ago to great reviews, terrific box office, and superb word-of-mouth. There's just something about it that a lot of people love.
For Nathan I'll retire the use of the C-word. When I want to refer to someone using that word I'll just say they're being a Helen Hunt.
@Liz darling I'm a bowl of cherries!
I really liked it. I'm not a love, but I thought it was entertaining and well-executed for the most part (although I agree both Woody and Rachel McAdams could've done a bit more with the girlfriend character).
And I still believe Marion Cotillard is in the running for best supporting actress...that category is so foggy right now outside of Redgrave and Spencer that if the Academy really eats up Midnight in Paris, Cotillard seems the most likely to eek out a nomination from all the performances in the film.
Central conceit: Whimsical, interesting, lots of potential. I mean, "Midnight in freaking Paris"., How could you not love such a premise?
Execution: Insanely lazy tropes, unfunny, and as Ian mentioned, somewhat misogynistic. Lousy-ass dialogue.