With his forty-first film, Midnight in Paris, some critics, such as Rob Kirkpatrick of The Huffington Post, felt like Woody Allen had “rediscovered Woody.” The same could be said of its audiences as the success of this 2011 romantic comedy became his grandest, overtaking his 1986 film Hannah and Her Sisters. The legendary prowess of Woody Allen’s filmmaking is undeniable. Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Crimes and Misdemeanors were some of the hits that propped up the cornerstone of his longevity. Usually serving as the primary screenwriter, director, and occasional star of his own works, he’s been nominated by the Academy for best original screenplay sixteen times, director a total of seven times, and was given a nod for a leading role once. Midnight in Paris earned him his third win for screenplay as it added to a long career of strong scripts and detailed mise-en-scene.
Mise-en-scene is how a director elevates the writing of the film by the elements of the medium itself: lighting, cinematography, editing, sound, and, even, costumes. Allen puts on a masterful display of his directorial control with each scene in this film that connected the audience to the emotions of its main character, Gil Pender. After a three and a half minute lusciously warm tour of the beauty of a day in Paris over the music of Sidney Bechet, a track called “Si tu vous ma mere”, Gil, played by Owen Wilson, is immediately heard essentially trying to convince his fiancé to love the city as much as he does. The first five minutes was all Allen needed to have his audience immediately drawn to the main character’s sentiments.
The imagery provided in the opening set of locational scenes was riddled with a warm color palette as the architecture blended right into it. This ambience showcased the green of the trees, the red of the phone booths, and the masses of people living their lives. In a conversation with Buzzinefilm.com, Allen talked at length about working with the cinematographer for Midnight in Paris, Darius Khondji:
“The one uniform thing that all the cameramen do that I want that’s basic is warm pictures. I don’t like pictures where the actors are wearing blue. I don’t like sunny days. I like the weather to be flat, gray, and the colors to be autumnal: yellow, beige, brown, tan, gold. And it’s very important that the color correction is very, very warm. You can see it in Midnight in Paris. When I first started working with Sven Nykvist, he used to say to me, "The actors all look like tomatoes." But then he got to like it. I like it intensely red, intensely warm, because if you go to a restaurant and you’re there with your wife or your girlfriend, and it’s got red-flecked wallpaper and turn-of-the-century lights, you both look beautiful. Whereas if you’re in a seafood restaurant and the lights are up, everybody looks terrible. So it looks nice. It’s very flattering and very lovely. And that’s the fundamental aesthetic for the camera work.”
The warmth bled through the lens time and time again as the audience found itself constantly transported across the present and past.
This story is about appreciation. Gil, a self-described Hollywood “hack” screenwriter, is in Paris with his fiancé, Inez who is played by Rachel McAdams and her parents. It is relatively quick to see that he does not get along well with any of them, fiancé included. The conflict immediately arises as the two argue about the romanticism of Paris; Gil wants to stay to finish his novel, while Inez wants to go back for him to just do what he’s always done. Wilson’s character is so deeply infatuated and nostalgic for the past, 1920s era of Paris, even referencing Ernest Hemingway’s autobiographical account of the time, A Moveable Feast. He would rather be anywhere else except his present. He is nostalgic for things he has not experienced or seen because deep down below the surface he feels his present and relationship are unsatisfying.
By way of an unexplained fantasy, every night at midnight he goes back in time to 1920s Paris. There’s a mysterious ringing of a bell before a vintage car pulls up and stops. He’s bewilderingly invited to a party meeting Cole Porter and the Fitzgeralds then back to a bar for drinks with Ernest Hemingway. He does it again the next couple nights, also meeting Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Salvador Dali, and a girl named Adriana. Gil is immediately infatuated by Adriana, a costume designer.
Every scene in this movie continues to feel carefully calibrated to the setting and the emotions amongst the characters. A taxi ride, where Inez and her "pedantic" friends, Paul and his wife, are shooting down Gil's talents and needs, includes bumpy camera work in accordance with the roads. When Gil is with everyone in his present life, he's a third of the screen away or trailing behind. While in the past, he's more routinely centered amongst the people and activity. There are a lot of shots where he is just by himself walking through the city, and, just like the opening selection of sites, you see everything around him. You essentially see what he sees which allows you to feel the aesthetic as if you are there yourself. It is a very naturally made movie. In many conversations, the speakers are more centered at eye-level throughout the delivery of dialogue.
Allen does not only succeed at inserting his viewers in Paris; he is also able to put them in two distinguishable, yet not-too-different, time periods with noticeable changes. Costumes do the most work here, being the most distinguishable difference, but lighting has an important role as well. Gil is active day and night constantly interacting with people and showing his neuroses as he tries to find balance. Lighting is a deceptively powerful tool. During the day, everything is bright, sharp, with some warmth, but, overall, very clear. The clarity goes both ways for what the audience sees to be happening, and Gil. While for our nighttime scenes transition from low-lights to a well lit ending, casting initial shadows of doubt before he finds his footing by accepting his place in time and moving forward.
After one feeds their nostalgic appreciation to the past by trying to get away from their present, they usually tend to realize it's not all too different and not going to change any circumstances. This was the case for Gil. Just as he went to his idea of the Golden Age, Adriana had a different time period in mind that was her Golden Age. She took him in a horse-drawn carriage, to juxtapose the 1920s period car that transported Gil back, back to La Belle Époque. La Bell Époque was a period of optimistic ideas, peace, and science between the 1870s through to the first World War. There, Adriana tries to convince Gil to stay with her in the past. He reveals the truth of when he is from and implores her to see the full scope:
Gil: These people don't have any antibiotics!
Adriana: What are you talking about?
Gil: Adriana, if you stay here though, and this becomes your present then pretty soon you'll start imagining another time was really your... You know, was really the golden time. Yeah, that's what the present is. It's a little unsatisfying because life's a little unsatisfying.
Adriana: That's the problem with writers. You are so full of words.
Each time, Gil mysteriously hears that bell there’s a car on its way to take him back to the past. After this exchange, he leaves Adriana, played by Marion Cotillard, to her peace hoping for the best, but knowing she will probably regret her decision. He goes back to 1920s because all this time, he’s had his favorite writers critique his novel. Hemingway gives his thoughts, questioning how the main character has not realized that his fiancée, based on Inez, is having an affair with a character based on Paul, the pedantic friend. After a confrontation, Inez denies it before coming clean by essentially telling Gil it shouldn’t matter because, after all, it is Paris which was a convenient excuse. Gil rightfully breaks it off.
Before the end of the film, we see him walking the streets of Paris once more late at night as he hears the bells ringing out. There’s no car to transport him to the past this time. He stops on a bridge, looks across the water at the Eiffel Tower, and takes notable time to reflect. Then Gabrielle, a shopgirl from earlier in the movie, sees him. They talk with a slight flirtatious tension, and then as it begins to rain “Si tu vous ma mere” begins to play once more, as the characters turn around and walk the opposite direction of the camera together. Every scene was meticulously crafted throughout the whole film and the audience reaps the reward. As the characters walked away, one can not help but recognize that this time the destination is their future.
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