The famous Wenqing director Woody Allen is coming to Paris to make a movie again. "This is my 50th film, and probably the last." Woody Allen, who is already 86 years old, considers retiring after making the film. He called the new film similar to "The End of the Race" a dangerous romantic thriller.
"The End of the Race"
When woody Allen is in Paris, it is necessary to mention his "love letter" to the city , "Midnight in Paris", which won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Not only did it win the favor of the Academy, as Woody Allen's 41st feature film, it was also its highest-grossing work, grossing $150 million at the box office at a cost of $17 million. The MV of Jay Chou's latest work "The Greatest Work" that Jay Chou recently brushed the screen is considered by many people to be inspired by this movie.
However, because of the strange cultural names, the film was not optimistic about the producers (or Allen's sister) at first.
But in fact, under the dim street lights, the midnight bell rings, a retro Peugeot car takes you back to the golden age of the night song, where you can dance Charleston with the flying girls, drink absinthe with Hemingway and Fitzgerald, or stroll along the banks of the Seine with Picasso's lover... Even without knowing the history of what's also known as the Jazz Age, the drunken romantic adventures of Midnight in Paris are appealing enough, not to mention that when "Woody Allen" and "Paris" appear on a movie poster at the same time, the combination can collide with a powerful box office appeal.
It can be said that from the famous Stan Salon to the Moulin Rouge where the Concord dancers danced, Woody Allen found the middle point between the niche and the popular, striking the perfect balance between the author's film and the commercial film.
Everyone knows that Woody Allen loves New York, but his admiration and yearning for Paris has never been a secret. Therefore, compared with the previous "London Trilogy" ("Scoop", "End of the Race", "Kassandra's Dream") and "Midnight Barcelona"), for Paris, a European city with countless beautiful labels, Allen inevitably has a little bit of cowardice in the process of script creation.
At first, like most people, allen had the hollow, dry word "romantic" in his mind for Paris. However, although the specific plot of the story was not thought out, the title of the movie "Midnight in Paris" inherited from "Midnight Barcelona" was first determined.
Midnight in Barcelona
It is said that after six weeks of holding back, Allen finally chose to wander the streets of Paris as most of us, tourists and outsiders, with exquisite postcard filters. From the Moulin Rouge to the Maxim's Hotel, from parties with carousels to Dai basil shops filled with feather lamps and taxidermy, the picture of Paris depicted in the film is both representative and not stereotypical.
Of course, Woody Allen still does not forget to set up mismatched couples and pseudo-intellectuals who mess up book bags and other "old terriers" in the movie. As an "old man", Allen "invited" the literary idols he had been obsessed with since high school into the story in "Midnight in Paris". To him, these great cultural celebrities seemed to be his old acquaintances or old friends, so familiar with their respective life experiences and language styles that he could write their entire scenes without any extra homework.
Woody Allen imagined the good life of living with cultural celebrities as early as his 1971 short story "Memoirs of the Twenties": visiting Picasso's studio with Gertrude Stein, practicing boxing with Hemingway, being written into a novel by Scott Fitzgerald...
And the portrayal of historical figures in "Midnight in Paris" is not completely realistic, adding some of Allen's personal fun on the basis of basically following historical facts. Hemingway, for example, was a tough guy in everyday conversation, while Salvador Dali was preoccupied with rhinos.
But in essence, Midnight in Paris is a disenchantment of the so-called "best of times": modern American writers yearn for the golden age of the twenties and thirties, while the girls of that era yearn for the beautiful years of the late 19th century, and the painters of the 19th century yearn for the Renaissance, which can be created side by side with Titian and Michelangelo — people in each era deny reality and lament that they were not born at the right time.
This makes Midnight in Paris a dream, but not just a dream—it digs out the eternal emptiness behind nostalgia and romanticism, as if whispering in the ear of someone who is indulging in the past: Dream, but remember to wake up.
This may also be Woody Allen's introspection: today, age has not affected his exuberant creativity in the slightest, but on the other hand, his scandal-ridden works have been "cold" in recent years. In this context, Allen's return to Paris to make a film is also more interesting - no matter how sober, people need to return to their dreams from time to time, and that Hemingway's feast has been flowing, and Paris, with rain and lights, is the best place to dream.