Midnight in Paris Was Predicated on the Fallacy of Wistfulness for a Different Time Before We Were Actually Living in the Worst Time Ever

In 2011, Woody Allen had not completely lost all respect as a result of that unshakeable accusation of sexual assault from his adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow. In fact, his career had been on the upswing since 2005’s Match Point re-established him as an “artiste” of an auteur. Maybe that kind of pretentious French word is what took him on a journey via screenplay to 1920s Paris contrasted against 2010 Paris with the Oscar-winning and rather tritely named Midnight in Paris (though not as tritely named as To Rome With Love).

Based on a notion that comes in the form of a thesis statement contained within the dialogue of lead character Gil Pender (Owen Wilson), Allen posits that we are all doomed to be dissatisfied no matter what time period we’re in (though this is somewhat in contrast to Robert Zemeckis’ portrait of time travel in Back to the Future). With Gil having this epiphany as the woman from the 20s he’s fallen in love with, Adriana (Marion Cotillard) a.k.a. Picasso’s muse and lover, tells him she wants to stay in the Belle Époque, he insists, “If you stay here, and this becomes your present, then, pretty soon, you’ll start imagining another time was really your, you know, was really the golden time. That’s what the present is. That it’s a little unsatisfying, because life’s a little unsatisfying.”

Perhaps, at the time Allen wrote this script, this revelation possessed unequivocal veracity–the idea that every single period throughout the centuries contains some element of inevitable annoyance and discomfort (e.g. no novocaine at the dentist, as Gil points out). This cannot be disputed. And yet, Allen had no idea–none of us did–at the time of writing the narrative just how quaint and idyllic 2010/2011 would seem in retrospect. Right in the thick of Obama’s presidency (and Sarkozy’s–hence, Carla Bruni’s appearance in the film), the world’s problems and sources of evil didn’t feel quite so large (there even seemed to be a noticeable economic recovery after the 2008 financial crisis, as evidenced by Sex and the City 2‘s flagrant thumbing of the nose at poverty). There was not even a trace of the new Axis of Evil (one poetic phrase George W. Bush was capable of coining) that was to come post-2016 (the year that cataclysmic thing happened that doesn’t need to be spelled out). Who knew that, among that axis, the U.S. would come to find itself on the same plane as North Korea, Russia and Syria?

Gil’s romantic nature would be even more balked at by his materialistic fiancée, Inez (Rachel McAdams–no idea why Allen named a white girl Inez, but okay), had Midnight in Paris been released just a few years later. Not to mention her ex-professor/overt paramour, Paul (Michael Sheen), who lectures him, “You know, nostalgia is denial. And the name for this fallacy is called ‘golden age thinking.’ The erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the one one’s living in. It’s a flaw in the romantic imagination of those people who… who find it difficult to cope with the depressive.” Maybe so. But isn’t it more of a state of denial to maintain that the current epoch is just as bad as any other? Because, clearly, this isn’t the case. We’ve got to be in the most blatant era of decay and degeneration signaling civilization’s demise than we’ve ever been before. Isn’t that why Elon Musk is so hellbent on fleeing the planet and only taking the richest, most attractive people with him? And yes, literally every other generation before this has thought the same thing–the Vietnam kids, the Lost Generation, those subject to live in Hoovervilles, etc. But no, really. This is actually the worst time ever. It is the entire setup to Idiocracy (poor Luke Wilson, never choosing roles quite as sophisticated as his brother).

What remains true of Midnight in Paris‘ manifesto is that a perpetual disgruntlement with one’s own time is to be expected. What does not continue to hold water is that this cycle of history is filled with as much unpleasantness as previous ones. It’s truly, in fact, the worst. And the internet appears to be more detriment than comfort in this regard. But at least everyone feels sated with gender fluidity.