Category: Midnight in Paris

Nostalgia and golden age thinking are an exceedingly critical aspect in Fitzgerald and Allen’s works, as through these concepts they are able to convey a noteworthy message regarding the role of dreams and illusions as motivators. Nostalgia is truly one of the great human weaknesses and people underestimate the power it has. We need to establish an understanding of what it is, what evokes this nostalgia and maybe even question if it’s healthy for us to be dwelling in the past. Typically, it is defined as a sentimentality for the past, naturally for a period or place with happy personal association. I for one, find the concept quite alluring. One of my greatest dreams in life is to be able to experience every era for at least one day, to see, to live, to breathe in the past, and I’ve noticed, that most of the time I have this feeling is because I’m unhappy or in a difficult situation, where I just want to escape my reality. We must learn to effectively cope with these problems that hinder one’s happiness. For Mr. Gatsby, we can see that this didn’t work out too well. On the other hand, Gil Pender, our romantic dreamer, successfully obtained his realistic dream through a revelation of reality.

Woody Allen’s film ‘Midnight in Paris’ holds many treasures, where we, the audience, feel this sudden intrigue in every scene. Specifically, we see this golden age philosophy that illuminates the film, that gives purpose to the moral of the story. Ironically, the slight antagonist and so called pseudo-intellectual, Paul, remarks nostalgia as denial of the painful present, calling it golden age thinking that is a flaw in the romantic imagination. Allen selecting Paul to say this at the beginning of the film, then foreshadows Gil’s realization seen later on.

Our story begins in the first chapter of the film. Before any clear introduction to our characters, the scene is set. With romantic Parisian jazz music and lengthy shots of Paris, Allen has already captured this atmosphere suitable for entering the realm of eternal nostalgia.

Gil’s realization is then seen in Chapter 8, when Gil and Adriana return to the 1890s of Paris, the Belle-Epoque. Through a conversation with Adrianna, Gil suddenly has an epiphany. He concludes that no matter what era you may be from, you’re never really satisfied with your present. Gil then clearly states, “It’s the present, it’s a little unsatisfying because life’s a little unsatisfying”, and it is in that line where Gil acknowledges his reality, where his dream of the 1920s and his travels to the past indicate the problems in his present. Allen has depicted this scene in a way with subdued warm lighting and a muted background, with close up shots focusing on each of their facial expressions, thus bringing emphasis on the conversation, rather than everything around them. This accentuates the importance of the scene.

We see Gil accept his present in the last chapter of the film. The scene begins with a dispute between Inez and Gil, illustrating the unhappy relationship they are in, establishing their breakup and fixing Gil’s present. After the fight scene, the camera shifts towards Gil who is sitting alone at a Parisian café. The non-diegetic music is that of which began the film, thus symbolizing the beginning of something new for Gil.

We see a mid-shot of Gil walking out of a famous nostalgic bookshop ‘Shakespeare and Company’. This shot of him demonstrates how he is ‘stepping’ out of his nostalgic mindset and focusing on his present. There is then a long shot of the Eiffel Tower glistening, and as the clock strikes midnight, Gil is no longer seen at the corner he would wait to travel back in time, representing him moving on from the past. Gil has finally accepted his reality, where he found the problem, being Inez, threw her out, and can now be satisfied with his present, where his nostalgia no longer craves the dream for returning to a ‘golden age’.

Jazz. Booze. Women. Parties. Ahhh, Welcome to the 20s. The ‘great’ man himself, Jay Gatsby, although was filthy rich and living a lavish life, his nostalgic dream to win over a girl, basically got him killed. Next, I’m going to explore the dangers of nostalgia and ‘golden age’ thinking that established Gatsby’s fatal flaw, leading to his death.

Gatsby’s steadfast pursuit of the past is also a pursuit of his own soul. According to Nick, Gatsby “wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps that had gone into loving Daisy” (Chapter 6, pg. 106). This symbolizes Gatsby’s longing for the past, and only by recovering the past could he hope to recover himself. But we see that tragically, Gatsby can’t repeat the past, and the past and his soul remain lost to him forever.

In Chapter 5, Gatsby symbolically breaks the clock in Nick’s house. It should come as no surprise, then, that reality will not match a dream, and that this motivation, this nostalgia that Gatsby has invested in Daisy is out of reach to him, that the time they once had is over. This concept of time is then classified as a motif throughout the novel. It represents both the passage of time and Gatsby’s inability to stop it from marching on. The ‘face’ breaking, is another futile attempt to symbolically stop time, but is also a real way to snap Gatsby into the problems of the non-dream state.

The novel ends by universalizing the themes of our imagined goals, and the overwhelming nostalgia that informs them. Everyone’s life is a voyage, to show this, Fitzgerald metaphorically puts is as pushing on against the odds, towards an imagined destination, but the current we stride against seems to know that what humanity wants is not a destination, not a future, but a return to the past which we desperately rely on with unbearable nostalgia.

In conclusion, the message we uncover is that nostalgia can be such an important part of our lives. If we use it wisely. Allen and Fitzgerald demonstrate through their works how we all have these memories and dreams, we can’t seem to let go of and at times it really feels like we never will. And that It’s okay for us to go visit these memories, just as long as we don’t get stuck there. Because if you don’t let the past die, it won’t let you live.

Gold, something we associate with illumination, triumph and passion, and endless pursuit of our own personal endeavors. It is no surprise that the term ‘golden age’ refers to a period in time in which one believes that they would be happier, or more content with their life.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel ‘The Great Gatsby’ is regarded as arguably one of the most iconic novels exhibiting the American Dream. We, as the audience, witness Gatsby, the protagonist, on an endless pursuit to fulfil his dream of winning Daisy’s love. An American love story, that incorporates the themes of triumph and failure, ultimately leading to his destruction, being his death. Alternatively, Woody Allen’s directed film ‘Midnight in Paris’ alludes to much of the themes introduced in Fitzgerald’s text and highlights the unobtainable nature of dreams that is informed by nostalgia. The protagonist, Gil Pender, emphasizes this through his ability to travel back to his golden age, Paris in the 1920s and experiences his misinformed dream before having to face his problems in the present.

A notion of dissatisfaction and complication within the present is portrayed through the protagonists in both works. For Gil, this is his marriage with Inez. Their relationship is purely materialistic and based on surface level values, for example, agreeing on the small things like a common appreciation for pita bread. The incompatibility is evident from the opening scene, as she expresses his career pursuits in a demeaning way whilst he stands to the side, showing his isolation and distance in the relationship. It is here, we establish Gil as a dreamer, with hopeless nostalgia. His book, a symbol for his life.

Paul, the pseudo-intellectual, exclaims that “nostalgia is denial – the name for this is golden age thinking – the erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the one one’s living in”. In order to escape his problem, Gil imagines Paris, during the 1920s as his golden age. Through his nostalgic views, he enables himself to disregarded and ignore his problems, encouraging his golden age thinking and disregard for his marital discord, which concludes as a failure. As the audience, we don’t think much of his ideals, until he travels back into the 1920s. But we know better. We know that this is simply impossible, and it is here that we see the golden age thinking in play.

His destruction, however, is not acknowledged until Chapter 8. This over-the-shoulder shot is employed to place the characters in their setting and establish the conversation. His realization leads him to escape his nostalgic views. When he explains to Adriana that “I’m trying to escape my present, just like you’re trying to escape yours”, this is where we understand that his destruction has been avoided through his self-proclaimed insight being that he has problems in reality that he needs to fix and that escaping his present cannot fulfil his dream.

For Gatsby, his fatal flaw is that he doesn’t have Daisy. We can all agree that he has built himself up, which Fitzgerald explores through his extravagant parties and extensive possessions. But for much of the novel we see him alone, waiting and watching from afar, caving into his moral failure not of wealth and status, but the one thing that he is missing, Daisy. Although an outsider would see his success from the American Dream, he is still unsatisfied, this is his problem, his dissatisfaction within the present due to the unobtainable nature of his dream, which is in the past. This causes him to crave the past, with an intolerable amount of nostalgia. His golden age is five years prior, before he had left for the war and had a flourishing relationship with Daisy.

His fatal flaw and destruction are in the very conversation that he has with Nick on page 106 exclaiming that you “can’t repeat the past, why of course you can”. This misunderstanding is the very essence of his failure and greatness. Fitzgerald has intentionally employed repetition, with Gatsby first repeating Nick’s sentence “can’t repeat the past”. This emphasizes Gatsby’s point of view and his fatal flaw, being his nostalgic views and the ways in which he believes the past can be repeated. Nick then narrates that “He talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy”. Fitzgerald has intestinally continued to mention the past to emphasize its significance, especially to Gatsby. The surprise of Gatsby when Nick doesn’t agree reiterates his nostalgia and inability to accept that he is in the present, without Daisy. Nick can recognize Gatsby’s tragic pursuit filled with nostalgia and that consequences of his dream, but for Nick he does not know true passion, which justifies his impassive reaction to much of Gatsby’s dialogue. He knows that this ‘idea of himself’ is non-tangible and will ultimately catalyze his death but for Gatsby, he cannot distinguish his own illusion from reality.

To summarize, the nostalgia and golden age thinking of the dreams of some people, including the characters Gatsby and Gil, act as a catalyst for their destruction due to their problems in the present. The difference between these two characters in that one can recognize this and one cannot. The ability for Gil to recognize his overwhelming nostalgia leads him to making decisions in his present in order to fix these. For Gatsby, however, the failure to recognize and ignore problems in his present, leads him to his dire destruction.