Midnight in Paris*

An open letter to the writer/director

Woody,

I just returned from seeing your movie Midnight in Paris and I want to tell you I was captivated, intrigued, and thoroughly entertained. The casting, the script, the concept, the rhythm, the visuals, the music ...... it was all there. I was drawn in wishing it was me, wanting to have that experience; jealous, dreaming, desiring. I was sad, in a good way, when it ended and I want to go back.

I have seen most of your films and since I was raised as a Jewish boy from Long Island, with most of my family living in Manhattan, I often relate to your messages, neurosis, dialogue, expression, art, and view. As an observer of the human condition, I envy your ability to be so open and raw, and I applaud your success. It has given you the ability to tell many stories to so many people. Your fantasies, your truths, your experiences, still jump off the screen.

Using ever more famous, popular, and recognizable actors as we’ve gotten older, it seems to me that your message, style, tone, words, and vision have attracted this generation of the “Hollywood” community. I have no idea if you ever set out to be more mainstream or less, and I don’t know if your last 5 movies are more commercially successful than the first 5 that went into mass distribution, it is just interesting to see the faces I have seen in other movies appear in your work.

There seems to be a trend for successful actors to appear in “indy” films, and although yours are not necessarily in that category because of your fame, distribution network, volume of work and notoriety, but the feel, texture, and sophisticated simplicity of your scenes always make them feel “artsy” and I am sure have influenced many independent film makers and attracted actors who want to be relevant and taken seriously for their craft. For them I am guessing it is like being on Broadway.

A puzzling, mystifying, and fascinating aspect of your long term presence in the movie business is that the cultural humor, the depth of your angst, and the slant of your commentary is, like the Seinfeld TV series, very urban and Jewish. (If this comparison to Jerry’s world offends you in any way, I apologize immediately.) How does middle America, gentile America, understand much of what you are saying? Do they laugh and keep coming back because they get it or because they want to get it or that everyone else seems to get it so they want to be part of the in-crowd? Or is it a mirror reflection of the opposite attraction Jewish men have with the blond forbidden fruit?

I think about and recently have actively tried to find/build a group of stimulating people in north San Diego County. It is not easy, particularly in this cultural vacuum. Since I was an uninterested student as a kid and never liked school, even faking my way through an Ivy League University, I only have a superficial knowledge of the writers and painters in Midnight in Paris. But growing up in a well-to-do Jewish family, I was exposed to culture, books, art, and music, from the volumes of classic leather bound books in our home library, to the complete vinyl LP collection of jazz and big band vocalists on the shelves above our high fidelity stereo in our Den. We took the compulsory school trips to museums in NYC and were forced to go with Grandma’s on her mandatory yearly Hanukah visit to Radio City Musical Hall’s “The Nutcracker.” 

So out of the blue, your film has me remembering flashes of my English teachers lectures about these authors, the tidbits I picked up in the synopses I read in my complete Cliff Notes collection, the music I heard in the background through 25 years of life in NY, Berkeley, and Seattle, and the paintings hanging in the museums of NYC and the museums I have visited in Paris and Italy. It would be grand to be transported permanently to the world you created; the evenings of merriment during those late night soirees. 

Thanks for your movie and thanks for being so honest all these years.

* "Midnight in Paris" a film by Woody Allen