Midnight in Paris: How did Woody do?

In response to this post, reader Jillian22 has asked us to weigh in on Woody Allen’s portrayal of the various literary legends who figure so prominently in his recent film “Midnight in Paris,” the director’s love song to Paris in the ‘20s. Regular readers will doubtless already know that you don’t have to ask me twice to hold forth on that particular time and place. It’s a mild obsession.

So, how did Allen do in bringing these famous writers to life? Behold:

Corey Stoll as Ernest Hemingway:
Handsome, opinionated, and self-assured, with machismo dripping from every pore, this is the Hemingway we’ve come to know and love. Don’t believe me? I’ll simply point you to this interview he gave to the Paris Review years later. Read the whole thing. It’s spectacular. We’ve thrown the spotlight on Hemingway’s speaking voice here, and I think the film measures up pretty well on that score, as well. My only complaint is that I doubt he was as extemporaneously eloquent, or nearly as bellicose as he is portrayed in the film. Other than that, spot on.

Kathy Bates as Gertrude Stein:
I love Kathy Bates to begin with, but by all accounts, she nailed Stein’s role as a widely-used sounding board, art critic and social intermediary for the expat set. The short-cropped hair and husky figure are right out of the photographs of Stein in those days. And her Paris salon was where a lot of the movers and shakers came to move and shake. So it’s fitting that Gil would meet Adriana here.

Tom Hiddleston as F. Scott Fitzgerald:
Affable, socially adept, and tragically in love with a category 5 tornado. Sounds about right. In the film, Hemingway clearly has it in for Zelda, warning Scott she’s out to destroy him. Scott finds himself uncomfortably defending his wife. Again, some pretty accurate echos of real life as they knew it. Hemingway tells the story in A Moveable Feast about how he dragged Scott through the Louvre to look at the naked male statues and alleviate the latter’s concern about the size of his junk. 

“Those statues may not be accurate.” (Scott said)

“They are pretty good. Most people would settle for them.” 

“But why would (Zelda) say it?” 

“To put you out of business. That’s the oldest way in the world of putting people out of business.”

Alison Pill as Zelda Fitzgerald:
The only spouse to make the cut in a any major way (Hadley Hemingway was absent and Alice B.Toklas was nearly so.) I thought this was a decent cast. She was charming and outgoing, perhaps a little overbearing- and ready to come unhinged at a moment’s notice- not unlike the real McCoy.

James Joyce:
I have nothing to say here except where the devil was Joyce in this movie? He was the veritable dean of expat writers, and yet he only gets a mention as having been spotted in a restaurant once, eating sour kraut and frankfurters.

Adrian de Van as Luis Bunuel and Adrien Brody as Salvador Dali:
Last summer I wasted an hour of my life watching the 1930 film L’Age d’Or on YouTube. This cinematic gem, written by Bunuel and Dali, is all the evidence you’ll ever need, to know that the exaggerated portrayal of those two surrealists in Woody Allen’s film is actually anything but an exaggeration. Dali’s fixation with “the horn of a rhinosceros” in his cafe chat with Gil fits in perfectly with the parade of surrealist non sequiturs you’ll find in l’Age d’Or.

As a courtesy to our cinema enthusiasts, I am embedding part I below:

What say you? Have you seen Midnight in Paris? If so, do you agree or disagree with my take?

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The Lasting Legacy of Miss Stein's Salon

The list of famous modernist writers and avant guarde painters who graced Gertrude Stein’s Paris salon is incredibly well-known. It was Stein who famously first coined the term “the Lost Generation,” and her influence on the ex-pat artist community of Paris in those years cannot be overestimated.

But it’s a crying shame that no credit is given to her for her influence in spawning one of our greatest modern-day, pop-culture phenomena:

I refer, of course, to the Snuggie, the Slanket, the Toasty Wrap and any number of other “sleeved blanket” products, whose use she pioneered as far back as the 1920s (see picture above).

So, if you’ve ever donned three-and-a-half yards of plush fabric to keep you warm while you repose in a sub-room-temperature setting, you owe Miss Stein a giant debt of gratitude. 

Casting Call

One last movie-related post before I give it a rest: the obligatory author look-alike post.

Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris  (winner of best original screenplay, set at least partially in 1920s Paris) got me thinking about who I would cast in the role of certain famous writers. Here are a few suggestions just for the heck of it. Let me know what you think. (And I will cross-post this in our Forum, in case you want to add any of your own.)

This first one’s not an exact match, but there’s something in the downward slope of the eyes, the highway patrolman moustache and the slight hint of a smirk that makes me think you could do a lot worse in casting a young William Faulkner than Edward Norton Jr.:

As you can see, this second one is a surprising and uncanny likeness. A young Ernest Hemingway could be played pretty convincingly by 80s-era Charlie Sheen:

As for a youthful Ezra Pound? How about a goateed Jim Caviezel?:

For crusty, old Steinbeck, I think the obvious answer is Vincent Price:

And this last one speaks for itself. Who could possibly make a better Gertrude Stein than Joe Pesci?

Add your own here!