Paris is calling my name. Right now. Even before I finished the first sentence I was searching the web for a wallpaper image of a Parisian street in gloaming—before the thought of a scowling Steven Pressfield, chain-smoking with his arms crossed, sent me back to the task at hand. Paris is calling my name because of the cinematic love letter to the city I recent watched. It began as a video montage—each shot showed the storied city in perfect balance, both a modern, bustling metropolis and the ancient, romantic seat of art and revolution history celebrates it for. It goes on for several minutes under a bed of lovely Parisian music. Immediately, it calls to mind the opening of Woody Allen’s “Manhattan”, a gritty homage to America’s Paris. And perhaps that’s what Allen was wanting me to recall.
Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” is the most I’ve enjoyed a movie in a long time. I wont spoil it for you, but here’s the gist as any preview would disclose: an American screenwriter (Owen Wilson) visits Paris with his fiancé and her parents, typical self-absorbed tourists with more money than self-awareness. Wilson is an in-demand screenwriting talent, particularly gifted at churning out forgettable Hollywood sap that makes millions. As he wanders Paris searching for inspiration for a novel he hopes will change the course of his career, he dreams of Paris in the 1920′s, a golden era when Fitzgerald and Hemingway, Stein and Picasso passed their days and nights in, what he believes, their creative prime. Life would be better then, he thinks, and suddenly, as the clock strikes midnight, he is transformed back in time and comes face to face with his artistic heroes—not to mention a few of mine. You’ll have to see the movie to find out where it goes from there, but a few days later, it’s still working me over.
Isn’t that such a natural reaction to our surroundings, the belief that somewhere or sometime else is a better environment for our dreams, desires, or whatever than the present? When I’m faced with the insecurity of my creative worth, I’ll catch my consciousness drifting to a coffee shop with soft light and rich aromas and suddenly believe that whatever I could write there would be better than what I’m writing here and now. Or maybe I’ll find myself in Chet LeSourd’s freshman English, rethinking that pitiful short story about the kid who accidentally runs someone over with his car. Or maybe it’s a hill overlooking the Presidio in San Francisco—it’s 1959, I have on a three-piece suit and Hitchcock is filming…okay, back to reality. But reality is a scary place to be when you’re trying to express yourself.
Imagination is an elusive beast in adulthood, at least the sort of imagination I’m looking for. It is no mystery that I love books and my favorite books are fiction. Presently, I am introducing myself to Graham Greene and his apparent masterpiece, “The Power and the Glory”. Thirty pages in and I am amazed, as I often am by any great storyteller, by his courage and conviction of plot—his protagonist is a whisky drinking Mexican priest on the lam from a godless lieutenant and his militia, hellbent on removing all traces of religion from the state. Updike penned the introduction so I know it’s good, not to mention Greene’s reputation, and as I read, I find myself questioning, as I often do with great writing, if I would have the courage to develop an idea or such a seemingly simple character into something so much larger than itself. It requires equal parts imagination, courage, and persistence.
Now I will go out on a limb and tell you that I am writing fiction; two short stories, to be specific. I wont tell you what they are about, but I’m terrified of them. I cannot find the commitment to my characters needed to make them come alive, and the plots, basically, don’t exist beyond their present state of completion. All I have are some ideas, some feelings I want to express. But where are the words? The plot?
Scrolling down the IMDB.com listing for Woody Allen, I am simply shocked by the number of movies the man has written and directed—movies I’m very familiar with that I didn’t even know were his. My first thought is one of dismay: how can the man have enough imaginative presence and energy to produce so much work? My second thought is awe: how can he have so many ideas he deems worthy of public consumption? Are there any that don’t see the light of day? Where does he find the time? Is he miserable from all the scrutiny or is it catharsis? My mind is reeling, and suddenly Woody Allen is transformed from the bumbling, conflicted little man I’ve always imagined to a creative titan. I am dumbstruck.
Imagination is often viewed as a child’s device, but the older I get, the more valuable it seems to become. Oh, to travel through time and slap my 10-year-old videogame-playing self—what I would give now to have the kind of imagination I buried then. But I can’t. Suddenly I feel this imperative to reconnect with my so-called “inner child”. I want to wrap my idiosyncrasies and musings into figures of my imagination. I want to communicate vital truth through a world of my own creation. Just like so many of my heroes.
Ideas come and go all day long, but most are dismissed. I am beginning to wonder if I can afford to dismiss them, but I also do not want to transform them into idle charms on some creative noose; follow through is imperative. “Midnight in Paris” has inspired me to tell a story I might not consider worthy of telling at its inception. But even more valuable, it has reminded me that there is no other time to actually tell it than now. Right here. Right now. Oh dear. What a great movie.
[...] so many good feelings in me that I still can’t stop gushing over it, nearly 8 months later. I wrote about it at length when it came out so instead I’ll just say, watch it, then watch it [...]