{"id":2639037,"date":"2026-08-02T06:37:02","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T10:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/midnight-in-paris-reconsidered\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T06:45:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T10:45:18","slug":"midnight-in-paris-reconsidered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/midnight-in-paris-reconsidered\/","title":{"rendered":"Midnight in Paris, reconsidered"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">8<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmidnight-in-paris-reconsidered%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2639037&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The article reflects on Woody Allen\u2019s film *Midnight in Paris*, released in 2011, highlighting its nostalgic themes and cultural importance. It discusses the film&#8217;s premise of a writer, Gil Pender, who is transported back to 1920s Paris each night, mingling with famous artists like F. scott fitzgerald and Salvador Dali. The movie satirizes the idea of nostalgia,emphasizing that longing for the past is ultimately unproductive and an illusion. <\/p>\n<p>The author notes that ironically, the film\u2019s appeal lies partly in its own nostalgic charm, drawing viewers into the allure of bygone eras. Despite its message against dwelling on the past, many find a vicarious pleasure in the fictionalized interactions with ancient figures, making nostalgia a elaborate, irresistible force. <\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, the piece considers how Woody Allen\u2019s career and films, like *Midnight in Paris*, reflect broader cultural shifts and societal attitudes over time. It highlights that Allen\u2019s later work has faced more criticism and reduced recognition, especially in the United states. The author celebrates *Midnight in Paris* as a joyful, if somewhat superficial, summer film and emphasizes the importance of not taking its moral lessons too seriously, acknowledging the cultural and personal nostalgia that makes such films resonate. the article juxtaposes the film\u2019s nostalgic appeal with its deeper commentary on cultural memory, societal values, and the passage of time.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<article class=\"fn-body\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/in_focus\/3887350\/generation-z-life-better-than-you-think\/\">Nostalgia<\/a>, the old joke goes, ain\u2019t what it used to be. I thought of the line while revisiting <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/premium\/3820901\/woody-allen-new-book-whats-with-baum-review\/\">Woody Allen<\/a>\u2019s <em>Midnight in Paris<\/em>, released 15 years ago to a nationwide theatrical run throughout the summer of 2011, in a very different America. Watching it today is an exercise in paradox, because it\u2019s aged well precisely because its own thesis is wrong.<\/p>\n<section class=\"explore-more-section\" id=\"wex-recommended-widget\">\n<div class=\"magazine-container single\">\n<h1 class=\"magazine-title mt-2\">Recommended Stories<\/h1>\n<p>             <i class=\"fa-solid fa-play icon\"><\/i>         <\/div>\n<div class=\"explore-grid\">\n<div class=\"explore-card\">                         <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/entertainment\/4671954\/spain-new-california-everybody-speaks-spanish-bill-maher\/?itm_source=parsely-api\">                             <\/p>\n<div class=\"explore-thumb-wrap\">                                                                                                                                  <\/div>\n<h3>\u2018Spain is the new California \u2026 everybody speaks Spanish\u2019: Bill Maher<\/h3>\n<p>                         <\/a>                     <\/div>\n<div class=\"explore-card\">                         <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/entertainment\/4671916\/not-often-senator-gets-that-sendoff-bill-maher-lindsey-graham\/?itm_source=parsely-api\">                             <\/p>\n<div class=\"explore-thumb-wrap\">                                                                                                                                  <\/div>\n<h3>\u2018It is not often a senator gets that kind of a sendoff\u2019: Bill Maher on Lindsey Graham<\/h3>\n<p>                         <\/a>                     <\/div>\n<div class=\"explore-card\">                         <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/videos\/4670299\/shark-week-events-treats-washington-dc\/?itm_source=parsely-api\">                             <\/p>\n<div class=\"explore-thumb-wrap\">                                                                                                                                  <\/div>\n<h3>Get your Shark Week fix in DC<\/h3>\n<p>                         <\/a>                     <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Perhaps the last Allen movie that will ever be permitted to become a true hit, the film tells the story of successful <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/hollywood\/\">Hollywood<\/a> screenwriter Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) during a trip to <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/paris\/\">Paris<\/a> with his rich, vapid fiancee, Inez (Rachel McAdams). Gil has pretensions to become a highbrow, literary-minded writer with his in-progress novel about a man working in a nostalgia shop. (Wilson does a great job splitting the difference between inhabiting his own winning, \u201cwow\u201d-ing mannerisms and those of <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/magazine-features\/1800078\/woody-allen-and-living-art\/\">Allen himself<\/a>.) At night, Gil takes walks alone through the City of Light, letting his thoughts turn to the greats who once stalked the same streets. The magic starts when he finds that as the bells of Notre Dame strike 12 each night, he is whisked away to the salons and parties of the artistic set of 1920s Paris that he so romanticizes. There, or then, he learns lessons about the pointlessness of wishing to have lived in an earlier time he imagines to have been a golden age, as well as about whether he is really in love with the right woman.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wex-inarticle-ad wex-inarticle-ad-art-dsk-inart-1\">\n<div class=\"wex-ad-wrap wex-ad-art-dsk-inart-1\" style=\"min-height:90px\"><span class=\"wex-ad-label\" hidden>Advertisement<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-3182201-15\" data-wex-ad=\"art-dsk-inart-1\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s a charming, easygoing premise that allows Allen to cast 21st-century A-listers as equally beloved A-listers from the 20th century, including Tom Hiddleston as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Adrien Brody as Salvador Dali, and Kathy Bates as Gertrude Stein. Surely it\u2019s fun to make up a great character, but even more fun to whip up dialogue for some of modern history\u2019s most famous artistic personas. For instance, Allen writes an off-the-wall Dali interrupting himself to babble about rhinoceroses, or Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll) speaking like a Hemingway novel, full of self-consciously spare run-ons and musing about manhood and truth in between drunken challenges to boxing.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-paywall\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\">Marion Cotillard and Owen Wilson in Woody Allen\u2019s \u201cMidnight In Paris.\u201d (Rex Features)<\/p>\n<p>&#8221; data-large-file=&#8221;https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2026\/08\/localimages\/LA.Culture.080526.jpg?w=696&#8243; height=&#8221;658&#8243; width=&#8221;1024&#8243; &#8220;https:><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Marion Cotillard and Owen Wilson in Woody Allen\u2019s \u201cMidnight In Paris.\u201d (Rex Features)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The movie\u2019s message, unsubtly wrought, is that nostalgia is a dead end. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/dailywire-drops-trailer-for-the-most-triggering-comedy-of-the-year-mocking-men-in-womens-sports\/\" title=\"DailyWire+ releases trailer for &#039;Year&#039;s Most Provocative Comedy&#039; satirizing men in women&#039;s sports\">film takes aim<\/a> at, as one character puts it, \u201cpeople who live in the past \u2014 people who think that their lives would be happier if they lived in an earlier time.\u201d Those who permit themselves to dwell in the belief that the past contains golden ages are necessarily permitting themselves a delusion. There is something pitiable about them. We must inhabit our own time, the movie tells us, without wasting so much energy imagining that we were cheated by being born too late. If the present is \u201ca little unsatisfying,\u201d Gil concludes, it\u2019s merely \u201cbecause life is a little unsatisfying.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is one of those ideas that is true in one sense and false in another. Certainly, there is a personality type that can become obsessed with past ages. And yet, it would be a little silly to imagine, like some cultural relativist, that all times are the equal of all others. From time to time, I have encountered the idea that the only <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/vance-defends-unfiltered-trump-as-gop-squirms-over-harris-attacks-washington-examiner\/\" title=\"Vance defends \u2018unfiltered... Trump as GOP squirms over Harris attacks - Washington Examiner\">reason people love<\/a> the movies and music from, say, the 1970s or the 1990s is that they were children in those years, and things hit differently when you\u2019re a child. But surely even those of us who were children at the time of the release of <em>The Phantom Menace<\/em> (1999) can agree that the original Star Wars movies were actually a better collection of work than the prequel trilogy, right?<\/p>\n<div class=\"wex-inarticle-ad wex-inarticle-ad-art-dsk-inart-2\">\n<div class=\"wex-ad-wrap wex-ad-art-dsk-inart-2\" style=\"min-height:90px\"><span class=\"wex-ad-label\" hidden>Advertisement<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-3182201-16\" data-wex-ad=\"art-dsk-inart-2\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\">Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, and Woody Allen on the set of \u201cMidnight in Paris.\u201d (Roger Arpajou \u00a9 2011 Mediapro, Versatil Cinema &#038; Gravier Productions\/Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics)<\/p>\n<p>&#8221; data-large-file=&#8221;https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2026\/08\/localimages\/LA.Culture2.080526.jpg?w=696&#8243; height=&#8221;658&#8243; width=&#8221;1024&#8243; &#8220;https:><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, and Woody Allen on the set of \u201cMidnight in Paris.\u201d (Roger Arpajou \u00a9 2011 Mediapro, Versatil Cinema &#038; Gravier Productions\/Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Another paradox of <em>Midnight in Paris<\/em> is that what made it so appealing in the first place is the very nostalgia it takes aim at. Much of the film is set among the famous <em>Moveable Feast<\/em> set, and no doubt audiences get as much of a kick from the feeling of hanging around with the likes of T.S. Eliot (David Lowe), Pablo Picasso (Marcial Di Fonzo Bo), and Cole Porter (Yves Heck) as does the film\u2019s main character. However delusional the pull of nostalgia may be, it still pulls. Yes, it is unproductive to wish to return to the past, as time\u2019s cruel arrow will fly in one direction whether we want it to or not. But it should nonetheless be admitted that some moments in the artistic, political, social, and civic culture of a society are simply better than others.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By 2023, <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/magazine-life-arts\/1233037\/what-woody-did\/\">Allen<\/a>\u2019s 50th feature film, <em>Coup de Chance<\/em>, was released almost exclusively in France, and was in French, so unwelcome was he in American pop culture and society. How\u2019s that for escaping to Paris? So rewatching <em>Midnight<\/em> with the perspective of 15 years, I can\u2019t help feeling the opposite of how Allen wants me to. This is now so clearly a movie from the Before Times that it made me nostalgic to watch it. I look back now at former <em>New York Times<\/em> film critic A.O. Scott warmly reviewing \u201cWoody Allen\u2019s charming new film\u201d in 2011 in the same way that I look at Egyptian hieroglyphics.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Indulging in my own bit of nostalgia, I remembered going to see it at the now-closed Lincoln Plaza Cinemas on the Upper West Side, where Allen movies always premiered, and which had appeared in several of them. It\u2019s right across the street from where <em>Annie Hall<\/em> (1977) ends. Or it was. <em>Midnight in Paris, <\/em>coming most of the way through the \u201cpostcards from Europe\u201d phase of Allen\u2019s filmography \u2014 that is, <em>Match Point<\/em> (2005), set in London, <em>Vicky Cristina Barcelona<\/em> (2008), <em>Midnight<\/em>, and the highly forgettable <em>To Rome With Love <\/em>(2012) \u2014 was the biggest box-office success for Allen, as it played all summer long in theaters. Allen won his last-ever Oscar for the film\u2019s screenplay. In 2026, an age whose cultural currents swirl evermore around political narratives, not cultural ones, it is not clear that the titan of cinema would be honored in the Oscars\u2019 In Memoriam reel if he were to die. (See, not unrelatedly: the career of Ronan Farrow.)<\/p>\n<div class=\"wex-inarticle-ad wex-inarticle-ad-art-dsk-inart-3\">\n<div class=\"wex-ad-wrap wex-ad-art-dsk-inart-3\" style=\"min-height:90px\"><span class=\"wex-ad-label\" hidden>Advertisement<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-3182201-17\" data-wex-ad=\"art-dsk-inart-3\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/magazine-life-arts\/179003\/woody-allen-is-making-the-best-of-it\/\">WOODY ALLEN IS MAKING THE BEST OF IT<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/magazine-life-arts\/2193033\/thinking-doubly-hard-about-george-orwell\/\">George Orwell<\/a> once praised \u201cgood bad books\u201d in an <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.orwellfoundation.com\/the-orwell-foundation\/orwell\/essays-and-other-works\/good-bad-books\/\">essay<\/a>, we should praise <em>Midnight<\/em> <em>in Paris<\/em> for being a great bad <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/movies\/\">movie<\/a>, and even a perfect summer <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/comedy\/\">comedy<\/a>. But we should remember not to take its moral too seriously, or we will be left confused about whether we only think 2011 is culturally superior to 2026 due to some misbegotten <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/opinion\/2990276\/right-sort-of-nostalgia-makes-democracy-work-better\/\">nostalgia<\/a>. After all, if you want to know about the health of a liberal society at a deep level, you should look at the following markers: how it treats its Jews, its accused criminals, and its comedians. Which makes the career of Woody Allen something of a yardstick for America\u2019s cultural coherence, if that is not too much to put on a guy who you can go on<a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/youtube\/\"> YouTube<\/a> and see boxing a kangaroo.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hey, don\u2019t judge the guy. It was a simpler time.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wex-inarticle-ad wex-inarticle-ad-art-dsk-inart-4\">\n<div class=\"wex-ad-wrap wex-ad-art-dsk-inart-4\" style=\"min-height:90px\"><span class=\"wex-ad-label\" hidden>Advertisement<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-3182201-25\" data-wex-ad=\"art-dsk-inart-4\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Nicholas Clairmont is the editor of the international section of the<\/em> Free Press<em> and the former Life &#038; Arts editor of the <\/em>Washington Examiner<em> magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nostalgia\u2019s paradox: \u201cMidnight in Paris\u201d still charms today<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3651,"featured_media":2639038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/LA.Culture.080526.jpg?w=696","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651,538],"tags":[51115,5336,83570,5780],"class_list":["post-2639037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","category-washington-examiner","tag-cinema-2","tag-film","tag-midnight-2","tag-paris"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/LA.Culture.080526.jpg?w=696","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2639037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3651"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2639037"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2639037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2639041,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2639037\/revisions\/2639041"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2639038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2639037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2639037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2639037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}