Janice's Thoughts on "Midnight in Paris"

Lucky you, Gina. I haven’t seen it yet, but looking forward to it. I have, thanks to Netflix, been thoroughly indulging in rewatching old favourites. It will be a summer project as I can never get to the end of the list before starting again. It was Woody Allen's Murder in Manhatten last weekend, which makes me want to watch Husbands and Wives again.

How interesting that Midnight in Paris should share its plot with our The Sidewalk Artist, though I do disagree without even seeing it that Owen Wilson’s character having an unsympathetic fiancé is a flaw in the movie. There is no one who isn’t too shallow/cruel/petty/boring/evil/dull/stupid/fill in the blank that some fool – even a fool who should know better – isn’t going to fall in love with them. Falling in love with someone totally inappropriate is the stuff that art and literature, whether Jane Austen or Woody Allen, especially Woody Allen, is made of. Watching Anthony Hopkins throw away his dignity in You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger was wonderfully and pathetically human.

And perhaps it's another way to compare Midnight in Paris with The Sidewalk Artist. Why was Tulia in love with Ethan? It was something that bothered some of our readers. Why would she fall for a guy her father described as “not having a drop of poetry in him.” And even when she wasn’t sure if she was, lives get tangled up together, and breaking away can be like extracting oneself from a crazy cult.

It is good to see Owen Wilson back where he belongs - in a good movie. Far too good of an actor to be wasted on Marmaduke sequels. I’m sure I’m not alone either in wishing he would go back to writing with Wes Anderson. What a great co-writing team they made! I would sell my soul to be half as good! And it is true that he was our model for Frank our American soldier in Ciao Bella (see the description on page 9). There is a little bit of Ned (Owen Wilson’s character in The Life Aquatic) in Frank too. Perhaps Owen Wilson is a little too old now (happens to the best of us) to play Frank, but maybe with a little of the time travel, which he seems to have perfected in Midnight in Paris, it could work.

Something else that Woody Allen shares with us and The Sidewalk Artist is his love for Venice, and when I was there last year, it was rumoured he had purchased the marvelous Palazzo Dario on the Grand Canal.

Let us know, Mr. Allen, if the rumours are true, and if you haven’t yet read The Sidewalk Artist, perhaps on my next visit to Venice, I could pop a copy of it over the garden wall for you and you could let us know what you think over a glass of Prosecco on the balcony. We’ll bring the Prosecco.

Review of Woody Allen's new movie, "Midnight in Paris"

I think Woody Allen has read The Sidewalk Artist. As I sat in the theatre the other night watching his new movie, Midnight in Paris, that was all I could keep thinking about.

It won't give too much away to say that this movie slips back and forth between present-day Paris and the Paris of the 1920s. Owen Wilson (a sort-of inspiration behind Frank Austen in our Ciao Bella, by the way, though he'd unfortunately be too old to play the part in the movie version) is the main character, a goofy and good-hearted Hollywood hack aspiring to be a great writer. In Paris with his dud of a fiance (the only flaw in the movie - why did he love her?), he is able to slip into the past and meet with Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Stein, Picasso, and more as he tries to figure out where he belongs and what he should do with his life.

I've watched enough Woody Allen movies to say that this was one of his most delightful. I loved it and recommend you see it too.

And then come back here and let us know if you agree that he must have read The Sidewalk Artist. 

After all, the movie - just like our book - begins and ends with the rain.

Update on our next novel, The Wolves of St. Peter’s

As we close in on the end of The Wolves of St. Peter's, we are surprised at our mixed feelings. Excitement at the possibilities of it being published, relief that the hard work is done, satisfaction of a job well done, but also sadness. The idea for this book came to us while we were still working on Ciao Bella, and so we have lived with these characters for a long time. Just as with our other books, these characters have become real to us. We have become attached to them. We celebrate when they celebrate and mourn when they do. We have never felt that we manipulated them on the page. Instead they have taken their own shape, become their own people, and behaved as they saw fit, often leaving us quite surprised as to where they take us, their supposed creators.

We almost expect to get up in the morning and find them waiting for us at the breakfast table, pot of coffee already brewed. Not that we would want all of the cast at said table. The Turk (perhaps the first fictional character to be inspired by Silvio Berlusconi, current prime minister of Italy)is sure to bring his badly behaved monkey and brag about bunga bunga with Calendula (no one is sure what that means, but we know we don't want to think too hard on it). Michelangelo chews with his mouth open, bread and spittle flying everywhere, and Pope Julius II would expect us to kiss his syphilitic feet, not a pleasant thought at any time, let alone before the first coffee of the day. But Francesco would be there with all manner of interesting news, Susanna would be sure to have found the best cakes in the market, and Raphael – oh,  how we've missed his smile since writing The Sidewalk Artist!

 

We like the idea that The Wolves of St. Peter's is the first book in a trilogy. We don't have to say goodbye to everyone  (though some of them we do) quite yet. They will move on and we with them. From Rome to Venice, a city we know and love well. Who new will we meet and how will their lives - and ours - be changed? 

 

So here is to endings and new beginnings.