MovieChat Forums > Midnight in Paris (2011) Discussion > What's your Golden Age?

What's your Golden Age?

posted 13 years ago by rfresa
118 replies | jump to latest

I thought this movie made some very interesting points about nostalgia, and how every era had an earlier era they considered the "golden age".

When I was a teenager I was fascinated by the middle ages, and played out elaborate scenarios in my head about how I would get by if I was suddenly transported back in time to Europe in the 11th century or so. I love the old dresses, the castles, and the stories. I really felt like the present was boring and I had been born in the wrong time. I'm sure some of it was just feeling like I didn't fit in, like any teenager, and thinking I'd rather do needlework and pottery (some of my hobbies) than go to school and feel like an outsider.

I am still very interested in this period and like to imagine living in it, but I think part of growing up has been realizing and appreciating how good the present really is. Like Gil pointed out, we have antibiotics now! I can vote, have a good job, car, and apartment, and do so much that I wouldn't have been able to do even 100 years ago, let alone 1000! I've also met someone like Inez, a complete realist who can't comprehend that need to escape from the present. We didn't get along, but trying to understand her opened my eyes a lot. People had just as many problems then, only theirs came with smallpox, oppression, and ignorance.

Are you a realist or a nostalgiac? What time period/place would you visit if you had the chance?

[–] siobanphotogirl 13 years ago

Yes, the movie makes a good point about us not appreciating the time we're living in. I appreciate the technology of no longer having to carry a discman and my 20 favorite CDs with me on my travels to listen to my favorite tunes. That's probably the biggest technological advance I have seen in my lifetime! I also love being able to pause and rewind live television, but I miss out on that feature when listening to the radio or watching a film the the theater and some noise happens that makes me miss something!

I have often wished I could time travel to different periods. Who hasn't? How often have you watched a movie or documentary about the Holocaust and wished you could have been around then and been one of the enlightened ones who was able to avoid Hitler's brainwashing and tried to help the Jews? ...or during the civil rights era and been one of the people who saw that African Americans as equals?... I love the 50s and have lamented often about not having a Johnny Rockets restaurant near me anymore. If I won the lottery I'd seriously look into starting one. Western Canada hasn't had one since the one in Edmonton closed in 2003 (?). I miss it so much. I often think I should have been born in the 40s so that I could have enjoyed the 50s, but true enough, I appreciate the freedom women have in the 21st century. We can work anywhere. We can marry for love. Marrying for money is greatly criticized now. Imagine if you were living in Jane Austen's time. People had to marry for money to save the family from poverty. Imagine having to marry a Mr. Collins to ensure that your family wouldn't end up in a poor house! Ick!
I would love to experience but probably not actually live full-time in the Victorian era. How much of your day would have been sucked up by household chores?! Washing the clothes? Plunge and scrub, plunge and scrub!..Cooking.. bleh! and the small-minded townfolk! If you think people gossip now, think about how much women gossiped about everyone in the 1900s! Everybody knew *everybody's* business. The general store was buzzing. There was no radio to keep them entertained! Gossip was the entertainment!

I'm also glad I don't *have to* wear a corset, but... my posture could benefit from it! I wish people still dressed modestly like they did in the 50s. Boys wore their pants with the belt above the a s s!

[–] LastStandingD 13 years ago

Sometime in the Axial Age (800-200 B.C) or maybe the first few decades A.D.

Knowing what I do now, it'd be very interesting to meet Confucius, Gautama Buddha, Plato, or Jesus.

If I wasn't sold into slavery or killed by disease/war/famine, naturally.

[–] Billy_McAvoy 13 years ago

That's a tough question for me because I was born in '64 and have fond memories of that era, but I also had grandparents who remembered the 30s and that seemed to be an intense era as well. As the movie gives the historical perspective of always looking back, it is easy to discount the present as being overly banal, and I find myself doing that. This movie is very interesting as Woody seems to be getting very introspective in a very worldly way as he grows older. This script is basically self-stolen from one of his old stand-up routines, but is fleshed out to be a very poignant social and historical (as well as hysterical) comentary.

http://www.slashfilm.com/listen-50year-standup-routine-origin-woody-al lens-oscarwinning-midnight-paris-script/

...Guess What S1m0ne! We have now entered an age where we can manufacture fraud faster than our ability to detect it

[–] siobanphotogirl 13 years ago

Woody Allen was a stand-up comedian?!?!!

[–] Billy_McAvoy 13 years ago

Oh yes, he got his start in comedy by writing one-liners for a New York newspaper when he was a schoolboy. I first remember Woody Allen when he was doing "Hot Dog" a Saturday morning kids show on television in the 70s (when I was a kid), and his movies and TV appearances (like on the tonight show subbing for Johnny Carson) have long been a part of my entertainment life. When I was doing quite a bit of improv acting I studied Allen's scripts and movies, and read many of his biographies. I highly recommend Woody Allen: A Biography by Eric Lax; Unruly Life of Woody Allen: A Biography by Marion Meade; Woody Allen: A Biography by John Baxter; and Woody Allen on Woody Allen by Woody Allen.

...Guess What S1m0ne! We have now entered an age where we can manufacture fraud faster than our ability to detect it

[–] princessfaz 13 years ago

"I won't disagree with the haves and have nots, but they didn't always have mortgages or recessions or high unemployment or foreclosures."

Really? How did people own property then? There have always been bills/money troubles/fear of no food, etc.

Its hard to pick a time period but I may have to choose the 20's Paris like Gil. Or maybe Eduardian England, but then only if I could be rich. :)

[–] StarskyandChinaHutch 13 years ago

The sixties. And what with all the drugs, I'd be dead before the decline of music/society, a.k.a. the late 90s. Be perfect.

Who busts the Crimebusters?

[–] LTUM 13 years ago

TWO COMMENTS

one, i don't think you have to limit it to just one. there are lots of eras i ponder regularly. (the 20s being one of em)

two, i think what your golden age is won't be fixed, but is okay to change over time. like as a kid i think i fantacised a lot about the old west. now, not so much. then in college as a painting major i was very taken by the impressionist period in paris, say 1865-1885... i also studied the italian high renaissance a lot.

then there are lots of places in time form the 20th century i would like to revisit; some of them i saw for real.

but eh, all of this is fantasy stuff. it would totally backfire if i went back and didn't get the job i want.

drugs...changed...everything..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8MGBn3KawM&feature=related

[–] outsdrfilm 13 years ago

Well, I have to be able to have two choices here. First would be to work as a WPA photographer in the 1930's alongside Walker Evans, Margaret Bourke-White, etc. Roaming the country with my camera and documenting architecture, art and life during one of the most challenging times in U.S. history.

My second choice would be NYC in the 1950's, working as a writer/producer in live television. Very "My Favorite Year" if you have ever had the chance to see that wonderful film. I am always fascinated by images of Manhattan during this era, the cars, clothes, restaurants. Maybe get to work on the set with Hitchcock on "Rear Window" or "North by Northwest." That sounds like a lot of fun.

But I have to say that I have been lucky enough to live through some very interesting times. I have distinct memories of lying in bed when I was eight years old, listening to my transistor radio when a local
Chicago radio station played a Beatles song for the first time. Or watching them on television in early 1964 with my father scowling in the background! Going to concerts in the early 70's and seeing bands such as Sabbath, Deep Purple, The Stones and Captain Beyond (check them out if you don't know them!) Every era has interesting elements, but that time in my life was a lot of fun.

[–] LTUM 13 years ago

those sound great! the wpa thing, and the 50s.... could work for me as well. i find that at different times i fixate on new or different things.

like, the impressionist fixation was me in the late 80s and early 90s.... but not now.

so whatever answer i give, it's apt to change. not a static thing, you know.

oh, and i TOTALLY vibe about the 70s. i remember it clearly; jaws mania, then seeing star wars at the theater five times with my friends. (mom dropped us off)

asteroids, and ms pac man lol .....and the music of that time beats any other IMHO

drugs...changed...everything..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8MGBn3KawM&feature=related

[–] reezie46 13 years ago

1920's Paris hanging out with Hemingway and the boys or the 1960's hanging out with Janice, Jim, Dylan ect.

[–] DanaShelbyChancey 13 years ago

I am pretty dull!

I grew up in Philadelphia, East, from when I was born in 1955 til 1966 when I had to move to Jersey.

I would like to live again during that time period, in the 1960's, my whole life.

I would love not to have computers, cellphones, etc.

[–] clue_me_in11 13 years ago

Mine would be the 1920s in New York, or the 1960s in England. I mostly love the clothes and just the overall feel.

To the Lost.

[–] calanteeker59 13 years ago

I'm with Gil, Paris in the 20s, but only if I could meet mavericks like Picasso, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Stein, Baker, etc. and hang out at the Shakespeare & Company bookstore. That was such a special time for people seeking artistic freedom and getting inspiration from the beauty and culture of post WWI Paris (and it didn't hurt that at that time it was dirt cheap to live there). Another era and place that would be exciting to live would be Greenwich Village during the late 40s-50s (like the movie "Rear Window" where James Stewart's neighbors were all artists, dancers and composers). I heard it was actually cheaper to see a Broadway play than to go to the movies and many working (and non-working) actors would actually attend two plays and would spend the wee hours at delis like Lindys eating cheesecake and could still afford a subway ticket home. Both places and eras sounded like the perfect place and time to absorb the artistic atmosphere and culture (even though we all know that we would miss the modern conveniences of today, modern medicine, technology, etc.) It's still a great pipe dream though!

[–] thousandflowers 13 years ago

Paris in the time of the French revolution. With my ultra-left-wing point of view and love of ideas and enlightened conversation, I'd fit right in.