Monday, July 4, 2011

Midnight in Wherever*


A week or so ago my wife and I were in Cannes and one night we decided we'd forgo the bouillabaisse and rosé for a movie. This is an unusual thing to do in Cannes. I know this because there were only seven or eight people in the theater.

We just thought it would be cool to see Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, walk out of the theater with the afterglow of Paris and still be in France. I love that movies can do that. Perhaps it's not such a good idea with something by Wes Craven, but, from the good reviews of Woody Allen's movie, we thought this could make for a lovely evening.

And Minuit a Paris was really lovely. I thought Owen Wilson played a credible Woody Allen. I thought Marian Cotillard was enchanting and, good god, so beautiful. And I thought it was funny when Owen Wilson's character, Gil Pender, realized that he doesn't want to live literally in the past because, whether in the Renaissance, the Belle Epoque or the 1920's, there would be no Zithromax. I decided I needed to download some Sidney Bechet so I could conjure some of this mood at will, like when heading home on the commuter train from Manhattan.

Now, I wonder if the thought of going to the movies in Cannes had something to do with the ad festival. The festival encourages us to think globally, to think how something might play in other countries. Maybe while I was studying the shortlisted print and outdoor ads, strolling up and down the gallery of ads and being blown away by several of them, I was thinking about the potential effect of artful communication. I'd like to think so.

All I know is that great work takes people to places they want to go.


*The photograph above is from the beautiful book, Paris by Night, by Brassai. Brassai was from Hungary.