Part 1: Midnight in Paris

Midnight is Paris follows Gil, a Hollywood screenwriter and aspiring novelist, who idolises the artistic expression which took place in Paris in the 1920’s. The film grapples with both a longing for times past and a coming to terms with the present. Whilst the films story surrounds writing and the romance of Paris, it is directly analogous to the struggle the film industry faces in coming to terms with the decline in celluloid. There is an outcry of nostalgia for the way films used to be made whilst at the same time an embracing of digital cinema and all of the possibilities it provides (Gilbert 2012, 5). Even in the production of Midnight in Paris Allen uses, for the first time in any of his films, a Digital Intermediary process for digitising his film (Goldman, 2010). This highlights that even as the industry laments the changes taking place it has not slowed in its use of new technologies. Even in films such as Midnight in Paris, where there is very little use of special effects or CGI, the most obvious and visible form digital alteration, digital processes are being used in order produce the film. The digital tools are completely replacing, rather than augmenting, traditional film technologies.