After watching Midnight
in Paris, I’m a little too listless to sleep. The film offers a lot of eye
candy: shots of Paris, of course, Versailles, and Giverny. I absolutely adored
the endless cameos by the likes of Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Toulouse-Lautrec, and
Dalí. And I must say, Kathy Bates makes a wonderful Gertrude Stein.
All of that brought back my yearning to see more of the
world. Not just Paris, but...everything. All places, all times. I suppose
that’s what drew me to studying the history of art, and not art itself. I often
wish I could have lived in a different time; in fact, my mother did say I was
born 25 years too late. I even remember discussing it with an old friend who
was horrified that I’d like to have lived in Victorian London. Historical
geekdom aside, it’s Paris that has me unwilling to sleep right now.
In the film, Gil finds himself in his Golden Age: Paris in
the Twenties. Yet, the woman he meets, Adrianna, has a Golden Age of her own: La Belle Epoque of the late nineteenth century. And Degas
and company? They yearn for the Renaissance. The present, to Gil and famous
artists alike, is dull and dreary compared to the past.
I just might be in a predicament similar to Gil, though in
terms of place instead of time.
The grass is always greener, they say, in someone else’s
field. I definitely believe that. My recent trip to New York, not to mention
living in New York, is evidence of my desire and willingness to be anywhere but
Ohio. Yet I found myself a little tired of New York as well. If things were
different for me right now...oh, if only...I’d probably be on to the next
wondrous place. Paris? London? And I’d have to ask myself: to visit or to stay?
Is there some fatal romantic flaw, like the Golden Age
syndrome, that keeps one dissatisfied not with their present time, but with
their present place? If no one else has named it yet, I shall call it Greener
Pasture syndrome. Perhaps it is GP syndrome that makes me feel like a stranger
in my hometown. And in my college town. And in my graduate school town. Will I
never feel at home?
Whatever you call them, both “flaws” seem to be part of the
larger battle for self-acceptance, which I hear is a good thing to strive for.
That, and slapping Michael Sheen’s pedantic character upside the head.
